Apologies for taking so long to get the last blog of 2020 out, but I’ve been sick. The Chinese called 2020 the Year of the Rat, they should have called it the Year of the Tick, because if ever there was a year that sucked, 2020 was it.
I took my granddaughters horse riding in a small Game Park in Harare in early December. Before setting off on our noble steeds, mine was called Ewe, our Game Guide told us beware of ticks. I hate ticks and almost ran away there and then. Having suffered tick bite fever more than once, I am an expert on ticks. Herewith some hitherto unknown facts.
Ticks never ever bite other ticks, mostly for fear of contracting tick bite fever. Tick bite fever gives you headaches that feel like the inside of my sock and underpants drawer looks. Rasputin the Russian Monk died of tick bite fever. Sure, being shot point blank in his forehead didn’t help his health, neither did getting stabbed, nor poisoned with cyanide, nor getting lobbed into a freezing canal full of icebergs. But it was definitely the tick bite fever that did for him in the end. Ditto George Custer at Little Bighorn. His last words were ‘Sure arrows hurt, but not as much as tick bite fever and my aching head’. And my last little-known fact, ticks favour O Positive over all other blood groups. I am O Positive.
Back to the Game Park full of ticks. Reluctantly I set forth, stupidly wearing shorts, on Ewe, a horse with zero comprehension whatsoever of basic equine commands, like ‘Giddy Up, Ewe, Please, Please Giddy Up’ and ‘Do Not Whoa, Ewe, Especially Not Next to the Clump of Grass full of Ravenous Ticks’. We stop started our way around the little game park, via every clump of grass to be seen. Jocelyn and Cailyn, secure and smug in their blue jeans and their A Positive status laughed and laughed at me as I begged and pleaded with Ewe in vain to not pit stop at the clumps of grass full of ravenous ticks.
Jocelyn and Cailyn enjoyed their ride hugely and saw giraffe, eland, wildebeest, zebra and impala. All I saw were ticks, real and imaginary, swarms of them on every blade of grass, but mostly on my legs. I’m sure I even saw a grateful tick slip my horse Ewe a carrot for delivering him an O Positive idiot in shorts, but that might have been the early onset of delirium.
I finished the ride feeling drained, literally. My headaches started on the drive home. I didn’t know who to go to for treatment; Charles Waghorn my vet; or Kevin O’Connor my doctor. Because Drastic Deadline is bad for my skin, I went to Kevin and ended up on a course of Doxycycline. Job done and certain death averted, unless you are like me and whimper loud and often like a Maltese Poodle with zero pain threshold, at which point the threat of death by wife looms large.
I was able to survive the week only by whimpering into my pillow but ran out of Doxycycline with my headache still intact, plus a fever, a skin rash and every pain imaginable. My imagination was the only part of me that wasn’t feeling ill. So, I dragged my sorry bottom back to Kevin for a resupply. But Kevin took one look at me and booked me into hospital instead. If the first course of Doxycycline hadn’t sorted the Tick Bite Fever, then chances are it wasn’t Tick Bite Fever in the first place, apparently.
That was the Monday before Christmas. Looking for upsides, my hospital was more like a hotel. But for the headaches that got me into the place in the first place, it would a perfect honeymoon destination. I had a bed that went up and down at the push of a button, discreet curtains around the bed, and I was able to order smoothies, any flavour, any time. The doctors and nurses were also first class. Apart from feeling like death warmed up, I was having the best time of my life.
I spent the week having my little remaining blood extracted so they could hunt down the parasite doing the damage. The doctor was able to eliminate tick bite fever, typhoid, malaria, sleeping sickness and obesity. On his travels, he bumped into viral pneumonia in my left lung and commenced a barrage of antibiotics. Since my life, I would never have guessed that pneumonia can cause headaches from hell.
Hospital beds are great places to reflect from. Starting with the bad stuff, the world outside continues crazy, panicking about mutant viruses and the demise of democracy. In the Central African Republic, there were violent disputes about the count of their just ended Presidential elections, with the losers demanding an annulment. And more of the same in Ghana, where soldiers had to intervene after violent confrontations in Parliament ahead of the swearing-in-ceremony following contentious elections. And again, more of the same in Washington where a man with horns and a Chewbacca bikini and his Duck Dynasty friends stormed the Capitol building because Donald Trump refuses to accept that he lost the election. Alas.
