Oct 2, Oct 11

Thursday Oct. 2nd
Today, we were a bike shop. It feels amazing. The whole character of the training has changed since Monday. We are now a group consolidated down to only those who are serious about the work. Monday, we had a meeting about the norms and the plan for the rest of the training and we defined sales/mechanic roles. We also began fixing some bikes and I introduced the accounts to the sales folks – Maude and Torsutsey, both computer literate and mathletes. The mechanics started working on bikes. Tuesday was a Muslim holiday – the end of Ramadan. I heard on the radio that it was against the Muslim law to fast on this day. It was a party in the streets – big flatbed trucks rolling slow filled with sound systems and stacked speakers took over – young people dancing to the beat and to the elevated energy everywhere. Social control dissolved into the chaos of humanity – beautiful. I was working on bikes with Adjen, and left the shop at dusk – we pull out into the familiar streets now a flood of people not looking out for bikes, we walk the bikes a bit, and then cruised home. By the way, home for me as of next week will be a great little apartment at the foot of a mountain – plenty of land for a garden, peace, winding down after being wound up, at times. Yesterday was also good – we set out a list of critical responsibilities that need to be accomplished, bikes to be fixed, parts to be organized, and everyone got to work. There was also a torrential rain and a small flood. I began to outline the structure of the future accounts with Maude and Torsutsey.

Today though, Torsutsey wasn’t in, cause he sells beads at the bead market every Thursday, but since he is so good, we accept this day off for him. Everyone else came though (including Sule – he quit the Shell station) and we began the day with a discussion of the potential name for the business – a lot of good ones and we’ll chew over them the next few weeks before we decide. I imagine a conglomeration of words with some reference to peace, unity and joy – the popular suggestions. We then got to work – finished a bike left over from Wednesday, started and finished another one, and nearly finished a third. We had a good rhythm today, and a few customers. The trainees are beginning to become familiar with the current (temporary) workshop layout, and are cleaning up and organizing and planning the future layout. They are feeling comfortable in the space and I think that they will continue to grow into the business. I had to assert my alpha male control today with Adjen, when he was a bit out of control – we weren’t talking for about a whole five minutes afterward – until we gave eachother pounds and committed our friendship. Adjen then chilled out and focused – when he gets wound up he’s wild – super funny and energizing, but sometimes its too much. We chopped fufu together tonight as usual. We all witnessed what it is that we are doing. It’s like we’ve been preparing for something that we don’t quite know, but believe exists somewhere in the future, and today we tasted it, and we want more. I feel like I’ve climbed a mountain, and have reached the summit, and see what I couldn’t have seen on the way up. We’ve got tons more work to do, and we are preparing ourselves and taking it step by step. An amazing drive is there, but it is also mixed up with individual trainee needs and desires for financial prosperity. But that is also reasonably part of this business – meaningful, long-term employment. I don’t see the group as a single unity moving forward to some abstract goal, I see a group of different people who all have something to gain and who are trying to meet their personal and family needs. This business, though, needs to be established so that it can stand and continue without the continued presence of the initial employees. The employees as the caretakers of this entity that transfers functioning bicycles into money into the power to sustain the business and the power to do more for the disabled community in Koforidua and even Ghana. Its good to dream big but to act with a practical intention on the task at hand. Lets do one thing good first, getting this business successful, before we move in any more directions. The group is good – showing lots of initiative, and willing to work for what they want. I’m pretty sure we are developing compatible wants that makes us a team. Some days people are tired or irritable or less interested, but some days things just come together, like today.

