The Guardian (
The Province,
No insect worries, just frost on Tip to Tip
ride
Constant misting rain, cold greet cyclists on first day of fundraising trip.
MacKay, Mary
Sporadic spurts of cyclists stomped into the
Mill River Resort in
"I hear
you took a tumble," organizer Martha Deacon said to the only tandem bike
team, Yasmin Stahli of
"It was
not so much a tumble as a slow motion roll," Meheshwari
explained of their miring in one of the mud roads that occasionally slice the
trail in two.
Mud from the
constant misting rain was not the only thing the 50-plus cyclists faced on this
freezing day of May.
"Biking
the trail in May you won't have to worry about the heat or the bugs," many
people told me before this day came.
They were
right. Doing it in the fifth calendar month does bypass the insects, because
the only thing that was biting was the frost on my toes to which I'd ceased to
feel any attachment about midway through our 50-some kilometre
half-day ride.
The wet,
windy, not-so-winsome day didn't deter many of the other cyclists who signed up
for this four-day event that is in support of The Townships Project, formed in
December 1998 to make small loans to very poor people in
Prior to this,
the project's co-founder Martha Deacon was as far removed from townships in
That November
she was at the World Council of Churches meeting in
Coincidentally
before that, she toured some of the townships outside the better-known cities
in
The townships
are where the blacks were forced to live when the apartheid government in 1963
passed the Group Areas Act, Deacon explains.
"Also
they were put there without any businesses or any support because the whole
purpose of these places was to provide labour for the
white businesses in the city. So there's no downtown in a township the way we
expect to see a downtown, and there are no businesses."
Then Nelson
Mandela challenged those at that conference to do something about poverty in
The concept of
micro-lending providing small, repayable loans to very poor people to help
start small-scale businesses came to Deacon's mind.
She then asked
for a show of hands if anyone in her study group was interested. Reverend Lulama Ntshingwa of the Eastern
Cape Provincial Council of Churches held his high in response.
Loans start at
$120 and are repayable in 26 equal payments every week, including principal and
interest. With each loan repaid, borrowers are eligible for a larger loan. The
six-step process up the borrowing scale spans three years, after which
theoretically they should be able to approach the formal banking system.
"We don't
pretend that loans of $100 can build schools or highways or hospitals or
anything," Deacon says.
"But they
build the attitude that says, 'I can do it. I can do it in this life. I can get
my kids to school' then they can do anything. So it's quite incredible."
Despite the
incredibly wet and wild cycling day, everyone is ready to kick up their heels
to Two Alans and an Erskine's
earnest entertainment.
And I'm
crossing my freshly thawed toes for no rain and warmer wind for the rest of our
cross-Island ride.
Illustration(s):
MacKay, Mary
The Tip to Tip for Africa cross-Island ride
started out wet and windy but Henry DeJong of
Category: News
Uniform subject(s): Sports and leisure
Length: Medium, 515 words
© 2005 The Guardian (