Honda 50

This photo was taken of me riding Jacob’s yellow 50cc Honda motorcycle on the dirt trails in and around the Mukinge Hospital and Secondary school in Kasempa, Zambia.  Now this is not just an ordinary motorcycle.  This motorcycle folds up and Jacob packed it in his suitcase at our home in Tukwila, Washington to make the long trip to Chingola, Zambia. We made several stops en route to Zambia where we had to go through customs in many countries, and of course it is a shock for the custom officials to see a real motorcycle in the suitcase of my son, Jacob, who was a second grade student and six years old. We gave him the motorcycle as a present when he had his cast taken off his leg after orthopedic surgery.

 On one of the trips to Mukinge the yellow motorcycle had a flat tire.  Of course there was nowhere to buy a tire for the motorcycle, and one of the missionionaries at Mukinge was an AEF pilot from the Seattle, Washington area fixed it.  I can’t believe how he fixed it.  Guess what?  He sewed it. When Jacob outgrew it we sold it to a family that were residents in Chingola who had a son that was Jacob’s age but smaller in size whose dad owned an Isuzu/Mitsubishi business.

During this time there were freedom fighter camps.  This did not present a problem. You did not enter their territory and vice versa. Pepper came home between terms from the Rift Valley Academy in Kijabe, Kenya, and he and Jacob would hop on the motorcycle with Pepper as the driver and toodle around the area. The local kids would lock arms at the end of the streets thinking the boys would turn around, but Pepper would just race the motor and challenge them and fly on through waving their arms.  It was all in fun. The boys never told us that they drove in and out of the freedom fighter camps, and had loads of fun talking with the men. 

The clothes I am wearing in this photo was given to me from a Southern Baptist school teacher in Miami, Florida.  Did it ever come in handy as our containers for six months after our arrival in Zambia were being shipped back and forth from Lusaka, Zambia to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.