A Summary of the Past: Part 2

This picture is of a number of young chaps I met at my first bicycle distribution, in a town called Chongwe. The gent in the orange hood and his friend to the looker's left asked me for a loan. Though I did not deem them credit worthy, we quickly became good friends. 

To continue in the chronological fashion...

After passing customs, I was picked up by a hefty Zambian named "Mr. Ngoma". (Frequent readers of this blog of which literally two exist might recall that Ngoma accompanied to the lively World Cup Qualifier in Chilibombwe just a week later). We began to drive to the "office" the home of WBR. At this point I must concede that I was quite overwhelmed. The Ambien hangover, the drastic change in scenery and the uncertainty that surrounded my immediate future converged to produce a surreal effect that was quite strong. However, once we reached the office the feeling waned, as I was introduced to most of the establishments 12 or so employees and realized that I would fit in nicely. I spent the balance of the afternoon, after a little introductory discussion with FK about what exactly WBR does (because up to that point I was embarrassingly in the dark), with Emily. Emily works for WBR as a photographer and is a 25 year old Chicago resident. We set about the task of matching pictures of Zambian students with their short autobiographies. 

The day came and went, and Craig and I drove back to what I learned would be my house. Lusaka is composed of three quasi high rises that have broken windows and look like they have been airlifted from season 1 of the wire. The rest of the city is a sprawling maze of walls- every home, from the most modest on up, have walls. Most of those walls have broken bottles cemented on top in order to keep the ruffians out. For a gent from St. Paul, such circumstances are not the norm. Our house was no different, a walled compound with two yappy dogs guarding the premises. The house itself is quite nice and spacious with two bathrooms and three well sized bedrooms. But I digress. 

As we returned reached our destination, Craig informed me he would be my roommate until he returned to Chicago about a week later.  A wonderful man and self-professed "bike nerd", we hit it off right off the bat. However, I needed to go to sleep as my energy was waning in a big way and quickly slipped into a deep sleep at 6 p.m. up returning home.