The tale of Geoff’s cursed keys...

On June 7^th, 2013 Geoff Delperdang and I climbed into a bush taxi bound for Kindia. We were promptly joined by Caleb upon our arrival and spent the afternoon waiting at the bank to receive large wads of Guinean francs. After eating some dinner and meeting some volunteers who had just finished their service in Morocco, we made our way to Michelle’s house where we had arranged to spend the night. It was a bit of a walk and when we were about halfway there, someone (probably me) commented on how it hadn’t rained all day. Within 2 minutes it was pouring. By the time we got to Michelle’s house we were completely soaked. We were also pretty tired so we changed our wet clothes and went to bed. The next morning we headed back into town for a day of food and internet. We spent a good portion of the afternoon sitting at a restaurant purchasing whatever the people who walked by happened to be selling. We joked about how we were being “patrons” but in reality I don’t think any of us spent over $3.00. After patron day, we ate some pizza for dinner. Then the group split and half of us went dancing with the Moroccan volunteers and the other half spent the night at Chico’s farm near Kindia where they would be attending various PC functions the following day. It was a wonderful weekend in Kindia and I was a bit sad on Sunday morning when I had to leave. I packed up my stuff which was still a bit damp and grabbed a few of Geoff’s items that he had left drying at Michelle’s place. Then I headed out to climb into a bush taxi bound for Telimele.

Geoff came back on Tuesday and because I had left my bike at his site 30km away, I hopped in the taxi with him when he passed by Gougoudje. I was planning on getting to his site, hopping on my bike, and riding back to Gogoudje the same evening. If we got delayed because of taxi breakdowns or some other such thing, I would just spend the night at Geoff’s and go back in the morning. Perfect plan. The only problem was, as soon as we got to Geoff’s, he realized that he had forgotten the key to his house in his shorts, which he had left drying at Michelle’s in Kindia, which I had brought back to Gougoudje but had now left sitting in my hut. Then it started pouring. We sat on his neighbor’s porch contemplating what to do. This is what we came up with:

1.       We spend the night with our site mate Dee

2.       I borrow Dee's bike in the morning (mine was locked in Geoff’s house) and ride to Gougoudje to retrieve the shorts

3.       I bike back to Telimele on Dee’s bike and hand the shorts and keys off to a moto-taxi who delivers them to Geoff

4.       Geoff opens his house, hops on my bike and rides to meet me in Telimele

5.       We then exchange bikes and I ride my bike back to Gougoudje and Geoff rides Dee’s bike back to his site

The next morning, I hopped on Dee’s bike and headed out. The plan was complex but seemed to be working alright. It was a little challenging riding Dee’s small bike but I still made it back to Gougoudje in less than 2 hours. I grabbed the goods, got back on, and rode to Telimele where I ran into one of Dee’s counterparts who agreed to deliver the keys to Dee who would in turn deliver them to Geoff. This is where things started to fall apart, after waiting for a couple hours in Telimele and trying to contact Geoff and Dee numerous times, I found out that Geoff was feeling sick (with potential malaria) and didn’t feel up to riding so Dee was going ride my bike to Telimele and then we would exchange bikes as planned. Ok. No problem right? Well, unfortunately I forgot to inform Dee that I don’t use some of the lower gears on my bike because I couldn’t get the derailleur screws set correctly and the derailleur shifts too far into the spokes if you try to use those gears. Lacking this critical knowledge, Dee attempted to use these gears and the derailleur shifted into the spokes and was pretty much snapped in half. I was certainly not able to repair it so we walked it back to Dee’s and I spent the night at Geoff’s place. The next morning I rode Geoff’s bike to Dee’s, then walked my bike to the taxi gare, tossed it on top of a taxi and headed for Telimele. After arriving in Telimele, I hopped on and rolled most of the way back to Gougoudje. Luckily it’s mostly downhill. When I finally got back to site (on Thursday afternoon), I noticed that my right foot was starting to swell up…