Heku Hantha (92) is Vincent's mother.

The national highway A104 is paved at Babati, 75 km sooner than our map indicates. We had nine flat tires in seven days of cycling on 538 km of terrible, no good, very bad, unpaved road. Politicians have promised it will be paved after the election in October, but don’t expect it to be finished for five years. Julie and I each took a spill on soft sand and have a bruise to show for it. My chain has been jamming while climbing in low gear and I wanted to wait until we were back on pavement before replacing it with the chain I’ve been carrying since Blantyre, Malawi. I replaced it here, but with eight links short (108 vs 116) due to poor quality. The end link bent when I pushed the rivet into it with my chain tool. I could have made the chain just two links shorter; but then I noticed that half a link was missing eight links from the end, so I removed eight. I hope I have no more problems with this Mikango brand chain (made in India).

Vincent Gullo Loya with his mother & sister, our hosts in Bukulu.

Betty, Vincent, Julie & Faraja in the living/dining room.

Departing Bukulu

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 15th, 2010 at 07:09 and is filed under David's Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.