FTW 2007

I didn’t have many expectations before joining the 2007 Follow the Women ride a couple of weeks ago. In fact, I was a bit cynical about the use of cycling as a means of bringing peace to the region and wrote it off as one of those nutty things “foreigners” do. However, being the somewhat nutty person that I am, I decided to join them to find out if there was a point to all of this, after all.

My teammate and I were among the first to arrive in Aleppo (Syria), where the ride was to start. Slowly the place began to fill up, with flights and buses bringing more and more (excited and boisterous) women from all around the world. People on their second or third ride were reuniting with old friends from previous rides while the newbies (myself included) were walking around introducing themselves. I knew many of the women there already through our email exchanges, and it felt like a class reunion. The atmosphere was friendly but not fake. Everyone was genuinely excited to finally be there, after over a year of planning and thousands of emails exchanged. The excitement was infectious and before long I was engaged in some heated discussions about current affairs, politics and social issues (ours and theirs). It didn’t take long for me to shed my cynicism about the purpose of the ride.

Dialogue was king, despite the sometimes seemingly insurmountable differences in our national politics. I realized that if we could talk as individuals, then we sure as hell could talk as nations. Someone mentioned that war was the end of a conversation, and I found that very apt. We weren’t going to change the world, and we weren’t going to bring about the end of all wars, but we could, as women, talk to each other and understand the different perspectives everyone had, and there lay the secret of Follow the Women and its strength.

I realized we are not the only region in crisis, or the only ones to deal with hostility. I never knew the Catalonians had only recently been allowed to learn the Catalan language, and were still struggling for self-rule from modern Spain. The Danes were, meanwhile, apprehensive about coming to the region following the infamous cartoon crisis, a crisis many of us in this region have long forgotten but one that still worried many in Denmark.

Misconceptions were discussed, new perspectives were adopted and we discovered new means for communication: dancing! There are now women who can dance the dabkeh in Scotland, France, Germany, Canada, Algeria, Belgium, Australia, Iran and Morocco, to name a few. The minute the music began, everyone was on their feet, eager to join in the long lines of dabkeh. I loved that! In fact, I cried the first time we danced. It hit me how “girls just want to have fun” everywhere in the world, and that despite our differences, that’s what everyone wanted for themselves and for their families.

Cycling-wise, I had a very difficult time initially. While the biggest hill here is a speed-bump, the terrain in the Middle East is very hilly. I didn’t complete the first two rides, and was quite disappointed. However I finally got the hang of the steep inclines (and declines) and made it to the finishing line every single time (the last person to arrive on most occasions, huffing and puffing and ready to pass out) after that. I felt incredibly strong and realized I was more determined than I gave myself credit for.

I also realized my usual aversion to substandard accommodation and dining vanished when I was enjoying myself. I complained a lot the first few days, but by the end of the trip, I turned down an offer to sleep in a relatively clean bed in order to sleep with my new buddies on dirty mattresses (thank God for sleeping bags) on the floor in a freezing room full of crawling insects (youth camp in Jordan). However, I never got over my aversion for Arabic style bathrooms. In fact, that was the only bad memory of my entire 10-day trip!

So many people, so many stories, so many challenges – I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. Looking forward to FTW 2008!