Back home in Zimbabwe, the Coronavirus crisis seemed to have by-passed us for most of the year, right up until the very end, allowing President Ed to focus on other more important stuff like the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident. We can now sleep at night, secure in the knowledge that the Radiation Protection Authority of Zimbabwe is now in place and keeping us safe and sound inspecting possibly contaminated second-hand Japanese vehicles at just $10 a pop, and de-contaminating any radio-active vehicles encountered for just $100. To decontaminate, they use special heavy duty vacuum cleaners. And President Ed was also able to take over the official opposition party lock, stock and barrel, thus protecting us from any dodgy election results going forward. Take note on how democracy is done, Donald. Cry our beloved country.
Having said Zimbabwe had dodged coronavirus, a flurry of Xmas related infections, imported I am sure from SA, knocked our total infections up to 17804 as I write, and our death toll to 431. But again, I find myself caught between scared and sceptic. I can’t but think that Zimbabwe’s coronavirus numbers do not warrant closing schools for a whole year, especially in the rural areas where zero access to internet and smart phones and data, means zero schooling, for 9 months. But having said that, I am glad that we are headed back into lockdown and will hug Jenny from afar with my mask firmly in place.
Hyperinflation continues unabated, especially if you’re a Zimbabwean pensioner. The hospital I am currently enjoying specializes in replacement hip and knee operations. Whilst drinking smoothies in my elevator bed, I’ve worked out that one of my pensioners urgently needing a hip replacement would have to save every cent of his government pension for the next 777 months a.k.a. 64 years to pay for the op. Factor in another 64 years assuming his second hip also needs replacing, and he’ll be good like new aged 203, unless of course the prices go up in the meantime. But at least he won’t have died of Japanese radiation.
Pretty much the only good thing that happened in my 2020 were the Old Legs Lockdown Tours around Zimbabwe and across South Africa. Between the two teams, we pedalled over 5500 kilometres, climbed more than 52000 metres over every mountain pass in South Africa and the Zambezi escarpment more than once, braved lions, elephants, squirrels, and tsetse flies. Bruce Fivaz also braved skinny dipping in the Atlantic Ocean, but only just, and at huge cost to his street cred. He can no longer claim to having big balls.
Between the two teams, we were able to raise over $140,000 for Zimbabwe’s pensioners in the process, including R170,000 paid to Zimbabwe Pensioner’s Support Fund last week.
And the Old Legs made a difference off the bikes as well. During the March lockdown, the Old Legs started up a food distribution program for pensioners living outside of care facilities, a program that is still ongoing today. Food packs and goodies aside, what our pensioners enjoyed the most was the social interactions and knowing that there are people out there who care. We also started monthly lunches for the old folk living outside the care facilities. Huge thanks to Horace Kirton and Anne Zographos for hosting the Old Legs Christmas Pensioners Lunch in their lovely garden. They so enjoyed. Thank you, thank you, thank you Horace and Anne. We want to make these lunches ongoing. Please shout if you would like to host a pensioners’ lunch, normally for +/- 15 old folk.
And also huge thanks to Sally Gordon-Brander and Allana Chicksen-Smith in Toowoomba, Australia for raising a whopping A$ 6000 for Zimbabwe’s pensioners with best ever samoosas and milk tarts. Gordon Kent bought and ate most of them.
Swamped with appeals for help, we’ve formalized the Old Legs and formed a Trust and invited Dr Kevin O’Connor and Aoife Connolly to join. Helping pensioners with their Emergency Medical Needs will be the main focus of the Old Legs Trust. With help from Round Table Twenty-Three, already we’ve been able to facilitate emergency medical interventions and operations
country wide.
Together with Round Table One, the Old Legs have been asked to partner a brilliant U.K. based initiative started by Dave Orner ex-Chipinge called ‘A Pint for a Pensioner’ – check them out on Facebook. For those already contributing, the pints you never enjoyed have saved an old policeman’s life, literally, and have helped an old age home in KweKwe stay open, and you’ve helped an old soldier get onto an oxygen machine. And on the subject of the old policeman, thank you to Tudor de Klerk for caring, to Sue McCallum for donating physiotherapy sessions, and to BSAP Regiment for looking after one of their own. As soon as I am over pneumonia, we’ll be shooting a promotional video for ‘A Pint for a Pensioner.’
I was discharged from hospital on Christmas Day, repaired and ready for the New Year. I have never looked forward to slamming the door shut on an Old Year quite so much. Tick bite fever aside, if 2020 was a medical malaise, it would be constipation. It was a year where you wanted to go, somewhere, anywhere, but couldn’t. I don’t ever want a year like that again, so my resolution for 2021 is to make shit happen. Starting with the Old Legs Trust Emergency Medical Fund.
