The Hole Truth

Getting myself back on the road for another ironman journey has been extremely satisfying, partly as it gives me the excuse not just to ride my bike a lot more, but also to work on it and talk about it. Recently I have had to do a bit of work on my wheels, which take quite a pounding on the dirty potholed roads of Tanzania. A bike wheel is truly an amazing piece of engineering and physics, and the more I have got to know about wheels by building and working on them , the more beautiful I find them. For example: If you sit on a wheel rim, without spokes in it, you’ll break it- that’s how weak and flexible they are. Likewise any adult would be strong enough to fold a spoke in half if they wanted. And the more you pay for spokes and rims (often) the weaker they are on their own. But when built properly into a wheel, the constant, even, and sometimes enormous tension which is being applied in 24-ish places around the hoop prevents it from buckling or breaking, even under incredible load. It will stay straight and true, holding a rubber tube which is pulling sideways and outwards at 120psi or sometimes more, even when a 75kg man rattles down a bumpy hill on it at speeds approaching 100kph. Achieving this breathtaking durability, while keeping your wheel round enough to use, is supposedly the hardest thing in bike mechanics. But I disagree, it seems to me that it just takes a bit of patience and practise.

This is not the official way to learn, but it worked for me.

Find a really old wheel. Try tightening and loosening a spoke or two and see how it affects the shape. You’ll need to fit the wheel in a wheel jig or just spin it between the brake blocks of a fork in order to see the wobble in it. Try to adjust a few spokes to make it straighter.

Take a spoke out, have a coffee, and then refit it. You will need to thread it correctly between the other remaining spokes (memorise how it went or just copy another one). The re-tighten it to make the wheel straight again.

Once you can reliably straighten this wheel, even after removing and replacing 2 or 3 spokes, you could try to build a new one. I recommend starting with the fairly cheap bits to start with, say about 10 quid for the hub and the same for the rim.

Spoke length can be calculated if you’re a really good mathematician, if not you can use free online calculators, e.g. the one written by DTSwiss. If the result is between sizes, get the size below your results, i.e. shorter. Your biggest challenge, I find, is in buying spokes of the right length, which can take ages to order.

Once you have your bits, copy the spoke pattern of another wheel, in other words make your spokes cross each other in the same way as an example that you can look at. It will help if your eg wheel has about the same number of spokes as the one you’re building. Pay attention to which way the spokes go into/out of the hub, and then overlap each other. Tighten spokes a tiny bit at a time. Unless you are building radial wheels (and if you don’t know what that means, you’re probably not!) be sure to put some grease between spoke and nipple. Don’t build radial rear wheels – although you can build radial just on the non-drive side which looks cool. Don’t build radial wheels if you have disk brakes. But don’t imagine I am against radial wheels, they are definitely good on the front of road bikes.

As the spokes become tight, pay more and more attention to how straight and true the wheel is. (What’s the difference? A wheel can be wrong in two dimensions, side to side or up and down). Do not rush the final adjustments, take time and remember this is an art not a science. I find it works best with a bottle of Fuller’s ESB and a good CD. You are trying to get within a mm of play in any direction but you will not achieve perfection. If you believe you have got a perfectly straight and perfectly true wheel, then you need glasses.

Finally, after a ride or two, go through the fine-tuning again. The bump and grind of a few tens of km will shake a few things loose and expose any weaknesses. Address this and re-straighten now to avoid breaking a spoke or long term deformation of the rim.

It's health and safety gone mad!

A rotten picture taken through the open window of a minibus, but I had to capture this beautiful example of resourcefulness?

I have been talking to people recently about how restricted and occasionally overprotective society seems to be in Britain. The most obvious example for me being laws against walking on a railway track. I mean seriously, a train weighs about 58 tonnes and makes more than a little noise, I think I have a good chance of noticing it before it reaches me. And then there are situations which remind me why a certain amount of health and safety rules are valuable.

Let me just talk you through what's going on here, because the details are important: the sign advertising this very acceptable watering hole in Moshi had fallen down in strong winds overnight. This enterprising crew is welding it back into place. First of all, notice the home-made power supply, involving a board of wood, to which somebody has attached four large capacitors (correct me if I'm wrong here, sparkys) which appear to have been salvaged from an electricity pylon. Of course the sign needs to be held still while it is welded into place, hence the two blokes standing on the roof of a single cab Nissan hardbody, balancing it on their heads. The scruffy old ladder seems to be fairly stable, although if I was standing that close to the top of it, I might want something holding the bottom in place.

