Teresie Hommersand grew up near Stavanger, a city known as the oil capital of Norway. She remembers eating supper every evening off plates with the logo of the national oil and gas company on them. Somehow she became the "green sheep" of the family. She has lived in Uganda, Oregon, and Australia. She currently resides in South Africa. Learn more about her 13,700 km ride going from South Africa to Norway and her charity crowdfunding campaign on her Facebook page and Instagram.
(This is her third journal entry for us)
(This is her third journal entry for us)
Powering
through Zambia is rough. It's one hill after the other. Extremely hot.
Often windy and always blowing from the front. I was doing 100km each day on my
Soma Saga weighing in about 45kg with all my gear. Although physically
challenging, it was the kids that got to me...
Typically,
I would be coming up a hill, super tired and out of breath. Then the
Mzungu (white person) alarm would go off. A kid would spot me and start
screaming this word, "my favourite", over and over again from the top of
his or her lungs - letting everyone in the whole village know who had
just arrived. Kids would then come running from all sides, some sounding
like they were having a fit when they saw me, joining the --by this point-- horde of kids screaming on repeat: 'HOW ARE YOU? HOW ARE YOU? HOW ARE YOU? HOW
ARE YOU? HOW ARE YOU? HOW ARE YOU? HOW ARE YOU?' It doesn't matter if
you say "Hi", wave or ignore them. They keep going, each one wanting your
attention. Runnning after you, sometimes holding on to your bike. While
this is all happening, you also have to mind the traffic. Trucks
weighing tons shoot past you, expecting you to get off the road,
threatening to flatten you if you do not. Under these circumstances, I found it
very difficult to take my hand off the handlebar and wave and give
someone a heartfelt smile. I felt like an object. An amusement. A circus
animal. For the first time since I started cycling, I felt lonely.
"again have I been reminded of the importance of connecting with people in order to be happy"
Notes from a not so tired cyclist:
When
you are as exhausted as above, everything looks different. In the
moment, you don't have enough energy to remind yourself that this
attention is not coming from a bad place. They are kids. They are curious.
They see you as something positive. Funny how you end up cursing them
and even wanting to shout 'shut the fuck up!'. Sometimes I did.
Silently. I've heard of other cyclists' various methods for how to deal
with this. My favourite is perhaps one guy that pretended to be
retarded. I laughed until I cried when he demonstrated it for me,
visualizing how the kids got a fright and ran in all possible directions
to get away. It might not be politically correct, but if you are
desperate...?
I
don't want to give Zambia a bad rep. I am positive that if you take the
time to get to know the people and not just power through, you will
have amazing experiences! For me Zambia is one of two countries in
Africa that I am choosing not to spend much time in, in an attempt to
find the right balance between enjoying what is along the way and making
decent distance on the saddle. I learned quite a lot about myself from
this whole experience, and again have I been reminded of the importance
of connecting with people in order to be happy. This time, it was
learned the hard way;-)
