yo mama!: spike haired woman in a city of thieves

i always thought that was one of my best titles. it came from the 1992 - 93 bike expedition i did with 4 other guys from the top of africa to the bottom. (africatrek bicycle journey through africa i don't get any money from that.) when we cycled through central african republic, the "africa on a shoe string/lonely planet" guide book described bangui, the capital of c.a.r., as "...a city of thieves." i saw this woman as we were cycling out of the country and she became for me "spike haired woman in a city of thieves." i still love her hair.

spike haired woman in a city of thieves

bangui, central african republic (03.93)

even though "la auberge" where we stayed with peace corps volunteers had razor wire around the top of a fence with broken glass bottles embedded in the cement at the top of the wall, a dog and a sentinel with a bow and arrow (an older man who frequently slept through the night), our tents still got robbed. granted, it was raining cats and dogs during the night when the robbery occured. i lost my cycling shoes which i'd left outside our tent and ended up buying a funky pair of yellow, canvas/plasticky, high top tennis shoes made in china. in retrospect, maybe the robbery was a blessing.

anyway, i spent all day saturday and sunday last weekend prepping the tanks at gray mountain. i thought i'd prep the tanks, paint them and get my piece up on saturday. i didn't get as far as i thought after working 5 and 1/2 hours. i drove the 75 minutes back to gray mountain sunday thinking i'd finish scrapping 2 years of paper and paint off of the tanks, paint them and get my piece up. after working 6 hours i still didn't get up!