He has no mask, which almost goes without saying, but there is one extra frisson of excitement which you cannot see, as my exposure time is too short to show the sparks: The long metal tube to the left of the ladder as we look at it, is live! Consequently the welder himself, has periodically to stand atop the ladder on 1 foot, and use his other leg to kick this pole away from the aluminium structure supporting him.

If you can think of any way that this procedure could have been made any more dangerous, then answers on a postcard please. I haven't thought of much, except perhaps the introduction of a hungry lion to proceedings.

Incidentally, while sitting in the minibus I also had my first encounter of the whole two years so far, with "aggressive begging". A young man asked me for money, to which I replied (with complete honesty, as happens) that I did not have any spare cash with me, having given out all of my small denominations to 2 disabled beggars already. He then started telling me, in broken English, that begging was better than stealing, that he knew where I lived (which was a little far-fetched, given his surprise a few seconds earlier to learn I came from Dar es Salaam) and that if I did not give him money he would attack me. I stood up and stepped out of the minibus, as I felt I should inform the local shopkeepers that this kind of company may not be conducive to passing shoppers, and upon seeing me to be a clear 30 cm taller than him, he took off like a tiny Usain Bolt. In a way the comedy situation would have reached a perfect conclusion if only he had run headlong into the ladder, or at least the pickup. But the welding crew were minding their own business, so I am mainly glad that they survived unhurt.

Bottling It

This might be a good time for another blog about bikes. It's been a while eh?

In particular I thought I would entertain everybody with a little information about bottle cages. "Bottle cages?" I hear you cry, and perhaps detect a smirk in your voice as you continue; "could there be a more boring and unremarkable part of a bicycle?" If I heard you correctly, then I'm afraid you have fallen for my little trap, because these humble loops of alloy or occasionally carbon can cause more consternation and intrigue than their humble role would suggest.

For example, the UCI, a probably necessary but nonetheless much maligned organisation responsible for setting and enforcing the rules of competitive cycling, sets a minimum weight which every bike in its races must meet.*

This is a rule which is never going to bother most of us mere amateurs, since any bike which can realistically come close to this threshold is going to set you back at least five or six grand. For the pros, however, the investments made by their racing teams in the latest, lightest and stiffest frames may leave riders in charge of machines -- particularly when shod with fancy mountain climbing wheels -- liable to fall foul of this regulation. "Hold on," I sense you grumbling, "this doesn't seem to be about bottle cages at all." Patience, I am getting there. In these situations, manufacturers will run out a very small batch of heavyweight bottle cages, which can be bolted to the bike at the last minute if the team suspect they are too close to the weight limit. Most of us experience the opposite problem, and are aware that our bikes could go up the mountain passes a tiny bit more easily if only we could afford to reduce their weight, by swapping to some fancier components. Consequently riders such as myself, with a tendency towards geeky and a little more money than sense (I would stress that this is much more a result of dearth of sense than a surfeit of money, except perhaps for the few days of each month wedged between payday and mortgage) bottle cages represent a tempting area to shave a few grams. Having invested in a lovely titanium frame, it's even possible to justify to yourself that fitting an ordinary five quid drinks holder would be spoiling the ship for ha’peth of tar. Plus, mechanically speaking, one can indulge in the silliest and spindliest of designs, safe in the knowledge that it will not affect the bike’s stiffness or cornering ability, and the worst that can go wrong is that it snaps and you arrive at the next town, bottle less and thirsty.

The worst that can go wrong? Oh no it isn't.

Picture the scene, a man sits in his lounge, contented smile on his face and set of Allen keys in his right hand. He is in his mid-30s, ahem, but keeps in shape and would probably look younger if he could only be bothered to shave. His thoughts of late have returned, fondly, to the theme of Ironman triathlons, and with this in mind he is preparing his kit for an hour’s riding later that day. To save space in the saddle bag or shirt pockets he is attempting to fit a hand pump and bracket between down tube and bottle cage. A bottle cage which you should bear in mind, was a result of much deliberation, and weighs a mere 9.5 g thanks to its construction from only two rings of woven carbon fibre. Even the bolts which attach it are made of lightweight aluminium alloy, and are counter-sunk flush with the surrounding carbon. If you think this sounds so good that it is almost sexy, you may be correct.

The first bolt feels exceedingly stiff, which is odd as we can be confident it was greased before it went in. Pulse quickens, frown. Thankfully there is a loud squeak, and it begins to turn. But no, we celebrate too soon, there is another less pleasant noise, and the Allen key shears through the head of the bolt like a warm fork through Wensleydale. And there it sits neither in nor out, refusing to revolve in either direction and with £30 worth of neatly sculpted carbon rattling from its midriff.

