The Beginnings

OUR STORY

Quality, not quantity

We have made quality our habit. It’s not something that we just strive for – we live by this principle every day.

When I first decided to join the Peace Corps, there was something in my mind that I was going to find a life-long partner during my service. I don't know what made me think that, but I had this yearning to create this ever-lasting love... somehow, I already knew of (one) of the fourth Peace Corps goals. Little did I know that I was going to have two of these lifelong partners at the end of my service. I don't know what attracted me the most to Jack, it could have been his beard, his smile, or that ravishing deep chuckle that he makes as he slightly leans backward in his chair. Paul, had a similar appeal, but one from good 'ol New York, his wit and humor was one of a kind and something I had never experienced before.

In my mind, creating these kinds of bonds are a rarity. You almost have to be willing to move across the ocean, with no idea if you will have phone service, admitting to yourself that you may only have your own mind to keep yourself sane. I was lucky enough to live biking distance to two of the most compassionate people I have ever met.

There were always rumors about Boy City. Where did the legendary name come from? Did they ever actually leave each other's side? How were they so damn good looking? What was that special ingredient in Jack's barbecue skewers? Did we ever reveal our secrets? No, but they were correct that to a certain degree we were inseparable. If I needed someone to join me biking around 30km with 40-60L of fingerlings across the most ass bike path known to man, I called Jack. When I needed someone to defend our Thanksgiving Turkey's iwe and fuseke, that was Paul. We didn't get along because we were identical people, we were bonded because we complemented each other in the ways that we needed in Peace Corps.

Those memories were endless, but it all culminated to the bike trip through Dundumwezi. Kafue National Park was always something that was in reach, just nearly a 100km down from our boma, Kalomo on a dirt road that had just been upgraded by the government. Paul never knew how bad that road was, lucky bastard. Your life in Peace Corps can be summed up in moments on a teeter totter that can drift to catastrophic, like pooping straight blood for two days straight, or lucky, where you find out that your turkey that you thought was dead by heat stroke decided to come back to life in a miraculous event of turkey Jesus. Right before Boy City went on its legendary ride, the entirety of PC Zambia Southern Province had just celebrated a fantastic and wild Thanksgiving feast where almost every single person got food poisoning. My theory, Jack and I had drank enough of our fish farmer's water where our gut biome was only pure scar tissue that either killed everything or produced green toxic waste that splattered our chim. Paul was getting to that point.

Day one started with two flat tires on my bike. Not one, but two, right as we packed up to get our butts out the door. Luckily ba Laz and ba Obren had my last bike that I had trashed, so we got to get that as a quick hot fix.

After convincing a taxi driver to bring the bike and belongings to Kalomo (with an extra fee). We had the pleasure of having to try to pack up all these belongings in front of RV Furniture. Not sure what all the locals thought of these three mzungus, but the piles of stuff strapped to the baskets on the worst aluminum bike racks imaginable was probably the most Zambian I ever got during my service. A late start to a day that was going to wind us down the Dundumwezi road with Paul's stomach about to unleash hell onto us all.

The trek started off easily enough, passing by a couple of schools and trying to guess which bush path would actually get to Jack's house or Siamusie. And then we got to the junction between Belili and Nameto, my usual stop if we took the canter, where all the kids would run out with bushels of vegetables, fritters, or other items to sell to you, usually at night after suffering through three hours of a sore butt and a drunk guy yelling at random people. We decided this would be a great place to get some food, grabbing some eggs and then some fritters. The poor fritter girl that tried to sell us fritters at a price that we thought was absolutely ridiculous, because we knew the price of fritters. Only to find out that these fritters were about two times the size of your normal ones, putting enough oil and carbs into our stomachs that would grease our intestinal linings for the next week straight.

And with that, we were off, only part of the way into the journey of Kafue bike trip. Biking into the unknown, but knowing that we had each other's backs.

To be continued...