TAKEN FOR GRANTED....

My husband wrote in his blog few weeks ago about his passion for cycling. We both share this love for cycling and have been renewing that love while here in Gabon.

Today Kak Ju and I were teaching two of our ladies friends to cycle. They have never cycled before this back in their own country nor did they had the opportunity to learn during their childhood. One was not able to cycle due to financial constraint while growing up as in her country a bicycle is considered a luxury. The other was constrained by the norms of being a girl i.e. her society frowned upon girls doing what is deemed as a “boy's thing to do”. I never thought that riding a bike was only boy's stuff before......

This afternoon, in the open air and underneath the clear Gamba sky, they got on the bike for the first time of their life and tried their very earnest to balance, to pedal, to cycle on a straight line and to stay on the bike longer than a few seconds (intermittently there were either curses or prayer for divine intervention, I wasn't quite sure as they were speaking in a foreign language :)

For myself, it was a joy to see and teach as it brings back the memory of my own first time. Everyone have their own special memory. The joy was to see two very grown up women, each with children of their own, trying to master a skill that most of us have taken for granted. To them, it was a wonder to see other ladies cycling so freely and when it was their turn to learn, they said “ But you all make it look so easy!!!!! It is not easy at all.”

True. I am sure that it was not a piece of cake for anyone to learn cycling for the first time. The frustration, the fear, the many falls and scratches were there to remind us but once we learn, we never forget.

To quote Confucius “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. So for my two good friends, today is their first step. Salute. I hope to write soon that they have learnt to bike. Wish us well.

I too love cycling. Till next time, insya-ALLAH.


*Updates*
I am pleased to report that one of the two friends have been successfully indoctrinated to the world of cycling. She did it within less than 1 hour which is amazing considering her "young" age and no prior cycling experience. She also arrived late for her lessons :P. Thats proves that some people can surprise you unexpectedly. Meanwhile the other one seems to be discouraged by the first experience. We just have to wait patiently as these sort of things can't be forced.