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photograph by Todd V. Wolfson |
“Oh, the happiness,” he exclaims, “I just rode and rode and kept going.”
Growing up in Africa, specifically in Nigeria, Wisdom absorbed lots of music and stories. He heard folk songs sung by his mother and father. “I would wake up in the morning and someone was singing.” And he heard stories of the civil war exploding in his country.
“In a town near mine they took all the men from the town and lined them up and shot them. I grew up very scared. During that war, a lot of people from my family that went to war didn’t come back,” he recalls painfully.
Wisdom says he found freedom in music and in exploring the bush land around his home: “My parents were always having to come look for me.” When he was 16, maybe 18, he’s not sure, he found freedom by coming to the United States. “I think I’m 35 or 36 now. The years come quick.” Still the music and stories are rooted deep in him.
Wisdom has dedicated most of the last two years to helping folks in Chiapas, Mexico start a bicycle shop. He works with Bikes Not Bombs of Texas. The hope is to launch a shop that will bring support and jobs to people whose lives have been disrupted by the fighting between the Mexican government and the Zapatistas.
“We get bikes out from dumpsters in Austin a lot. You go to Mexico and see people riding the same bicycle that people are throwing away here. There they carry their family to work, carry the day’s produce from the market. It’s not for recreation or style and fashion. It’s their livelihood � everything depends on it,” Wisdom says. “I have a friend in Chiapas that has tried to cross the border two times and been sent back. He doesn’t have a job there. If he has our project in Mexico he won’t have to try to come back to the U.S. He’s back in Mexico, waiting for us to come with this job.”
When Wisdom first started working with Bikes Not Bombs, his first thought was to take bicycles to Africa. But then some people from Mexico came by the shop and told him about Chiapas and the crisis there. He went down to the war-torn Mexican state to explore it for himself and found deep kinship with the people.
“When you cross that [Mexican] border a new reality sets in. The people in Mexico, they want to come to this side and are willing to die to come to America. Every night I cry. We are very fortunate here. We can listen to music, be happy. But the reality of our very close neighbors is they are in despair.
“I knew that society there is much like the African society � they don’t have as much as the United States. People want to come here from my country too, but they have to swim the Atlantic Ocean. I want to help them, but it’s too far. So, instead, I’ll go across the river that has a bridge.”
Load up some bikes on a truck, drive them to Mexico, start a bike shop � the prospect sounded easy to Wisdom several months ago. But now after a bent axle and having to use all the money set aside to make the more than 1,000-mile trip to Chiapas instead to fix the disabled truck, he has learned to not make predictions.
“Every day I’m so tired. I wake up and say, ‘Wow, I survived today.’ Then I have to see where I stopped yesterday, then just continue,” he said.
Like many grassroots organizations, lack of volunteers, money, and structure have slowed Bike Not Bombs’ noble efforts. “I have worked with some really fine volunteers. They work from the heart, but they can only give the time that they have. When their school or their work takes over, they are gone,” Wisdom said. “If I don’t put it there and guide it and push it, nobody else will.”
Wisdom doesn’t get paid for his work with Bikes Not Bombs. He’s learned to streamline his life to focus on what is most important to him. He eats a lot of dried tofu and soy milk, grains and vegetables, lives simply, and has great friends that keep him going. Sometime he uses his own money to support his work with Bikes Not Bombs, even though his only income comes from playing around town with his carefree reggae band Roots-N-Wisdom.
Last month, Ruta Maya Coffee helped Bikes Not Bombs produce a CD of international musicians recorded in Chiapas. Portions of the profits from the CD will be split to go to a school for refugee children in Chiapas and to opening the bike shop. On the CD, Wisdom does a lovely cover of Jimmy Cliff’s song, “Suffering in the Land.”
For the sake of the living
Let’s sing these songs of freedom
Suffering in the land
For the sake of the children
Let’s sing these songs of peace
Suffering in the land
We’re calling on the world powers
To help this situation …
Tra la la la, la la la, la la la…
In a rare moment of relaxation, Wisdom shyly admits that the busted knuckles I asked him about were earned from working on the truck all week.
“Good will come out from it,” he smiles, “so there is sweetness there. Sweet pain.” He laughs and from his lips the line from that familiar chorus rings out, “Tra la la la.”
Carol Brorsen is editor of the local art mag The Spiritual Onion. This is her first piece for The Austin Chronicle.
This article appears in December 25 • 1998 and December 25 • 1998 (Cover).