I never made it to Kaituma last week. About 8 miles out, I got a flat tire. I had a new tube with me so I decided I would just take the wheel off and put the new tube in. I found a mound of dirt that I could park the bike over to hold the back tire off the ground. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a right sized wrench to get the chainguard off, so I couldn’t take the tire off. I ended up just opening the tire up and finding the leak. It was right next to where I had patched it before, so I ended up putting a new patch on, half on the old one and half off. I put everything back together and pumped it up and it seemed to hold. I considered continuing on to Kaituma, but decided a patch on a patch wasn’t the best thing, so I turned around and headed back.
After about a mile and a half, the tire went down again. I figured out that I could take the new box I made for the bike off and use it as a stand for underneath the bike, so once again I opened up the tire to find the leak. This time it was leaking out of the other side of the original patch. So I again patched it and put it back together and drove again. I hadn’t gone too far and it felt like it was going down, so I stopped and pumped it up and drove on. After a bit it felt like it was getting soft, but I looked at it and it looked ok so I kept going. About 2 miles later it went flat and it wouldn’t pump up. At that point, I parked the bike and walked home. Stephan gave me a ride back with tools to take the wheel off, and then he went on to Kaituma. I put the new tube in and then drove home.
As you may remember, this weekend is the Circuit Assembly in Barimita. A number from here are planning on going over. One of the men I study with has a cruiser and I believe he is going to help with the transportation. I have repeatedly told everyone who wants to go that they are going to have to walk with food for the entire time. Since there are no flights into Barimita recently, we don’t want to take food from them. Knowing the way many don’t listen so well, Stephan suggested we carry some provisions across in advance. We figured that if four of us went across, we could get a good amount over, plus it would give a few more a chance to get acquainted with the trail. We decided we would each carry fifty pounds. I was worried about putting two people and 100+ pounds of weight on my bike. Sunday evening we bought a hundred pounds of rice, forty pounds of dried fish, thirty pounds of flour, and ten pounds each of sugar, onions, and garlic.
We planned to leave at 6 AM Monday and go over and back in the same day. When we got up it was raining, and we were very concerned about trying to drive the heavily loaded bikes on the slippery road. I saw a cruiser passing that transported the foreman of the road crew out to the job, so I stopped them and asked if they were going out to the end of the road. He said he was, so I asked if he would take our packs and passengers out. He said he would, but he wouldn’t be leaving for some time. He said if it could wait, the next morning he would be leaving at seven and would take everything then, so we put it off for a day.
Tuesday we were ready about 6:30, since Stephan mentioned that 7 AM can mean anything from 6:30 – 9:00. We waited and waited. Finally I rode down to where the foreman lives and found him waiting too. It seems that the driver had gotten an early hire and hadn’t returned yet. We finally got underway about 8:30, which put us on the trail a little before ten. Eugene, Stephan, Jonathan, and I made the trip. We walked together for a while, but then Eugene and I went ahead. At one point we stopped to wait for the others to catch up. After we had sat for half an hour, I left my pack and started back down the trail. After about six or seven minutes I reached them and walked back with them. We rested a bit longer (for them) and then set off. We walked together for a bit and then Stephan said he needed to rest. He told Eugene and I that we could continue on, but just asked that every so often and at all junctions, we would leave a mark so he could be sure to find the way. So we continued on and reached Barimita about 4:30. They were having a meeting when we got there. We sat in and got to hear a nice service talk by the District Overseer. Stephan and Jonathan arrived about 5:40. Needless to say, we stayed overnight before heading back in the morning. As we were walking back, I mentioned to Eugene that there were plenty of people in the states who would pay good money to be able to do what we were doing. It is a serious deep jungle trek.
Now all that remains is the actual trip over for the Assembly. A new concern is that the weather is starting to change. It’s nice that it’s not so hot, but that’s due to the more frequent rain. I don’t know how many of the people will go if it rains. Every time I have been to Barimita, everyone asks for Terri. I assure them that she will be with me for the weekend. I just have to pass along a highlight from September’s Service Report. We had 14 publishers report a total of 82 studies for the month. That just blew me away. Another little bit of news, there is now an internet café in Matthew’s Ridge. A company came and put up a dish and have two computers and charge $5US/hr. That may be useful since as I mentioned the weather is changing and the rainy weather seemed to interfere with the signal we had gotten over the cell phone.
I’ve included a couple of pictures from our latest trek to Barimita, one shows us before we set off, the other is a picture of a break on the trail.
