Keep the rubber side down

When I arrived in Africa in May 2005, I decided to bring my mountain bike. In fact it was a fairly nice piece of equipment and I thought it would be a nice way to explore during what I thought would be 2-3 years on the continent.

But during my first week in Dar es Salaam, I received a sobering message about what riding here can entail. We heard that one of our guards had taken a machete to the head as someone stole his rather old, Chinese, single-speed bike. We went to visit him in the hospital and, thankfully, he was conscious and we were told that he was going to be okay.

As I left the hospital, my head was spinning, not only about what had happened to him, but the kind of environment I was now in. I had just moved to Tanzania and I was still adjusting to my new reality. I was already getting used to expats sitting around talking about the latest crime that happened to them or someone they knew. This poor guy was riding a relatively cheap bike and got smacked. I could only imagine what someone would do to get mine. I ended up using it sparingly in Dar until I moved to Kibondo (rural NW Tanzania) where I would use it more. I had one or two interesting moments there but overall it was a much nicer place to ride.

riding near one of the refugee camps where we worked

* * *

In early November I had a bit of a bike accident while sailing past the snarled Monday morning Nairobi traffic. It was nothing sinister but rather a simple clipping of a pedal on a cement divider. My mountain bike flipped and I took a nosedive onto the bike path. It happened rather fast and didn’t involve any pedestrians, motorcycles or cars. Just my own, somewhat uncoordinated, self.

I was wearing a helmet but that did nothing to protect my front paws. As I got to my feet, I knew right away that I had at least broken my right wrist (technically the end of the radius in my forearm) and probably my left thumb as well. My flash self-diagnosis ended up being correct, far from being my first fractures of this kind.

For better or worse, I made the decision to soldier on to the office and call Priya from there. With hands shaking a bit from the freshness of the accident, I gritted my teeth and eventually was able to get my chain back on. As I was doing so, a beggar with bad timing decided to try to hit me up for some change. I don’t know if he saw the accident or noticed my scuffed-up clothing, but it probably wouldn’t have stopped him from taking his chances on a temporarily immobile foreigner. I raised my head briefly from looking down at my chain and greasy fingers and gave him a look I’m not proud of. But it did nonetheless quickly deliver a message that he needed to move on.

Thankfully the bike was mostly unscathed (given that it had conveniently landed on me). I mounted and trudged up the hill, albeit a bit wobbly. It soon dawned on me that hands are quite useful when riding a bike. Not only do they assist in supporting your torso, it’s how you change gears and access your brakes. I momentarily questioned the wisdom of my decision to carry on but after a few minutes, it appeared that I was going to make it the full mile and a half or so to our office building. Once at my desk, I called Priya. She dropped what she was doing and would proceed to spend the next five+ hours with me navigating the emergency/accidents process at the hospital.

Thankfully I haven’t spent much time in the healthcare system here. I hope it stays that way. This particular trip was a mix of surprising efficiencies and surprising inefficiencies. But the entire process took way more time than was necessary, and it even could have been longer had we not pushed a bit. Priya facilitated some things for them and I opted out of getting measured for a sling. Otherwise it would have been even longer.

One thing that was interesting was that the x-ray of my right forearm/hand revealed evidence of half-dozen or so previous breaks from years’ past, including a bone chip floating among the carpal bones in my wrist. My left x-ray was more modest with only three or four previous breaks. Not good memories.

a more sedate ride with family in Nairobi

As we got in our Uber, I stared at my forearm cast and thumb splint with my mind racing, thinking about how the day’s events would impact the next couple of months. I was in considerable pain but I was distracted by my thoughts. My trip to Somalia the following week would necessarily be canceled. Without the use of either thumb and the fingers on my right hand, no opening containers, no buttons, zippers, shoe laces, typing, driving, writing, etc. etc. until further notice. Ugh. Except for walking, I was hard-pressed to think of things that I would still be able to do.

I find the expression “all thumbs” a bit puzzling. I’ve never used it but I’m familiar with the fact that it means “clumsy” or “awkward”. Try having no thumbs. Now we’re talking clumsy. It’s amazing how critical those things are. Once again, I am reminded of the challenges faced by the disabled. Mine, thankfully, are just for a few weeks.