Wednesday, January 14, 2009

The African Cyclist

This is just awesome to read about.

Papa G sent me this article on an African cycling project. You should read it. It is very interesting, I found it inspiring, it made me hopeful to see in the future and curious as to why this hasn't happened sooner.

You can also check out more about their journey on their blog The African Cyclist.

Some of you know that I do some volunteer work with Bicycles for Humanity. This wonderful organization ships bicycles to Namibia for kids to get to school on, nurses & doctors to make visits and enabling families to survive. On our last 'bike drive' we set aside a half a dozen or so better quality bikes for a developing race team to use. How cool is that!?

4 comments:

MCF said...

That is super duper mega cool....and cool that you are a part of it! :)

Anonymous said...

Kenya produces some of the world's best athletes. One of the reasons why they attribute this - is because school kids have to climb climb climb to school.
I've seen the same in Costa Rica. Kids are out every where. They climb from the bottom of the hills to the tops of the hills.
Vehicles are a luxury.

I can't recall the name of the web site (something like sports not war) that promotes sports for kids.

What I would like to see more of is -
http://www.tourdafrique.com/tourdafrique

I've talked to one fella that did this. See some amazing stuff. Some good some bad.
You are best to experience a country by biking through it. Get a real taste for it - culture, people, etc...

Would be nice to see more races across what I call "over developed raped nations". What we term 3rd world...
with races such as - www.adventurerace.com
the founder sticks a percentage back into growing local athletes and funds them so that they can attend other national races.

With sports comes some good. I hope. With sports should come more attentativeness to ones surroundings, esp the beast - mother nature.
She dictates where we go.
No mater what humans create, she will ensure she survives.
Sometimes we are so far removed from it. The economy does that. Our societies have a tendency to do that.
Heck, we have removed that from a couple of cultures (such as the natives - their culture use to praise nature.)

We should learn from some of the mistakes made around the planet.
According to many studies, we all evolved from Africa. Hence, it is one of the oldest inhabitated places on the planet.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_(book) )

to not look back at history is to really be blind to it all.
Africa provides great insight into some of the mistakes made.
We shall not turn a blind eye to Africa. For the hardship there will sooner or later be faced by many nations over time. Unless we learn from mistakes made.

One of the challenges for Canada (if not for the world) should be to remedy some of those mistakes - corruption, famine, over population, etc...

learn from the mistakes made and shall we not do them again.
(too much overall pain for humanity).

Anonymous said...

Great post and great comment. I lived in Mozambique when I was a child and I loved it. Although I was european(Portuguese)and that made some diference.
It must be great to be part of the suport to contribute to the wellbeing, sports and fun of these children with. "Bicycles for Humanity"

Anonymous said...

Hi Craig

I finally posted the CBC TV piece on youtube! Check it out here.. you're a part of making all this happen!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QF6hBIimVg

Cheers
Seb