Bikes are here!

3Matt • 14th Mar 2009 • Africa

We’ve finally received our container of bike parts!  We can now push forward in the assembly process and fulfill some orders that we have received already.

I spent the 12th watching Daryl build a bike and taking mental notes, and I spent the 13th building a bike by myself (with a little help) and taking physical notes.  It’s really not that hard, but the worst part is that the parts we need are all over the warehouse so we are currently working on a system to make sure that we don’t lose pieces and that the Zambian bike mechanics have the greatest chance of success in this endeavor as possible.  It’s kinda crazy trying to get the systems in place while we have an order of 20 bikes that is supposed to be done on the 16th (possibly the 18th)… balancing the theoretical with the real life is turning out to be a challenge, but we’ll get it.  We’ve also had a little bit of trouble with the bikes, certain holes not being drilled straight, and a few other issues, but we’ll see if this continues to be a big problem.

In other news, Daryl’s missions pastor from his church is staying with us right now and he’s the coolest guy.  He and I have so much in common it’s crazy… He almost became a professional bass player, he has a theology degree (and a Masters in Counseling, but I’ll get there eventually), is now doing business as missions (BAM, for all you acronym-lovers out there), he was a waiter in college at an italian restaurant, and he’s friends with John Eldredge and Phillip Yancey, just like me.  It’s been really nice to have some good theological talks with him and he totally ‘gets it’ in the way that I do, and in a way that most of the people I spend my time with here don’t quite.

I’m off to go have lunch… some of the dinner that we didn’t eat last night because we went over to our friends house again for a going away party/dinner.

PS- New pictures in the pictures section.  Awesome.

Zambian Nugget Of The Day: The best beer ’round these parts is Castle beer and it’s from South Africa.  The Zambian beer is called Mosi and Zambians have a lot of pride about it which I’m ok with because it tastes like PBR.  Long live the Hipass!