Well, I met someone here. We were introduced about a week or
two after my arrival in Swakop and I’ve been seeing her since. My co-worker’s
fiancé introduced us. He had come across her and thought that we’d really
click. For a while he was right. He dropped her off at my house one day in
October. I spent most of my first few hours with her not talking much. She
really isn’t one for words. It was the little non-verbal cues – the posture,
the eye contact, the presence. She was captivating.
I liked her because she’s complex. When we started talking
about her past it was clear to me that she had her fair share of bad turns.
She’d seen a lifetimes worth of pain and suffering, mistreatment and abuse. But
she still stood strong. Held together by a thread, maybe, but standing
nonetheless. For a while, it was perfect. Until she began to let me down. I
don’t want to say she began to quit on me, because I don’t think that’s fair. I
just think I expected too much of her. I should’ve been more pragmatic. More
understanding. But I felt abandoned. Mostly, I felt stuck. If it wasn’t her
wheels, it was her chain. If it wasn’t her chain, it was her handlebars. Let me
explain.
I feel it’s time that I introduce you all to her. Here is a
picture of my new (but otherwise old) bike.
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The white-almost-brown-rusted
frame looks brand new compared to the crusty chain that looks like it was
excavated from a sunken ship just last week. But as long as it works, I don’t
mind too much. Not until I get on to ride the bike at which point my butt
pierces with pain at each pedal against the hard shell plastic seat. My Peace
Corps issued helmet has a softer exterior than the unbreakable,
soft-as-a-baby-boulder, arguably a torture technique of a seat that I ride on.
And to tease me, the bike has an 6 gear-shifter that has no wire attached to
it. It just sits there on the handle bars and taunts me with what I could have
had if I got to this bike before Y2K. And that’s the toughest part about it.
I’ll be riding and I’ll think of what a bike she must have been in her glory
years. Back when she had two functioning brakes instead of half of one. It’s so
sad to see a legend out of his or her prime. Silly thing still thinks she is a great
one.
She crapped out on me about two weeks ago. Technically I can
go and get her fixed, but I can’t manage to swallow the frustration and, for
the fifth time, go to get another part of her fixed.
A week after buying her, the back tire popped. I went to a
bike repair place in town. As I was riding away the front tire blew out. Went
back to the same place and got that fixed. A couple weeks later, rushing to a
meeting I was late for, the screw connecting the handlebars to the bike came
off. I was holding the handlebars with my left hand and steering from the base
of the handlebar area with my right. Quite the task. Went and got that fixed
too. A couple days later the chain came off the cogs. My sitemate Justin,
having his fair share of bike experience, fixed that up for me. For a while
things were going well – until the back tire popped again. I swore this would
be the last thing I would fix. I went, bought a brand new tire track and got
the tire tube replaced. Surely this would solve the problem for good. And it
did. That problem anyways. As I was riding it home, the chain came off again.
All I have to do is ask Justin to take another look at it, but I can’t. I hope
you understand why. At a certain point you have to say, “Technology has failed
me and broken my heart”. I know I can always rely on my own two legs. Plus, it
gives me more time to Podcast. But every morning, as I lace up my shoes and get
ready to walk out the door, I look at her with longing eyes. I do miss her. She
just wants to be out on the open road. And I want to bring her there. I just
need some space, I guess. Some time to think about her and me. Sometime to
think about what it means to be a bike owner.
