Meeting Mahbouba the chief of ''Little Enschede" in Paris

The evening after the Friday prayer

My mention that Madam Zahia had become the peaceful center of my whirling visit to Paris was not an understatement. Directly after leaving the mosque she directed me to one of her dearest friends: a Dutch Parisienne who had a bike shop in the neighborhood of the Institut du Monde Arabe. Not only did she have a bike shop, she was also tall and blonde. All cliche's about the Dutch seemed to be correct in her case. And, she's also an artist, painter, bike repairs-woman, professional chef, tour guide on bike etc.  

Annemarie is a true Renaissance-woman, she can do right about everything. 

Her bike-shop: Gepetto & Velos is just like her; multifaced & multicolored. For those who walk by it's just an ordinairy bike shop, but once you get inside you can discover that it's also a Parisian Salon in the traditional sense: it holds literary, artistic and cultural events and is the place to be for the cool people of this Parisian neighborhood.

Mahbouba's artwork: colonel Qaddafi next to Vincent van Gogh

On top of all that Annemarie comes from my own home town: ENSCHEDE!!!

After our initial greetings Annemarie offered us dinner at her place. This meant the first donation of the day for the girls from Sierra Leone was a fact. I saved on a 15 euro dinner, so this money went to the girls.

After our dinner Annemarie, or Mahbouba in Arabic, invited me to join her in a bike-tour through Paris. 

She gave me a free bike and we were joined by single Algerian woman from the Banlieu who had five kids, but decided to take a break from all that and take a night-tour through the heart of Paris with us.

We made a short stop at a street philosopher who talked about intellectual orgasms and how we meet our soulmate in many different people. Then we joined a bigger group and made a 20 km tour through Paris until we arrived back a little after midnight. The bike tour was very special. I just couldn't believe it, one moment I was at the mosque and the other it's midnight, and I'm with a Dutch Lady from my hometown Enschede, biking through a bridge over the Seine that looked over the Notre Dame...