What to do now? Pliers will not grip it, and no Allen or torx key is ever going to move it again. I could drill the head off the bolt, as I had to do to get the radiator out of the old Suzuki Baleno, but while this would free the bottle cage I would never be able to reattach it or indeed anything else to the frame. Eventually I realise I need to create a surface which something else can grip. My trusty leatherman (probably the finest multitool around) is pressed into service for the unusual job of filing down the bolt head into two parallel edges which I hope will give enough purchase for a small spanner. It starts to look as though it might work, despite having nothing to align my work except the naked eye and elbow grease -- an elbow which I am grateful to believe is recovering from the misery of RSI. Unfortunately, by the time I offer up a spanner, I find I have missed my chance with a 9 mm and must continue to work until it fits an 8. Thirty minutes of careful fiddling later the spanner fits, and I am able to turn the little swine again. I think I achieved three or four full revolutions before the spanner slipped, damaging one surface so that it would no longer grip. Curses. Forty minutes of even more careful filing later and a 7 mm wrench is sitting in place very snugly. This is good, but I'm aware that I won't have many more chances, as my smallest spanner is a six, and besides there will be no metal left to reshape anyway.

Thankfully this time the tool fits perfectly, and it is not too difficult to unwind the bolt carefully, albeit with nervous, bated breath. I haven't yet had the guts to loosen or remove the second bottle cage; I may let that sleeping dog lie for the moment. But a replacement now goes to the top of my Christmas list, and I will be checking the exact make and model for the quality of its fixtures and fittings, even if that means that the weight of the unit gets pushed into double figures.

*I guess I would be more correct to say mass, rather than weight. Mass is an absolute, whereas weight is a product of the way mass is affected by gravity. As such, the same bike will have the same mass but a fractionally different weight at the top, compared with the bottom of a major climb, such as Col du Galibier. However, since no portable scale would be sensitive enough to detect the difference, I hope you will forgive my colloquial use of the word weight. Thanks

Running up that hill

... is in Kate Bush's back catalogue, a metaphor for the worries and difficulties of life. Personally I have never found any better escape from the humdrum of life’s dull cares than running (or perhaps cycling) up and down some hills, and when the hill concerned is Africa's highest peak, then so much the better.

In a double stroke of good luck, both of us were sent by our respective projects to observe and present at a Tanzanian collaborators meeting in Moshi last week. We made the most of the opportunity and headed out of Dar on the Friday night, in order to get a weekend in and around the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro, before the meeting started. What a great place! A repeated frustration of our life/lives here is that in Dar es Salaam, we have a few interesting restaurants and are more able to go about our business without attracting so much attention as outsiders. But the traffic, the dust and the crowds can be horrible, and make exercise a real chore. On the other hand Mtwara has so much more space, is closer to the countryside, but lacks any real choice of venues for evenings out. Moshi manages to combine the positives of both these places, and is also 2 to 3° cooler, by virtue of being at around 1000 m altitude. The views are beautiful, and the whole town feels a little better developed and maintained than almost anywhere I have seen in Tanzania.

Part of the reason for Moshi's relative wealth is the coffee industry. This in itself is reason to celebrate, when very few places will sell you any coffee except the ubiquitous Africafe -- a murky brown powder which makes Nescafe seem full flavoured. I still can't help raise an eyebrow when I see local Tanzanians making up theirs with an average of three sugars, but perhaps it is the only way to make it taste of anything. Thanks in part to a tipoff from my sort of colleague (on maternity leave) but definitely friend, we were able to book a full day's walk into the mountain on the edge of the national park, which included a visit to the small-scale local coffee plantation.

It was a fantastic day out, run by a company called Akaro Tours (they have a website but we haven't made it work yet). We started off walking up and down the hills through small subsistence farms, growing tomatoes, bananas, potatoes, peas and lovely dark red coffee beans. You read articles (if you're interested in this sort of thing) about coffee being a crop which requires an enormous amount of water, which is not the best in terms of sustainability. But what I can understand now is that it is also a shade loving plant, consequently encouraging farmers not to fell all the tall trees on their land, which presumably has benefits in terms of preventing soil erosion, as well as balancing the greenhouse effect.

Anyway, following a good lunch we got the chance to participate in most of the coffee making process, including peeling the raw beans by pounding them in a huge pestle and mortar, sorting the beans from the skins by tossing up and down in a small basket while standing in a crosswind, then roasting the beans before returning them to be smashed up with the same wooden machinery. The powdered coffee is then made up with boiled water, which itself can be gathered from naturally occurring springs past which we had walked. Maybe it was the atmosphere, the views, or just the knowledge that we had done it ourselves, but I’ve never had a better cup of hot black coffee.

