Bike Tour Diary news from Asha-on-the-road

Heyn y'all!
Thought this from Asha's ink fountain might inspire
you to find out the second best way to get to
Ecotopia!

Maybe meet you in Wolimierz, Krakow, Lviv, Sheshory or
Odessa...
ciao, Frodo

PS: Know anyone living in these places, besides
Wassyl?


> Hi All!
> It's cherry season in Bosnia! Cycling through the
> mountains in some areas,
> kids, adults, sometimes even 3 generations will be
> sitting by the side of
> the road with big bags of sweet ripe cherries and
> jars of freshly
> collected honey for sale. Quite a treat when it's
> about a hundred degrees
> out and you're not even halfway up the 20 km of 14%
> grade in the midday
> sun. Actually, it's just the last couple of days
> that have been so hot,
> before that we were blessed with perfect blue skies
> and mildly warm
> temperatures. The ride has been absolutely gorgeous.
> Lush green hills, a
> bit of snow left on the mountain tops, butterflies
> dancing on purple,
> yellow and white wildflowers in the meadows.
> But wait... Some of you are probably thinking,
> "Bosnia? Huh? i thought you
> were all settled in san francisco?!"
> Well, yes, i was, for three lovely months, and it
> was great. But now it's
> time for Ecotopia Bike Tour again! Remember when i
> cycled from Warsaw to
> Ukraine 2 years ago? Same event. Check out eyfa.org
> for more info. This
> year it's from Banja Luka, Bosnia, through Serbia
> and Romania to Moldova.
> I was expecting it to start in late July like last
> time, but it started in
> mid-June instead, so i never made it up to arcata,
> mid-pen, or to visit a
> bunch of folks i intended to see while in
> california. sorry! but i'll be
> back in the fall most likely.
> it's been quite a bit different this time, as i am
> told it is every year.
> biketour is a non-hierarchical self-organizing
> thing, so it is whatever
> folks make it in any given year. it's 6 weeks this
> time instead of 4, so a
> lot of folks haven't joined up with us yet. we
> started with only ten of us
> (all men but me!) but now we're up to 14 (and
> another woman just joined.
> i'm looking forward to more gender balance!). it's a
> diverse and
> interesting group, folks from bosnia, portugal, uk,
> ireland, croatia,
> germany, austria, and me, the only american.
> we arrived in Sarajevo yesterday. What a beautiful
> and interesting city!
> It sits in a valley, surrounded by green mountains
> speckled with the
> 3-story, white stucco homes with red-tiled roofs
> that are typical to much
> of the country. We passed out flyers today in the
> cobblestone pedestrian
> walkways of the old town, amid the cafes, shops, and
> fashionably made-up
> (pink seems the be the color this season) evening
> strollers. Ecotopia bike
> tour is all about supporting local environmental
> campaigns all along the
> route, and today it was spreading the word about the
> dangers of
> introducing phosphates into the environment.
> Sometimes people recognize
> us, because the organizers did a good job of getting
> us on local
> television, radio, and newspapers. I've been doing
> more interviews than
> i'd like, because reporters seem to be drawn to the
> sole woman, who came
> from so far away.
> despite the tranquility and beauty, it's impossible
> to forget that this
> was a place at war just ten years ago. bullet holes
> in the buildings are
> ubiquitous. on our first day here we got a very
> serious lesson on how to
> avoid stepping on a land mine, and every day we
> check the land mine map to
> see in which areas it's safe to go pee in the
> bushes. in the clean,
> bustling downtown shopping area of a large town the
> other day, next to
> fashionable shops and a beautiful fountain, two
> eight-ish year old boys
> played with a real gun in the plaza, nobody giving
> them a second glance.
> by the campfire on our first night, one of the
> organizers told stories of
> growing up during the war. the fighting wasn't in
> his town, a rarity
> around here, but he tells of 50 meter lines for
> food, of which there was
> never enough, and setting off bombs for new years'
> instead of fireworks,
> because it was what they had. the man next to me on
> the bus, like so many
> others, had to flee his home, and although his life
> is in germany now, he
> tells with a look of longing and sadness in his eyes
> that he is a refugee,
> torn from his home, and nothing will ever be quite
> the same for him. most
> people seem to feel that nobody won the war, and
> everyone lost. there are
> some nationalists who are glad for the breakup of
> Yugoslavia, but the
> standards of living across the board are lower than
> they were before the
> IMF imposed the austerity measures that caused the
> economic crash and
> fanned the flames of cultural differences, leading
> the richer regions to
> talk of secession. i guess we can't say no one won
> the war. the familiar
> logos on billboards and megastores announce who won,
> as once-national
> industries privatize, new markets open for the
> international corporations,
> and financers collect their interest payments on the
> loans to rebuild what
> NATO and U.S. bombs tore down.
> so it's been an educational experience, seeing first
> hand a country
> recovering from such devastation. but the bulk of my
> thoughts are not of
> war or phosphates or politics. mostly i think of the
> flowers, the
> mountains, and the lakes we dive into at lunchtime.
> i think of the smiles
> on people's faces as they practice their english on
> us. i probe my fellow
> cyclists on the details of their lives, and buy the
> local specialties and
> the roadside cafes. i listen to the chanting from
> the loudspeakers on the
> mosques, and check out what's growing in the gardens
> in front of people's
> houses.
> and i cycle. there's a certain peace that i feel
> when i'm cycling, my body
> feeling healthy and suntanned, my mind quieted by
> the rhythm of the road
> under my tires, that is hard to equal. perhaps it is
> equaled by that peace
> that i feel when i am walking through the bustling
> heart of a new land and
> a new culture, eyes bright and wide open, taking in
> all the details of
> another of the infinite possibilities of ways we can
> live.
> tomorrow we cycle on. i'll write again from
> somewhere down the road...
> much love to you all,
> give each other a big hug for me,
> asha
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Never walk if you can dance.=20
                           (granpa Rosenberg, "Non-Violent Communication"=
)



Frodo Tobias Kempf, Weitzgrund 8, 14806 Belzig, Germany, Gaia
                   0049.17.444.30.550
           http://photos.yahoo.com/frodoaks


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