Saturday, October 11
This past week was a rollercoaster – we made good sales, got into some good work rhythms, but also got stressed under the pressure of build-up deadlines. I realized that we are moving a bit too fast. I envisioned the second phase of the training to be like work-experience training – fixing bikes, setting-up the books, having small structured training sessions amid the wide-open chance for the trainees to get their hands on as many bikes and into as many learning situations as possible. The past two weeks of this work experience have been enlightening, and also a bit challenging. I’m expecting the trainees to take intense initiative in organizing the shop, discussing and deciding on sales and workshop strategy, and then implementing it. I realized that this is a one-of-a-kind bike workshop in Ghana, and that the trainees don’t have the reference of what this workshop can become like I do, so I may be asking too much of them too early. My experience working as sales staff at the BNB Shop in JP, working with customers, organizing parts, supporting mechanics, learning from Matt and Darrah as managers, has given me a vision of what we can do in the space that we have, which by Ghanaian standards is huge. (Most bike mechanics have little hole in the wall shops, or a box of tools under a tree.) We are already more organized and advanced than these other shops, so why not just work with it like that? (the hypothetical trainee mindset..) I now feel that I need to inspire the trainees to think bigger about the shop organization, but also about the level of skill and knowledge they aspire to. I feel that they have become comfortable with an adequate training, but I’m seeing more. I’m seeing every trainee scoring high on Alex’s Diepsloot mechanics tests, I’m seeing each trainee describing in detail and demonstrating the correct set-up and alignment of cantilever brakes, explaining the concept of brake-pad tow, measuring headset stack-height and identifying a suitable fork replacement, describing bottom bracket thread variations, chasing pedal threads on gnarly cranks, dishing and truing wheels, assessing bottom bracket spindle length in relation to crank profile for a given bike, assessing derailleur cable tension on index systems and confidently fine-tuning it with barrel adjusters, adjusting hubs and headsets with the perfect balance of pressure on the bearings, so many more skills to develop. The inspiration and energy to learn is definitely among the trainees now, and I realize that the way for me to channel this is through more structure, as opposed to less, which was a useful experiment these past two weeks.
I realize that we need to find a balance between the training and making money. Money is in high demand for us now, and it is critical that we don’t stop bike sales, however, at this point, bike sales should be secondary to the quality of the training. The training should not be directed by the bike sales, but should be run on our own learning schedule, and not on the schedule defined by customer pressure.

Today is Saturday and I’m off! I went with Adjen to visit a trainee friend (from the first phase who didn’t continue on with us) – Dorothy. An amazing girl. Dorothy rides a wheelchair with a Bikes Not Bombs sticker on it, and gets around. She is also extremely bold, dignified, strong, and fun. We chatted in her house at the top of Koforidua, literally on the base of a mountain. And Dorothy gets there and back with arm strength. Today was my first day visiting her – steep inclines, rocks, mud, uneven paths, into Dorothy’s compound. It must take her between 45 minutes and an hour of pushing to get from the shop to her house. Dorothy’s rooms are also located at the top of a 15 -step staircase. Yep, she’s tough. We chatted about the rest of the training, about family, work, about the fight that happened at the shop yesterday – very surreal and relatively benign – a drunk guy – in moments there were blows and we kicked the guy out of our space – crazy – different social norms – use force when applicable. Dorothy is a seamstress apprentice, and wanted to see if she could handle working with us in addition, cause her seamstress work is sometimes minimal. She also told me that she needs to learn how to repair her own wheelchair wheels, I agreed to work with her on this. I was strongly considering selecting Dorothy to continue the training, but she informed me that she wants to focus as a seamstress. We will invite Dorothy to join us during our wheel workshop next week, and we’ll let her come by the shop to work on her wheels whenever she needs it. Also, Dorothy sews a mean bike cap, if any of y’all are interested. Possibly a small business opportunity for her.

Gonna chill out the rest of the day and research cooperatives. I’m on some crazy wireless network in the workshop right now – with the excellent new laptop from Elizabeth Redlich – BNB volunteer extraordinaire who came to Ghana for a different program last week – Thanks Elizabeth! Tomorrow is a bike trek to two waterfalls with Adjen and another long-time Ghanaian cyclist, Richard. Shistosomiasis, I no dey fear am, a.k.a., I’m gonna swim under those damn waterfalls.