Photos from week two of the bike workshop.

Week two has seen the five trainees working on the bikes after their theory in week one. They can now give a competent full service to a bike. I’m rather impressed in how fast they have clicked onto everything, it really is rather incredible.

Week three and four of the training will be spent fixing up the 356 bikes in the container, well not all of them but as many as we can get done before opening the bike work shop at the start of week 6. The interest from the community has been insane with people constantly asking when they can buy bikes. The community the container is located in is called butterfly (the neighbouring community is called ‘cowboy’) which is about 4km out of Katima. As Katima is on the border with Zambia, apparently a lot of people will be coming over to get bikes as well. I would say that the 356 bikes won’t last too long before they need restocking.

Here are some photos from week two:

The container is located in the grounds of the local butterfly church. The container is hooked up with the Catholic Aids Action (CAA). The five bike mechanic trainees are CAA volunteers who are helping in the fight against AIDS which is pretty hectic here in the Caprivi region, 40% of people have HIV.

The streets of Butterfly. Yep you can see why we were only wanting mountain bikes for the container.

Paulina the trainer with 3 of the trainees (one of the trainees has HIV and hasn’t been too well of late)

Mandy cooking the local food (pap) for lunch. The emphasis is on filing.

The kitchen. It’s a like cooking at the beach.

Mr Happy (this is what they call me) passing on a little knowledge from the mistakes I have made.

This photo taken on Friday. A really enjoyable day. We all completed a full service on a bike. Was cool tinkering away, everyone having a laugh and taking the piss like any other work shop in the world.

Movem servicing the bottom bracket. Before the training Movem didn’t know anything about bikes, now he can fully service a bike. Pretty cool.

Moses, the enthusiastic young man who will be the bike shop manager. All successful work shops require a man with the motivation, energy and passion to make it a success. I’m happy to say that Moses fits the bill.