The walk included a couple of other surprises, including a rather pretty chameleon, and the chance to throw oneself into the cold plunge pool of a 70 m high waterfall -- a truly refreshing experience to both mind and body. And a real treat for me was seen very near the pool: I have given up asking guides if we might get the chance to see some snakes, even though some of them understand my interest. Even when they assure me that there are numerous cobras/mambas/whatever else in the area, I hardly ever get lucky. But this time (although I now find out it is very unusual) we were fortunate to see a decent sized serpent rustling through the low grass on the right of our path. It was a medium-sized green job, which is about as helpful to herpetologists as little brown jobs are to Bird lovers. Who knows? It could have been the spectacularly venomous but also passive boomslang, or the somewhat less tolerant green mamba. Personally I think it looked too broad for either of these tree loving snakes, but I don't have any sensible bid about what it may have been instead. Still, with or without a name it was lovely to watch him throwing efficient curls along the bank next to us, moving almost silently along the contours of a hill, while doing what snakes do best -- getting out of the bloody way.

Our final treat, if that's the right word for it, was to stop at a local bar (i.e. unfurnished wooden shack) and sample something which I think was called mbege. This generally gets translated as banana beer, a naturally fermented product made of pulped bananas, water and millet seeds. The only yeast involved is that which is found naturally on the skins of the fruit, and it is served in a large plastic jug, without ever having passed through a filter or indeed a bottle. It is an odd sensation to consume it, not entirely unpleasant, and considerably more enjoyable than a similar brew which we sampled in Ethiopia, but it is definitely not about to become “my usual". It has a texture like loose porridge, with the remnants of the yeast forming an unattractive head. The taste would not be recognised by many people as beer, although most would guess that bananas were involved. If it doesn't sound pretty, then it isn't. Refreshed (?) by this brief stop, we marched a little quicker downhill, in order to catch the local minibus back to town. And at the bus stop, lo and behold, another revelation, some enterprising local businessman has taken it on himself to bring mbege into the 21st century. The bottled version is substantially stronger thanks to the addition of sugar, has been filtered to remove the pulpy lumps, and uses extra yeast. This seems to do a little better in out- competing the bacterial fermentation so the final product (called Kibo) while still a little sour, no longer makes your mouth feel like someone is forcing your jaws out sideways with the jack from a Toyota land cruiser. I felt a little bit like a brave beer journalist, sampling something new and unknown, charting new territory, filling in the blanks on a brewers’ map of the world. Honestly, it was genuinely pretty good, and reminded me a little of Belgian geuze, which one might enjoy in the “Mort Subite” in Brussels, or those of you with very good memories might recall sampling at our wedding. This discovery, called “Kibo”, does not make my top 10, but it does provide me with an excuse, however tenuous, to list those brews which do:

Hence, partly for fun and at risk of making me even more thirsty, my ten favourite beers of the world, maybe in order. You may ignore or discuss.

1. 1. Fuller’s ESB (England). Malty, biscuity, hints of hay. A mouthful of ESB is more satisfying and complete than a whole pint of Stella (or a barrel of Miller). Best enjoyed, in my experience, slowly and quietly in the Melton Mowbray, High Holborn. I’m pretty sure that if every young man in GB switched to this, we’d have an end to lager-loutism.

2. 2. Zlaty Bazant (Slovakia). I feel bad having pilsner but not a Czech one, given that they invented it, but even though this is Sk’s most mainstream brew I still think it’s the perfect hot weather drink. It’s sad when people assume that lager tastes of A-B Budweiser, which is simply wrong (and by some definitions not even beer). This is how a lager can be as full and grown-up as any other type of drink.

3. 3. Timothy Taylor’s Landlord (England). Madonna’s favourite, allegedly. Almost as rounded and full as ESB above, but a little less malt and more hops, allowing one to enjoy a little more of it.

4. 4. Zubr (Poland). Strong lager in GB has traditionally meant Tennent’s Super but it can be sophisticated. Zubr is refined and complex and probably my favourite lager in the world ever. And if I’m translating it right, a portion of the profits go to conservation. It is also the ideal thing with which to wash down spicy Sri Lankan curry; a happy discovery of Britain’s various waves of immigration that might otherwise have gone forever unknown?

5. 5. Rogue Imperial Stout (USA). Oh in the name of Thunder. Pull up a chair, put on your most comfortable sweater and maybe play some classical music, because a bottle of RIS (at only 330ml but about 11.0% ABV) is going to take you a while. To rush through this in less than 25mins would be wasteful and actually difficult. Your mouth reels from it, confused but intrigued, and somehow relaxed. Hard to describe the flavour except to say enormous.

a. Honourable mention to Zywiec Porter (Poland). Very similar to the above but maybe a smidgeon less complex. It has a fore-taste that for some reason (and even though I have never eaten any) always makes me think of kelp.

