We don't get a lot of visitors out here in Tororo. In fact, we usually get exactly zero (unless you count project PIs and residents from UCSF, and actually yes we do count them, because they're still relatively rare and that totally counts when you have exactly zero other visitors.)
However, the last two weeks have been totally crazy in terms of visitors. Tororo "blew up" so to speak. It was super fun! The first to arrive were Claire and Jeremie. They are from Lyon, France, but they have been bicycling across Africa for the last year and a half. Yes - that's right. The last year and a half. They're pretty amazing - so bright and funny, artistic and super talented, and still so down to earth. And of course now they have some pretty amazing stories and experiences to share. And they share them before breaking out the accordion duets, so, you know. Their visit alone pretty much made our month!
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| Sussing out which duet would be right. |
Even for a couple bicycling across Africa, I don't think Tororo is a common stop. But our friend Beth has a profile on couchsurfers, and when Claire and Jeremie aren't staying in their tent, they sometimes use couchsurfing.com as a way to stay somewhere for a little while. Lucky for us, they emailed Beth and Beth invited them to stay a while!
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| Everyone got in on the accordion action. Everyone now wants to learn to play accordion. |
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| They ended up staying 3 nights instead of 1, so Pras got to meet them when he arrived as well! |
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| Claire also plays the clarinet - started playing it long before the accordion, actually! |
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| Out last night of seeing them (at the IDRC party!) before they took off to cycle to Jinja and Kampala! |
This is their website: http://voyage.jeremiebt.com/ Even if you can't read French, you can get an idea of just how long their journey has been.
One thing that Claire said really stuck with me. When we asked her what the hardest part of the trip had been, she said cycling through Spain was the hardest part (toward the beginning of the trip) because "she had never cycled much before."
So that must be love, to get on a bike when you really haven't done that much before and commit to getting on it every day for the next two years as you bike across >20 countries.
I hope I get to "see them over the seeaaaaa" sometime as Jeremie would say. (Jeremie comes to Denton, TX for artist conventions - now there's a strange connection.)
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