Adventures For the Cure: February 2006

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Mt Washington Tavern Guest Bartending MAY 3rd!!

Last week we were entered in a contest where we have the potential to win $10,000 if we bring in the most money the night we guest bartend on May 3rd at Mt. Washington Tavern. This money will be given to Kupenda. :) Here is the website: http://www.mtwashingtontavern.com/ for the bar and the address is 5700 Newbury Street Baltimore, MD 21209. We need everyone there to win this event. It starts at 6pm and goes till 2am. Everything at the 4 bars purchased that night will go to our total for the evening. Come for dinner but make sure you order it at the bar:). Hope to see everyone there!

PS: We will also have a raffle, selling T-Shirts, auctions, and many other fun events.

- Adam

Friday, February 17, 2006

So much to do!

AFC member Jesse Stump is working hard on researching the perfect fixie bikes for us to take across country. He has decided that we should buy all the parts and build our own bikes. Adam and I know almost nothing about building a bike, luckily Jesse is a mechanical engineer!! He is a genious!! He showed me this site for some good ideas on how we will build the bikes http://www.slonka.com/soma/ . We will have a back wheel with 2 fixed gear hubs. One for regular riding and one for up mountain climbs!

PhillyK, the support vehicle driver and KING ART, is working hard on finalizing the design of AFC T-Shirts. They will be sold at all fund raising events! Look for them on March 4th at NoWayJoseCafe in Federal Hill when we guest bartend!!

-Pat

Website Updates!

Check out our new Inspirations section on the website. Soon to come will be a Sponsors section!

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Fixie Group in Ellicot City!

Adam and I joined a fixie email group in Ellicot City! I can't wait to get a fixie bike! It is going to be awesome!!!! If you live in or near Ellicot City and you love fixie bikes then this is the group for you http://groups.google.com/group/themorningride.

-Pattt

Monday, February 06, 2006

Guest Bartending March 4th

Pat and I will be guest barenting in Federal Hill on March 4th at No Way Jose. No Way Jose is located at 38 E Cross St, Baltimore, MD 21228. Will be one of the biggest parties of the year.

All tips and some of the proceeds will help raise money for our trip across the United States.

Adventures for the Cure t-shirts will be sold by Phillyk.

-Adam

Teaching Computers to the Kids

On the Friday before we left for Kenya we taught the kids at Gede how to use computers. This was an amazing experience because the kids were so bright with the computers and most of these kids have never even saw a computer before. Every hour we rotated a new six kids thourhgout the day. We even had one kid stay in and continue to teach the other kids becaue he caught on so fast. Overall it was a rewarding experience that pat and I enjoyed!

-Adam

RAGBRAI Anyone?

On our bike across the country we will be meeting up with a bike ride through the state of Iowa called RAGBRAI http://www.ragbrai.org/. Apparently it is like a biggg party on bikes that lasts for 7 days. It is from July 23rd until July 29th 2006. If you would like to join us in the fun please contact me at pblair12@gmail.com. My roomate who is not biking across country is comming out to bike with us for RAGBRAI so if you are leaving from BWI you can travel with him!

-Pattt

Fixie For Life

Soo.... Adam, Stump, and I have made the executive decision that we will be taking fixed gear bikes across the country :). For those of you who do not know: "The oldest and simplest type of bicycle is the "fixed-gear" bicycle. This is a single-speed bike without a freewheel; that is, whenever the bike is in motion, the pedals will go around. You cannot coast on a fixed-gear machine." Since we have PhillyK to drive the car and carry all the luggage we need to make our trip hard in some way, so we figured that taking fixies up the Rockie Mountains will be a suitable challenge! Here is a site that I found explaining fixed gear bikes: http://www.sheldonbrown.com/fixed.html

I CAN'T WAIT!!!

-Pattt

Lets get to work!