6. 6. Cantillon Organic Gueze (Belgium). Frankly bizarre, an acquired taste and not one for the kids. Having said that, I’ve acquired it. Surprising, sour, with stale cardboard-like hops. Made in strictly old fashioned and organic conditions. For example, the brewery clears itself of pesky flies using... spiders; you’ve got to respect that. The fermentation is spontaneous using ambient airborne microbes. But don’t be scared, take a breath and then a sip. I’m not saying you’d want to sink four of them on a Friday night, but I am saying that until you’ve had a couple you can’t really say you know beer.

7. 7. Schneiderweisse (Bavaria). I had to include a weissbeer and this one is probably my top choice, but if the wind changes I could easily say Franziskaner. If you aren’t sitting with a weissbeer you’re not really in Bavaria. (Oddly there is also a brilliant weissbeer from the Ukraine, name of which I forget and probably couldn’t type on this keyboard anyway). Fresh and fruity and tart, great. Mein dunkel, mein dunkel...

8. 8. Black Isle Yellowhammer (Scotland). Somehow Scottish ales seem distinct from English, lighter malt without losing body? The grassy grapefruity hops in this are so clean tasting. The fact that a fully-organic beer can taste this good makes me yearn to live in the countryside growing or foraging all my own produce. Tastewise, Schiehallion brewed by Harviestoun, is roughly as good, but Black Isle makes me happier.

9. 9. Cooper’s Sparkling Ale (Australia). It would be easy to believe that all Aussie beer is terrible, since 99% of what we taste of it is Fosters or XXXX. In truth Fosters is the p*sh that they happily export to anyone fool enough to buy it, while back home they get to enjoy gems like Cooper’s. Fruity but not sweet, light but not lite. It ought to come in bigger bottles.

10. 10. Hmm. How to finish? Maybe Innes and Gunne’s Oak Casked beer (Scotland again). Vanilla and toffee on top of beer. Quite a new innovation and almost in a style of its own. Never lasts long.

Train in vain

There are always interferences and annoyances that make stuff difficult. They make training for an event difficult. And for me at least the ability (or lack thereof) to get fit enough for another big race is a factor of the balance between these difficulties, and the opportunities, or even rewards, that present themselves at other times. It’s like a court case in my head. Currently these difficulties – or the case for the prosecution - include:

Being too busy at work

Being unable to replace any sporting equipment until I or a friend travel to “The Developed World”

Having rotten RSI in one wrist and the other elbow

My MTB front brake STILL not taking its responsibilities seriously enough

Too much time in Dar where running is unpleasant and cycling dangerous.

On the other hand, there are good things, the plusses that make training more pleasant or efficient. Regarding this case for the defence, I will present only one exhibit:

This grainy film comes from Bird Island, near Msimbati, Southern Tanzania. Most UK-based triathletes must swim while snotty schoolchildren scream, fight and wee all around them. I listen to herons and storks calling.

While most people touch the wall and turn around into the path of other swimmers, I go to the mangrove tree and turn right. I see nobody except the boatman who dropped me off and some large hermit crabs.

It may be too late for anything to make me a good swimmer (check the terrible recovery on the right hand side, throwing water sideways and pulling my head too high) but it’s relaxing. And if it's not too pretentious to say so, when I return to Tooting Bec Lido (or Piscine municipal de Strasbourg, or wherever else may be next) I will remember how lucky I am to have had the chance to experience places like this.

Ironman 2. The sequel.

Hard to believe it’s only a year ago (in fact, the exact anniversary just passed) that I was staggering down the esplanade in Nice finishing my first long distance triathlon. At various stages of the race (and at least once per discipline) I had said to myself that once was definitely enough. But, to begin a tenuous theme of dodgy film sequels, Never say Never Again. It took me less than 24 hours to realise that I wanted to race IM again, initially just because I was disappointed with my performance on the day. Now that a year has passed, and new things have happened in my life and in Tanzania, I realise how much I also miss the training and the motivation of having that goal in front of me.

Sitting in front of a DVD with a cold beer and a Cuban cigar of a weekend is pleasant enough, but I find myself pining for the discipline I succeeded in employing in training, and the huge satisfaction of feeling myself getting closer and closer to the required level of fitness.

So there has to be a sequel. The question is, what kind of sequel is it likely to be?

“Aliens”, not as original as the, err, original, but probably as exciting?

“Exorcist 2”, so howlingly awfully substandard compared with the predecessor that many pretend it never happened?

“Porno”, the long awaited follow up to Trainspotting which it seems will now never really happen?

