DestinationAfrica Bicycle Ride

January - April 2016. [Original advertisement] Please enquire to the editor for more details. Vacancies are open for cyclists and helpers at any stage in the journey. The route has yet to be decided too. Expecting to leave end of year for a three month trip from Catalonia to the coast of West Africa. Sponsorship is also welcome as is making the journey a cultural enterprise.

I will be celebrating food and the need for consciousness raising. Further input is welcome, especially places where I could give talks and entertain the people. I expect to make a video publication from this, but if anybody out there has another motive then let me know. Join us for part of the journey or GO THE FULL WAY. Get involved now and voice your intentions. Right-click the images to download a copy if you want to print the poster and distribute it. Else REGISTER at our sister website Solteriologic Garden or email me. Please sponsor our group or donate and welcome us into your villages and halls.

In order to make this journey worthwhile we need contacts along the route. B & B is optional, generally this will be an outdoor experience in tents and hammocks, campfires and fresh food. The journey details can be found at my Facebook community page in photo and video form and is also now being published in journal format in instalments. See 'Publications' on our Market page.

White Man in The Gambia
My journey starts from the womb of my mother
Her mountains gave leg to me in their rising
As an heir to her throne I strode upon her lofty peaks
And looked out over her wondrous body unique
There my people raised a flag in her honour
And carried it like a loin clothe to her rivers
But they felled the sacred woods to build the first forts
And lost in time the origins of their birthing ports

Now they stride against all nations in vain hope
That a war will recuperate what has been lost
But those bridges have been burned from their lack of faith
To believe that only time will relieve them of their wrath
For this the land must again provide for their economy
So that every individual is set on a level footing together
And then when everyone will see that they are all equal
And nature will have restored them to a life in meek denial

Gone will be those material excesses that blind a man to his role
When he can look a donkey in the eye and raise his brow
And take a bow in the manner that it serves his purpose
And kiss it with an ardour and kinship familarness
And so The Gambia calls me to loosen her boot laces
To free up her toes and dry her sweating woes
Like a breath of fresh air I breathe a new lease into her soil
And bind her with sandals again to relinquish her toil

Here we don't look to the north anymore like in the days of old
We do not ask for those gifts that clothe its greed in treats
We dig our own earth and drink our own waters
No more imports for a nation that has enough for each beast and person
The Gambia is a river of fish for fishermen to catch in their zeal
With drifting sands that cover our prints after a hard day's toil
Toing and froing in the ebbing of its gracious tides
In the nets of abundance where all species mingle and confide

Markets bustle with the hawking of its vendors
Lessened by the sound of the Koran singing from its tors
The unsuspecting are taken into its urgent pride and hospitality
And whisked into a service unasked for yet polite
That is the nature of the poor rather than beg with foul tongues
It straightens their necks so that children can hold your hands
Toubob is the label they stick on your breastplate
To soften your armour and reveal you to your spirit