When you get to a certain mileage, your knees and hips conk out and need replacing. Knee and hip replacements are basic operations. You should not have to save for two lifetimes to pay for them. There are many pensioners in Zimbabwe needing knee and hip operations urgently but cannot afford. They are immobile and are forced to live in constant, agonizing pain. The Old Legs wants to make sure that all our pensioners receive the medical interventions they cannot afford. We are talking to medical practitioners and institutions about pro bono or discounted rates for pensioners. But there are a lot of needy people out there. To make the difference, our financial targets will be substantial. If anyone out there would like to help craft our appeal or assist with the Trust going forward, shout.
Also happening in 2021 will be my son Gary’s coffee table book ‘Zimbabwe On The Road Less Travelled.’ Jen and I are hugely proud of Gary’s photography. It will be a big book, A 3 in size with +/- 200 pages, headlining with Gary’s amazing photos captured on our Lockdown Tour, with my daily blog as supporting text. The book will be a limited print edition available in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Australia and the U.K. at $40 plus postage, with part proceeds to the pensioners. We will also offer branded Sponsor’s Editions, again at $40 each, with a minimum order of 25 copies. Please pre-order your copies on ericgeorgedejong@gmail.com or contact me What’s App or on Facebook.
Also pursuant to making shit happen in 2021, I asked Adam Selby to be the Ride Captain and Tour Organizer for the Old Legs Silverback Tour. It is not even the second week of January and already we are almost organized.
We will pedal out of Harare on the 15th July and arrive at Uganda’s Impenetrable Forrest on August 15th in search of gorillas in the mist. We will be on the road for 30 days and 3020 km, climbing 36,000 meters. Our route will take us over the Zambezi at Kanyemba, through Zambia’s iconic Luangwa National Park, through Chief Chitambo’s village where David Livingstone’s heart is buried, past Lake Bangweulu where the water meets the sky and where Shoebills live. We’ll ride to Ujiji where Stanley spoke the words “Dr Livingstone I presume.” We’ll ride alongside Lake Victoria in Tanzania, through the hills and past the volcanic lakes of Rwanda and finally on to Uganda’s Impenetrable Forest and the gorillas. We will be 10 riders and 6 support crew, and we intend to raise in excess of $160,000.
Joining us in the peloton all the way from Los Angeles, California will be Billy Prentice. Billy graduated from Allan Wilson in 1975 and served for 4 years in BSAP Support Unit. He emigrated to the USA in 1986 and joined the Los Angeles County Fire Department as a firefighter and paramedic. Zimbabwe’s loss, the USA’s gain. Billy went onto graduate from the University of Southern California as a Physician Assistant (BSc).
Billy lives and works in Los Angles as a Physician Assistant in Urgent Care. He is married to Holly and is proud father of twin 15-year-old daughters Audrey and Gigi.
We are stoked to have Billy join the Old Legs Tour. To improve and extend our fund-raising footprint, we want an international peloton, and have long wanted someone on board from the USA. Billy will be a valuable contributor. With another Allan Wilson old boy on board, all repairs and maintenance will be well supervised. And should any of our bicycles burst into flames en route to Uganda, Billy will be our Go To Guy to extinguish. Billy will also be the Ride Medic in charge of fixing bust and ailing riders. I’ve asked him to also swot up on tick bites and gorilla bites.
I look forward to introducing you to the other Silverback Tour members in the weeks to come.
Our fund-raising platforms are open for business. To donate to the Old Legs Tour go to https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/oldlegstour
In Zimbabwe you can transfer to Bulawayo Help Network very a their CABS Platinum Account number 1124733450. Or you can transfer to their Ecocash merchant number 139149.
In South Africa, you can send your donations to OLD LEGS CYCLE TOUR BRANCH 63200
ACCOUNT 9355070826
ABSA BANK
Thank you for your support and please follow us on www.oldlegstour.co.zw but be warned, paint drys faster than we ride.
Until my next blog, please stay safe and healthy, and pedal if you can – Eric Chicken Legs de Jong
Photos below – My birthday cake in hospital, On Capitol Hill, Order your copy of ‘Zimbabwe On The Road Less Travelled’, Wally Hammond getting better, The Silverback Tour and Billy Prentice almost in Uganda,
© Eric de Jong - 2020.