Or maybe, hopefully “Bourne Supremacy”/”Empire Strikes Back”, genuinely as good and satisfying as the first.

We’ll wait and see.

Moving forward:

Having had time to look back at training and racing, I can identify several things I can do better than before. On the one hand I was really pleased with how training went, but I had a couple of problems on the day. So maybe I can prepare better to avoid those problems? And anyway, you can always improve in sport, otherwise why would Usain Bolt keep running when no one is going to beat his record for a decade? (Trust me, unless Bolt goes better I am sure no one else will.)

Swim: I need more long swims under my belt, particularly in open water. Another set of lessons would surely do no harm – I still have never even finished in the top 2/3 of swimmers in any triathlon, although if I had matched the average swim speed (and everything else remained constant) then I would actually have won at least 2 of those I have raced!

Bike: More time on a road bike is important (90% of my riding last time was MTB, necessarily because of the roads here in Tz). This might be possible depending on when work finishes in Africa. I should also fix or replace my sticky rear hub!

Run: Again more road training would be good. Better kit planning (run in the shoes I intend for the race, rather than a worn out, last-minute replacement!). Train a few more transitions, to get used to running off the bike, no matter how rough I feel.

I could probably also stand to lose an extra 1-2kg, Bradley Wiggins stylee, which might help in both running and hilly bike routes. Easy to say now, not so easy to do given that I weigh 80kg for the first time in my life, and last year my “fighting weight” was about 73kg...

Nutrition: Breakfast was OK, but the litre-of-seawater chaser was my nauseating downfall on race day. Think of it as my Achilles' stomach. My current solution to this (aside from the swim training above) is to race in fresh water next time! With this in mind I have been mostly looking at races in landlocked areas, such as S Germany and Switzerland. And then I saw:

http://www.zeleznak.cz/index.php

A small competition, not affiliated to official “Ironman” TM but exactly the same distances and vastly cheaper without the branding! Indeed, the organisers have cheekily named the race ironman in Czech. Lake swim, moderately hilly bike ride and a 3-lap run, all in some of the loveliest countryside in central Europe. And the chance to recover with klobasa, dumplings and great quality pilsner. How could I resist?

So, brace yourselves again for various dull training logs appearing here, or in the remote off-chance that anyone read it and was inspired; come and race me!

An old one that failed to load before

I don’t have enough time to blog, these days. I mean it may still be plenty for you, dear readers of my infantile thoughts, but personally I miss the diary that was building, before, about the time here. So today wanted to correct that. To talk of SUVs and storms and bribes and tail-chasing, and all the other things that characterise my leisure, and work time here. Tonight would have been a very suitable time, a Friday all alone and the last weekend before I move away for Xmas. I cooked up some poppadoms, loaded a plate with chutneys (I am soon to leave for Britain, and certain things need using, in case there is a major power cut that leaves the fridge out of action).

And we had yet another power cut. I know I have mentioned the power cuts before, and they are more frequent in the rainy season, which has begun most emphatically in the last couple or three weeks. So I am well used to this. I sat motionless, thinking clearly, calmly. I thought slowly, confident that I would remember where the torch was, and lo, after a minute or so I remembered there was a wind up lamp on the table. Walk slowly to my left. Score. Wind the torch, no bother.

I could see again. Tidy up anything perishable into the fridge then leave it shut, as usual. Rearrange the bedroom so I can feel my way in, even if the power stays down for hours. Turn off light switches so that even if the power comes back on in the wee hours, I don't need to run around the house extinguishing them. Fine. Well drilled and not a problem. Feel my way back to the sofa where, although the wind-up torch has now gone out I know I will find it, and rewind it. I found the sofa, I picked the middle cushion of it.

If the BBC sound archive needed an effect for “grown man wearing clean shorts sits on dinner plate of home made poppadoms and lime pickle”.....

Driving, rain

After 3 manic weeks, fieldworkers have been trained. My colleagues and I are exhausted and have been worked by the boss to the point of tears, sometimes literally. But at last time for a breather and a very quick, semi-literate entry on this here blog.

I have been in trouble at work for not being sufficiently “encouraging and supportive” to the students on our distance learning courses. Bunkum. I am encouraging to those who write good essays, and I am honest with the rest – some of whom, frankly, wrote some pitiful and occasionally amusing crap that would embarrass an A level student, never mind a practising GP. I tried to make it clear that no matter how much cash these suckers have paid to get London--- whoops, better keep this anonymous. No matter how much they pay, if they write shit I’ll tell them it’s shit, and believe me: some of what I marked this last month was grade A, horse-derived fertiliser.

