i'm a believer

While my friends and fellow cyclists back home are sending me links to great, well maintained, informative and entertaining blogs on the underground life of cycling in Seattle (observe new link "sally forth!")...I am busy disregarding all common sense, caution, upkeep and well, everything I have ever been taught about cycling and general courtesy.

If you've been following along on the life and times of yours truly, you may recall a previous entry making mention of a cycling event. I was recruited to head a project involving students from a local highschool and English speaking tourists to encourage pedals over petrol, and give the kids a venue to gain confidence speaking English...allow me to say here, that I have never prayed so hard for an event, as I prayed this morning for the uneventful outcome of this one...

What I am attempting to poetically state, is: HOLY SHIT! I JUST PLAYED A PRIMARY ROLE IN LEADING 21 KIDS FROM A LAOS PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL, ON EVERYTHING FROM A BMX TO A BEACH CRUISER, AND EVERY SIZE, SHAPE AND COLOR OF BAD CHINESE SUSPENSION, ON A 24KM RIDE WITHOUT A SINGLE HELMET, IN THE MIDDLE OF TRAFFIC, W/ NEXT TO NO 1ST AID, ONLY MY ATTACHED HAND PUMP, MULTI-TOOL, AND TWO SPARE TUBES, TWO (LITERAL) BUNCHES OF BANANAS, 100 LITERS OF WATER IN A TRUCK AND A PAPER ROSTER (NOT ROOSTER) OF NAMES...on a tour of Vientiene...with out a single scratch.

I do not know how to explain the number of times, in the last few hours, I have secured and re-secured my place in cycling hell. If for no other reason than the fact that I was making deals w/ the devil: my soul in exchange for these kids safely home at the end of the day. I swore if I survived this event, I would blog and purge my guts of the last week and a half, since I've been holding back. I have so many stories, so much to say, so many thoughts. It's been overwhelming to try and sit down to tell all.

The last week has been a brutal combination of my rediculous, over-active head, intense heat, no exercise, great friends, bad teaching skills, amazing ideas and oportunities for the future and an inability to focus on anything other than what's in front of my face. I have taken to reading the classics and decided the truth of my existence is that I, like the rest of humankind, demand to know the reason why I am here. Virginia Woolf is an amazing writer and I can only handle a few pages at a time. Robinson Crusoe, is as big an idiot about the world as I am and he's 200 plus years old. Shogun is a really big book, and a great story. Sticky rice is an amazing product. Jesus was Lao. Chelsea (football) Stadium, had to ban celery because fans kept throwing it at the refs and the "other" team, when they scored...and it made international news. They make pink toilet paper here, and I love that. I still can't believe there wasn't a single scratch on one of those kids by the end of that ride. George Bush is a fucking idiot and I keep having to explain to people here that we don't all agree w/ him, we aren't actually like what you see on Jerry Springer, and just because I look rich here, doesn't mean I can actually afford to live in America. The Lao people could but Subway out of business in a matter of hours w/ the rockin' "sub sandwich" on real french (freedom) loaves. The French know how to make ice cream! And croissants! And incredible, fatty, rich food! If it can be made out of rice, these people have made it...50,000 times, 100,000 different colors and 1,000,000 different textures. I know how to read that many zeros effortlessly because I have been dealing in Laos, Kip and I have to be that rediculous w/ my over exageration because there are in fact, a rivaling number of products made from rice. I've tried eating half of them in the last 2 weeks. Beer Lao is a beautiful thing. People are dumb. People are amazing. It's likely I am bi-polar. I have an offer to return here in 4 mos and stay for a year. My head can't decide which of 500 possible commitments available to be made, it should freak out over first...so we take turns. I miss the mountains. I love the people. My new friends from the school and the students alike, make it easy to want to return...knowing I am missing out on my nieces back home, makes it hard to want to stay away for long.

I am still in shock from the cycling. Can't conjure a big enough, loud enough or rediculous enough victory dance for the success of such an insane event. I don't even know how we got the permission from the school, much less the kids parents, to let us take them out! I think the school (the one I've been working for) director, just signed a piece of paper saying he'd be responsible for their safety, and away we went. Top it off with the fact that 3 local cycling teams showed up to accompany us, which then brought their own traffic controllers (men on motor bikes w/ bull horns for the front and back of the pack) who appeared out of nowhere, and we had a bloody parade! It was amazing! One girl nearly fainted at 6km, where we made a break for bananas and water. 12km was free coffee, compliments of a local coffee producer and a tour of the coffee roasting process for the kids. Jacked up on sugar and caffiene, and now w/o the love of our cycling teams (they took the coffee and ran...not thinking much of our rockin' 12km/hr pace), we shoved 'em all out for a back-track to start. It was (everyone sing along w/ me here) FU-CKING BRILL-IANT!!!!!!!

So, that's a start. I am still tromping around in my dorky bike gear, so I'm going to go ditch that for now and take a victory swim in the 100+ degree weather we're sporting here in Laos. I have to go recover my sense of sanity and promise to emerge refreshed w/ extensive interviews and opinions. Love love.