On Sunday (1/22/06) we all went to Church to watch Randy give his cermon. He would speak in English and Reveren Mongie would translate into Swahili so that everyone could understand. All educated Kenyans speak English since English is the language used in schools, unfortunately not every Kenyan has the opportunity to go to school.

Monday (1/23/06) Adam and I went to the new Kupenda office to help build a concrete ramp that would provide access to the front doors for the handicap children who have wheel chairs. We worked with a carpenter. His name was Nelson. Nelson was th

e toughest and nicest man I have ever met. We worked all day in the blazing hot sun and never once did Nelson complain or even ask for a sip of water. We bought water from the local gas station and we shared it with Nelson, but if we hadnt bought the water I don't think he would have drank a sip all day. Nelson worked for a full 8 hour day and he only gets paid $1.50 for all of that extremely hard work. He is a man that I truly respect and admire. I told him he was my hero.

-Adam

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Arrival At Gede

We arrived at Gede, Kenya on Saturday (1/21/06) morning. Gede is the place where Kupenda started. There is a special needs school in Gede that is partly funded by Kupenda and provides a boarding facility to many of the special needs children who go to the school. Since special needs schools are few and far between and since no one in Kenya owns a car, having a boarding facility for these children is a blessing. Without it many of them would never have the opportunity for a proper education.

We traveled from Narobi all the way to hour place of residence for the next week and a half. We stayed in A Rocha Kena (http://en.arocha.org/kenya/) it was a very nice place to stay. As the week went on I felt awful that I had a nice place to stay that had running water, toilets, and electricity. Many of the homes in Kenya, that we visited, were without such niceties. Even though we slept on the roof in mosquito nets it was still a million times better than what the locals called home.

We take so much for granted in Wester Culture. Many people have crazy ideas like we are 'owed' things or that we 'deserve' a certian way of life. If those people could see some of the things that I saw. The people of Kenya are extremely poor. Many live on just over $1.00 a day. We should all be extremely grateful for all that we have. We are not owed anything. We were only lucky that we were born in America. We should all thank God everyday for all that we have, never take anything for granted, and spend every second of our lives helping those who are less fortunate.

-Pattt

Beginning of the Trip: Safari at Masi Mara

Adam, Cindy (president and founder of Kupenda), and I flew from BWI airport on Tuesday (1/16/06) night. We flew to London England where we met with Andy (VP of Kupenda and Cindy's brother) and Randy (Andy and Cindy's uncle, who is a pastor at a church in Maine). From there we flew to Narobi, Kenya. After many many hours of travel we arrived in Narobi lateeee Wednesday (1/18/06) night.

We were greeted by Lenord who is the Coordinator of Kupenda in Kenya, Willy who is a good friend of Cindy, and out tour guide for the safari. We spent the night in Narobi. The next morning we headed out for a 5hr drive to Masi Mara where our safari would be. There were some ridiculous animals to be seen on the safari!! Garrifs are freggin huge!! Their legs are as tall as twice my height! We saw a couple lions too! Lions in Kenya are not known to eat people but they do cause the Massai, local Kenyan tribes, great headaches when they eat the Maasai's cattle and sheep. We also saw a 4 ton Crocodile that was named Solomon by the local tour guides. It was HUGE! We drove around in a 4 wheel drive van. Our safari guide was constantly listening to his walkie talkie. Apparently all the tour guides communicate to each other about where the precious exotic animals are so that the customers get a good show! It worked very well. The only animal We didn't get to see was a rhino, apparently they are extremely rare.

That night we slept in a tent in the middle of everything. A local Maasai stood guard outside

with a fire that he kept burning to ward off any animals. I saw baboons earlier in the day that were no more than 300meters from our campsite. I also saw elephant droppings extremely close to the tents. Luckily no elephants or baboons visited us that night. Needless to say I did not get much sleep.The next day we went on more safari and saw many more exotic animals. After the safari we drove all the way back to Narobi to catch a bus that would take us on a 10hr ride overnight to Gede, Kenya. Which would be our base of operations for the rest of the trip.

-Pattt