On a brighter note, I made an epic journey in the Hilux from Mtwara to Dar, in a day, in the rainy season. This is a journey that many vehicles try and fail (I passed 17 stuck vehicles on the way that day) and only 10 years ago used to kill many people every year. Nelson the Hilux did a fine job, joining up in convoy with a couple of S Africans in Nissan HBs and we had quite an enjoyable Safari. Some nail biting river/puddle crossings, involving sludgy mud deeper than my bonnet, but no serious damage to man or machine. Even more unlikely, no real police issues – car was stopped 3 times and searched once but I departed without even having to bribe the guy. Result.

The roads are always pretty dodgy here and sometimes horribly pot-holed, even if they have been surfaced. Some enterprising young men will often fill in a few pot holes with sand and gravel, then stand by them with a spade, asking the now fractionally-less-delayed drivers to pay them for this act. Nothing wrong with that I guess, shows some initiative, although I have heard from my friend Sarah that the way they fill the holes often actually worsens them in the long run!

And as for work: most recently, we have trained our study staff, as I say. A nice bunch of folks who persist in calling me “Mister Marky!” (That’s Dr to you, and without the Y... Nah, I don’t really care). I tried to contribute to training as well as organising, and enjoyed the chance to remind a few of them of the recent Spurs vs Arsenal and Chelsea results.

Pilot study was very interesting. We went to a health facility in Chanika, just south of Dar. No running water. One toilet (a pit, no plumbing). One Dr (which is more than most) and a number of chickens wandering in and out of the buildings. But tidy, clean, well organised and staffed by hard working folks who actually seemed to care about health. This has actually been a recurring image of health care in Tz for me – chronically under-resourced and under-staffed, but the people there do convey a sense of effort and intelligence which you can’t help but respect. By the end of the day we had seen 17 patients, diagnosed 4 malaria cases and one severe anaemia, found at least 2 problems with our survey, and seen that number of errant chickens reduced by 1.

We had a few minor travel issues, but nothing like the Mtwara journey. One day our return to base was delayed by two fallen trees, which had succumbed to the extreme rain and wind and blocked the entire road. While 9/10 of the delayed drivers sat in their cars hoping for God or Allah to intervene, a small group of us put our backs into breaking up and pushing the trunks and branches away. If I say so myself, our rhythm of PUSH, count to 3, repeat, was a display of strength and coordination which would probably have earned us tryouts for the Tanzanian national rugby team’s tight five. If there was such a thing.... Needless to say, once a gap had been cleared, everyone else drove through without waiting or even waving to those of us who had solved the problem, but that is typical of the way the roads here work. What was even funnier was arriving at the same point the next day, to find a small group of men holding pangas (machetes) and demanding money for having cleared the road. Even if I knew the Swahili for “I sodding did it, you shysters!” I was laughing too hard to shout it.

And here is the statue at our lunch stop. I think it is supposed to be a giraffe. I remember reading, while on a holiday many years ago, about the horse statue outside the art history museum in Vienna. It is a horse, rearing onto hind legs. This is incredibly difficult to do, apparently (or was at the time) the sculptor gaining worldwide renown for achieving this position without the usual “cheats” that were common amongst his peers, such as a tail or spear touching the ground to help with distribution of the statue’s weight. The same guy (I should look up his name, but the internet is slow today!) tried again and again to repeat this feat of art and balance, and eventually it drove him to madness, so they say. So I couldn’t help noticing that this giraffe has achieved the same, by means of standing unfeasibly upright, a pose surely never seen except on the cover of an old copy of Black Beauty. I wonder if the sculptor knows what an exclusive club he has joined?

Life on the ocean wave

Working for a living has a number of downsides, not least of which is the amount of time it takes up when you could be doing something interesting instead. With this in mind we set out this weekend to make up for lost time, and take on what we are going to believe was the first ever crossing from Mtwara to Mikindani by inflatable kayak. I shall now recount the saga of this epic voyage, a journey which even Homer would have found inspirational, I am sure.

Firstly, about our craft. Suze was piloting the trusty Stearns Yukatat, while I rode a similar sized boat, the Sevylor Pointer. On paper, the Stearns has more features to support the long distance paddler, including smooth neoprene padding to avoid scuffed knuckles, a removable dagger board and more accessible pockets for your drinks and snacks. However, in practice the Sevylor is a far easier and quicker boat to set up. My ride was looking straight and seaworthy far sooner, plus it came with a matching spray-skirt which was to prove valuable over the next few hours. So, once both inflatables were looking literally shipshape, we took the Escudo back to our house and put to sea in mild surf, just deep enough to avoid damaging boats on the coral.

