Why Lobsters?

As we're sure most of you are wondering, where did "Wandering Lobsters" come from? To put it simply, it's a reference to an episode from the sitcom, Friends, where the character Phoebe explains her lobster theory to show how she knows Ross and Rachel were meant to be. She states, "It's a known fact that lobsters fall it love and mate for life. You can actually see old lobster couples walking around there tank holding claws." We picked up the nickname ourselves when we first started dating in college, and for whatever reason it has stuck with us since then.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Our first (and hopefully only) motorcycle accident

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When I expressed qualms about riding the motorcycle a couple days ago, I was reassured that we would be safe on them. Guddy (like goo-dee) is the driver that takes the Kipepeo volunteers around.  When he’s not taking us somewhere, he taxis other people around town for work.  Guddy was bragging the other night about how he had never fallen on this motorcycle, ever since he was driving in 2007.
Two days ago, Sam and I met up with Guddy so that he could take us to Luanda. Luanda is a slightly larger town than where we are staying in Kima, and it’s only about 10 minutes away by motorcycle.  They have their big market days on Monday and Thursday, and if we need to go to the bigger supermarket or Cyber CafĂ©, then we have to make the trip to Luanda.
By this time, we had gotten used to both of us riding on the back of Guddy’s motorbike, because he usually takes us to the Kipepeo office in the morning, and he had taken us to Luanda before.  We were about half way to Luanda, coasting down a hill, when we heard a loud pop!  The back tire blew, and Guddy was steering side to side to try to keep the motorcycle upright.  We ended up sliding down to the left, with the motorcycle off the road.  Sam slid on his left side like sliding into a base, while I ended up somersaulting into the middle of the road.  We were more stunned than anything, and we had some good road rashes.  Sam’s pants and rain jacket were torn, but none of us were seriously hurt.









 
As soon as we were off the road and had gathered our things, a huge crowd of people were immediately upon us, especially a lot of kids. One of our students from computer class stopped and offered to give us a ride, but he also had a motorcycle, and we weren’t quite ready to jump back on.  On top of everything, it started to rain.  Guddy, who only had a few scratches, stayed with his bike so that he could take it back to Kima.  Sam and I ended up catching a matatu (the taxi bus/van) back to Kima ourselves, so we could get cleaned up. Everyone within Kipepeo felt really bad, but it wasn’t Guddy’s fault, and he did his best to control the bike.  That was two days ago now, and we haven’t ridden another motorcycle yet, but it will be inevitable as we still have three weeks left here.

(Written on November 9th)

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1 comment:

  1. AnonymousNovember 10, 2012 at 9:05:00 AM EST

    Glad you are safe, sister! Mom told me yesterday but its good to hear from you that you both are OK. Praying for you every day, love you so much and its so hard not to just call you up and say hi! Love you. xx

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