How I learnt to ride a bike
By Taghreed Najjar 

The 10th story from the Halazone series “ Jude’s new bicycle “ is out now.In this story Jude faces a challenge. She get a new bike and needs to learn how to balance on the two wheeler without the training wheels.It does not help that her friend Sami makes fun of her and shows off his skills infrontof her. What is Jude to do?
Many of you may still remember how daunting it wasto learn balancing on the two wheeler bicycle. It may have been a breeze for some but for meit was a traumatic experience. The memory of how I learnt toride a bicyle is still very vivid in my mind and may have been an inspiration for the story.As a child I was shy and scared of many things. My siblings and I spent our summers in Ramallahin a street called “ Belly of the Wind”.  In those days our house was at the end of town and sovery few cars passed in our street and it became our backyard.One day to our joy Father brought home a bicycle as a present for us to share.After a few spills and falls my brothers and sisters and our next door neighbors got the hangof riding the bicycle. All of them succeeded except for me. No matter how hard I tried I kept falling. My siblingsgave up on me in disgust and went about their business.I could not stand the “shame” of being the only one not able to balance on the bike so I decided to practice on my own.I took the bicycle out to the street and started practicing. I fell a few times but kept getting up and trying again.It was easier without the impatient shouts of my siblings, yalla Taghreed! It’s easy, look at me! Etc etc.After a few falls and spills, an incredible thing happened, I could balance! and I actually started moving forwardon the downhill side of the street. Right in front of me was a peasant woman carrying a straw tray with fruits on her head. I was heading straight towards her and realized that I had learnt to balance but had no idea how to stop the bicycle or make it swerve. I bumped straight into the poor woman who fell down with her staw tray and all her fruits. She was understandably mad and started shouting at me. I was so scared that I left the bicycle in the middle of the street and ran home. The angry woman ran after me shouting and threatening me with all sorts of dire consequences. I hid behind my aunt Samira who was looking after us at the time. My Aunt calmed the lady down and offered to pay for the fruit. After the lady left my aunt scolded me and made me promise to be more careful riding the bike.Little did she know what a big achievement riding the bike had been for me .Although I felt sorry for the poor lady but to this day I still remember the moment of pure joy when I realized that I had finally succeeded, that I had joined the elite community of people who can ride a bike.