Guinea - The Lions on the Road: Cycling London to Cape Town - page 125

We visited several projects including graded roads, bridges that facilitated villagers
ontheirwaytothemarket,wells,schools,toilets,andgrainstorageschemes.Manyofthese
projects helped communities help themselves. We spent some time in the local school and
visited all the classrooms. The director explained that the children started school at the age
of7andattendedinthemorning(8:00-12:00)andtheafternoon(3-5:30.)Eachstudenthad
one notebook and a pen. The notebooks were expensive (500GF) and fora family with six
children, school was an expensive proposition. The director also explained his uphill battle
with parents convincing them the value of sending their children to school. The parents
reallyquestionedthevalueofeducationsincetheirchildren,havingattendedschoolornot,
wouldmostlikelyendupworkinginthefieldsanyway.Theparentsarguedthattheymight
as well have used the money for more practical items like seeds. What a dilemma! As the
proverb suggests, if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day but if you teach them
howtofish,youwillfeedthemforalifetime.Sadly,inmanypartsoftheworld,thereisno
place to fish. It all seems so cruel. You can give them an education but then what? Unless
there are jobs available to utilize their education, many would argue that it is a waste of
effort. This is a systemic issue that needs to be addressed. Food for thought, I guess.
ErikandImanagedtogetontheroadthenextmorning.Beforeweleft,wethanked
Abbé Victor and then paid a visit to Fritz to say thank-you and good-bye. We made our
way along the best roads in the country thus far. Because of the lack of traffic, we cycled
side-by-side singing. I sang the bass and Erik sang the melody. What a laugh! I stopped on
occasion to take some photos along the way and also to let my growing abdominal pain
subside.Erikwasgettingrestlesswithmymuchslowerpaceanddecidedtopushonahead.
I stopped for lunch 26 kilometres from Macenta where Erik had been waiting for
me for one and a half hours. Everything I ate seemed to burn as it went down (perhaps due
to all the hot peppers I ate the night before.) When we arrived in Macenta, I bought some
Cokes hoping that the cool liquid would help. It didn't. I tried to ignore my discomfort
and just smiled at our audience of around 50 children. After returning the empty bottles,
we started to cycle. I had a couple of mental diversions to keep me from dwelling on my