I would pretend that we sang a sea shanty as we paddled off together but in truth, paddling small inflatables through breakers it was basically every man for himself, trying to find a way beyond the surf to flatter water. Those of you with Google earth will notice the route is a long shore-side slog, followed by an estuary crossing, then a short cut over 1-2km of open water, then round the headland on your port side and into Mikindani bay. Which is all well and good on a map. In real life we quickly found that kayaking over distance is slow work. We were certainly travelling a shorter distance than if we were to drive or cycle to Mikindani, about 5km rather than 12km on the road, but we were covering that distance much slower as well. We managed to make life a little easier by heading into the waves and eventually past them to paddle in flatter water. But still, the watch showed we had been going an hour (more than enough to cycle the longer route on land) and we hadn’t travelled more than about 2km. We had timed our launch for about an hour before high tide, giving us good clearance over the jagged coral of the shore line and avoiding currents that would wash us backwards, so delaying longer after high tide would make our work even harder.

Arms became sore and sorer, and the splashing of waves or dripping of paddles gradually washed the factor 25 off our arms. Luckily it was a hazy, overcast day, avoiding some of the heat and sun exposure, but the gentle wind was against us so it wasn’t possible to stop paddling without losing ground. Now and then a bigger wave came through to us, including one which we saw very late but managed to steer into just enough to get soaked but stay upright. Across the open water the bay looked tiny and distant, but we hoped that entering it would make life much easier. It began to get closer and we began to believe that we would finish this maiden crossing, without bailing out on any sandy shore we could find. But, as they say in prison, short time is the hardest time, and the closer we got to the mouth of the bay, the slower we seemed to approach it. And now the wind became worse, pushing obliquely against us, not only slowing progress but shoving us towards low coral cliffs which would have put an end to our inflatable kayaks and put a lot of scratches on us. Clearly we should have fought further into the wind earlier, but that’s easier said than done. I decided to get it out of the way, if I could, and put my back into paddling hard for 5-10 minutes. My legs and stomach were sore from holding position, but by this stage my arms were hardly feeling it, almost numb. Eventually I reached the headland, and grabbed hold of a mangrove branch to sit and encourage Suze in catching up. She made it, looking pretty tired and sore, and I suggested we pull up on a visible stretch of sand to rest muscles and take on an energy gel for the final stretch. Even holding the boat in place, in wind and swell, was continuing to tire my arms and thorax. Fortunately her memory of the coastline was better than mine, and she suggested pulling on for another few minutes to a better beach, not yet visible. This we did and it was an ideal spot. We ran up onto soft sand and tumbled onto the beach, legs too stiff after 2 hours crammed motionless in the boat. Briefly it was a deserted paradise-island type beach of palms, mangroves and untrodden sand, then we were joined by a local fisherman in his dugout, who set about repairing a fish trap of woven reeds.

After plenty of water and some Powerbar energy sludge we boarded again and set off into the bay. Now it felt easy, the end was visible and arms had been able to recover a little. Locals floated past and waved at us. It was difficult to know, at distance, whether they were waving their home made paddles to encourage us, or to say “You think you’re tired? Try doing this every day with the lid of a paint pot nailed to a stick!” Fair point, I guess. It was about a km across the bay, but having turned the corner both waves and wind were roughly behind us. Steering was still hard work as the swell could push the stern of your kayak suddenly one way or the other, but we kept the distinctive white tower of the old German boma in sight and paddled mechanically onwards.

We planned to land together but fatigue meant we each had to do what we could. Suze was taking a break to rest arms every 100 strokes, but despite the pain I felt I had to go on; if I stopped I might never reclaim that momentum. So I hauled up first, surrounded by the classic sights of an Indian ocean shoreline – dugout canoes and mangroves, a black kite swooping for scraps and dead fish – as well as some less traditional decorations, e.g. the head gasket of a straight-six truck engine. Suze soon arrived, labouring along with nothing left in her arms, barely even gripping the paddle, but we had both made it. Two hours 45 isn’t a long duration to be at sea, but for novice paddlers it was more than enough.

Unfortunately before we could celebrate, we had to carry the 2 boats up off the beach, and then one of us catch the dala dala (see a previous post) to collect the car. So a slight delay to and stretch aching arms and back while local children stared and gabbered at the bizarre, colourful and not-wooden kayaks, before remembering to trot out their ubiquitous English phrases: “What is my name!” [sic, I believe they mean “what is your name”, but pronouns are always tricky] and “Give me money!”. Suze returned quite quickly with the wheels, and once we had deflated and rolled up the boats we were sure we’d done enough to justify coffee and a cooked brunch in 10 degrees restaurant.

http://www.tendegreessouth.com/aboutmik.htm