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wind when riding home in the back of open-bed trucks . But something about the situation made the hairs on the back of our necks stand up .
The main guy spoke to Aidan . The other did the culturally respectful thing of not addressing another man ’ s woman uninvited . He slowly moved away from our things as I stood over them like a protective hen over her chicks . In the end they left , and it could have been nothing . They had even asked if we needed help . But something in the manner they had crept up on us had us spooked and we no longer felt safe in the dark .
Aidan went to the closest house and asked if we could work for an hour or two in their yard . The owner , Felipe , agreed , albeit a little sceptical at first . This sure must have been a strange request for him and I ’ ve noticed that people here often meet strangers with a slightly distrustful reservedness at first . But the kid from earlier was back to check why we hadn ’ t left and helped us move our things to the yard . He was Filipe ’ s neighbour and sort of vouched for us .
Earlier we had removed the clutch cover with the bike in gear and now we had no way of switching it to neutral to roll it across the road . The only way to move it was to lift the rear off the ground and push . It took three of us to heave it into the yard . Felipe must have concluded that there was no way such gringo idiots could be harmful . He soon warmed to us , and he and his wife stayed up , watching TV , to allow us to finish .
Safely set up by the light of a weak bulb , we tried to align the pinion with the clutch cover repeatedly . Around midnight it finally went on ! But something had gone very wrong : the clutch actuation arm is supposed to grip the clutch . Instead , it was spinning freely . Our stomachs tied themselves in knots as the realisation sank in , the cover had no way of going on if the teeth of the pin did not align , so we must have broken something . Unable to fix it during the night , we reluctantly asked Felipe if we could camp in his yard .
He came up one better , the bikes and tools could be locked away in the garage and his wife ’ s sister had moved away years ago , so we could sleep in her house next door . It had not been used in a while , and the critters had moved in , but we pitched the tent in the living room and had a clean place to rest while bats flitted through the rafters .
Literally sick with worry about the bike , we didn ’ t sleep much . At dawn I made a strong coffee and cut up some mangoes . We didn ’ t feel like it , but we had to eat something , if we were to have energy to deal with the day ’ s challenges .
With freshly caffeinated eyes and the tools and parts spread neatly on the tarp , we began to work in the shade of Felipe ’ s front yard . The kid
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