Bike Accident

Biffing It
Maybe I am taking on more than I can handle. Maybe this is nature’s way of telling me to slow down…whatever it is…I don’t like it! This past month has not been the month that shows the strength I possess at all. I got sick for a few weeks, became better then a few days later sick again.
Today I was heading to the kolisi to help with the computers. (I have decided to teach 1-2 classes a week and also do an afterschool program for the year 12 and 13’s to help get them ready for their exams.) I headed out of my school compound, jumped on my bike and began zooming down the dirt hill of a road. I got to the three corners (known to the rest of the world as an intersection) and slowed down for my turn. Only I didn’t slow down enough…and my pulatasi got caught, making myself turn wide. I was on the side of the road and my bike ran over a rock and I suddenly felt the weight of my bike on top of me. I laid there for a minute and realized the pain I used to have in my foot (a nice hole on the sole from stepping on something that punctured through my shoe and then into my foot) and the tickle that has been in my throat making it difficult to talk (told you I was sick) was gone. I laid there in shock.
There was no one on the road and knowing the lack of traffic from cars I knew I had at least a few minutes to make sure I was okay.
I started to get up and tried using my wrists..failure. One of my wrists began shooting a pain like no other. I finally managed to get up. My handle bars were twisted. One of my knees was scraped and so was my foot. I touched my face and my hand was instantly covered in blood. I tried using my clothes to stop the blood but it kept flowing out of my chin. Nothing on me was broken and I wanted to go home to check in a mirror of the damage I actually did to myself.
I took my first step. I Struggled not only because my body ached but in order to move my bike, I had to have the handle bars crooked. Very difficult with the use of only one hand.
A truck came barreling down the road and asked to ensure I was okay. They offered to give me a lift to the hospital seeing me in blood. I refused thinking it was just initial pain and would go away later. I was stopped by a few others that were casually outside of their houses. One of the men fixed my bike to help me bring it back to the house.
When I entered my house my two brothers rushed over to me to find out what happened. Iosefa and Soki were amazingly nice. They helped bring my bike to the house and treated me so well. Iosefa even climbed a tree to give me a fresh coconut to drink.
It is about 7 hours later and blood is still trickling down my chin. My wrist still aches pretty badly. Tomorrow I will head over to the hospital to make sure I did not do anything to bad to it. I would go to the hospital by my house, but since there is no doctor and I am physically able to wait until tomorrow I will go to the main hospital on this island. (My fell happened around 12:30 and the last bus to the city had passed by over an hour before.)