Then there were four

So we are down to four in the Kanifing house now. Kanti and Phil left today for their placements. Pete's counting down the days until he leaves. The big brother house as is his idea of hell. The motobiking mayhem has begun and now nearly ended and guess who fell off! I'm not the only one though as all of us apart from Peter have taken a tumble. My downfall was the deep sandy street that our instructor Salifou took us to which we had to hare up and down in third gear, except going anywhere even in first and second gear was a near impossibility. Salifou's technical advice was open the throttle, look where you're going and have bravery in your heart. Kate and Liz tried it but kept getting stuck but they made it without falling off. Even Pete the experienced biker found it hard. Cockney Jim was the best. He did it really well and his advice was " Babe just up the revs and floor it down there." I got most of the way up the street, slipping and sliding everywhere hanging on for dear life and then all of a sudden I was on the floor with my leg trapped underneath the motorbike and some concerned locals rushed over to extricate me. My leg is a bit black and blue but I was fine. I was more concerned that I had broken the bike. Kate spent most of the day in tears with Salifou trying to pacify her. As soon as we got in the 70 dalasi ginn made an appearance in order to calm our shattered nerves. It didn't help that everywhere we went we drew a rather sizeable crowd of curious school children.

Today was riding up hills and hill starts. Salifou thought it couldn't get any worse than yesterday but he was wrong. First on the way to the place where we were going to practise the hill starts Liz managed to fall off. Then we all looked at the size and condition of the hill and looked at each other in horror. He wanted us to do it first sitting and then standing and then stop half way up and do a hill start. The hill start was where cockney Jim had probably the most spectacular fall yet. He careered up the hill, lost control, did a bit of a wheelie and ploughed through a potato field eventually falling into the potatoes. He emerged with a cut leg and some bruises saying "don't worry man I'm fine." At this point Kate freaked out and starting shouting at Salifou whose exasperation by now had reached a new level. " But all the other volunteers could do this." I was supposed to go next and Salifou came and said to me with great uncertainty in his voice. " You want to try Lucy?" and looked mightily relieved when I rode up the hill and back down again without incidence. He decided to abandon the hill start with all of us though. He just kept shaking his head I don't think he knew quite what to do.

We then rode to the golf course and got shouted at because they were too busy to have us hareing up and down the fareways. So then we rode to the beach and were supposed to go riding on the beach but the tide was in. At this point Salifou couldn't bear it any longer so we rode back to the centre weaving in and out of gele geles and taxis and people and goats. Scary!
Tomorrow we are going for a trail ride so his parting advice to us was. Make sure you come in tomorrow with some confidence. I'm not sure that's going to happen though!

Our departure to Soma has been put off until Tuesday which gives us a bit more time to shop.
We went to the high commission to have a talk by the high commissioner and deputy high commissioner. We brainstormed all the trouble that we could possibly get into and then they reassured us with the fact that they probably wouldn't do anything about it if we did get into trouble because it would probably be our own fault. On a positive note they did say that they would invite us to a party for the royal gibraltar regiment. At which point I happened to glance at Kate whose eyes positively lit up!