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The deer you hit? I don't wanna hear it....

doc47

By doc47
in Ride Tales

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doc47

doc47

Posted
Posted

I hit a friggin' monkey!

I'm on my way to the family village up in Badibu province, buzzing along about 60 with some dense bush on either side, when a whole troupe of monkeys comes zinging across the road ten meters in front of me. No place to turn off to not enough time to even touch the binders and "whack!", Curious George is history. (Lainey, has sock monkey been complaining of sympathetic head pains lately?)

 

I felt sorry for the little dude but I would way prefer this to the real danger here: cows and donkeys.

 

Later in the day there were three very young goat kids in the road headed right to left. The hindmost two stopped in the center of the road and something told me they'd hear the bike, turn around and run back across my lane. Intuition correct; that's exactly what they did. Glad I slowed way down.

 

I'm gradually getting the feel of the bike off-road. After so many miles on the RT having the back and front ends slewing around under me in mud or deep sand was initially pretty disquieting but I'm starting to trust the bike more. Mud is the worst. Slick as slug slime and there's lots of it with the rainy season in full drip.

 

I have Metzeler Tourance tires on the machine. Probably a good choice for the US but not for here. I really need more of a semi-knobby for this terrain. Unfortunately, I bought a spare set of tires before I left the States: another set of Tourance. :dopeslap:

 

The rainy season with humidity between 75 and 95%. Fortunately it hasn't been blasting hot. Sometimes it rains daily. Sometimes we get a respite for one or two days. Two nights ago there was a storm with high winds and continuous lightning. I mean continuous. There wasn't a split second the sky wasn't lit up. I don't know which was louder, the rain pounding on our tin roof or the thunder.

 

With the rains, Gambians get their hands in the dirt. Here in the urbs and suburbs there are little garden plots everywhere. In the provinces the farms are lush with peanuts and casava. The women are working daily in the faroo, the flooded rice fields. Gangly millet stalks are over two meters tall and there are gorgeous birds everywhere.

 

Ramadan is a third over and most of the people in the country fast from dawn to dark. No food. No water. It makes some folks real irritable, though most people get along OK. I had a cop in Banjul screaming at me the other day for wiggling my steering wheel. Go figure.

 

The standard answer to "How is the Ramadan?" is "We are managing."

 

My NGO has been certified in the country now. I'm working on fund-raising to get tuition and school uniforms for some kids we are sponsoring. I've also got a pipeline to a lot of medical supplies through The Gathering Project in Tacoma, Washington. It costs $7000 to send a 40-foot container to The Gambia from Port of Tacoma, so I'm trying to raise funds for that.

 

Binta went to Dakar two days ago to buy stuff for her salon. The assumption being that stuff in Dakar is cheaper than here. Of course, yesterday she called me and asked for more money. "They know it is Ramadan and everything is expensive." As if we couldn't have predicted that. I told her I didn't have any money to send and she'd just have to make do.

 

The end of Ramadan in a big feast called Eid al Fitr. (Try to say that seven times fast.) Everybody who can afford it gets new clothes and the women get a big make-over, so it's boom-time for salons and tailors. We hope...

 

Life isn't bad. We are managing.

 

 

 

 

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TN_R_Girl

TN_R_Girl

Posted
Posted
Oh Man! Turtle whacking got a pretty good laugh around here. Monkey whacking is gonna be off the charts! :rofl:

 

Glad you're ok! :thumbsup:

 

 

Pat

 

+1 ... I remember when Turtle Whacking was declared! :grin:

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hANNAbONE

hANNAbONE

Posted
Posted

i'M fEELIN' a mod changin' "member" status coming on....

 

 

Mod's/Riders -- what can we all come up with with "monkeys" in it..???

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George Brown

George Brown

Posted
Posted
Oh Man! Turtle whacking got a pretty good laugh around here. Monkey whacking is gonna be off the charts! :rofl:

 

Glad you're ok! :thumbsup:

 

 

Pat

 

+1 ... I remember when Turtle Whacking was declared! :grin:

+1 :rofl:

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Kathy R

Kathy R

Posted
Posted

Glad you don't have any elephants or rhinos in the road. But the monkeys? They might have created a game and one of them lost. Goats you can BBQ.

 

Too bad about the tires. I could see me doing that. Hope you can sell them there and pick up what you need. Glad the bike is becoming more familiar. At least you'll be able to say you learned off road in Africa!

 

Hope Binta does well in the upcoming season. Glad to see you here. Thank you for providing such a personal glimpse into a world I would never have known. It's nice to imagine the many uses the donations make in so many lives over there.

 

Be safe. Wiggle your handlebars often. Hugs to you and yours, PB

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doc47

doc47

Posted
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Posted

Monkey Bumper?????

 

Good to hear from all of you. Murray, howzit down there? Miss you, man. PM me with your email so I can pester you for donations!

 

I want to know the background on Turtle Whacking! I like turtles. Who doesn't? Used to be in Oklahoma in the summer box turtles would cross the road and get hit. Made me heart-sick.

 

We've gotten a great response to the WAME appeal drive. No problem sponsoring the kids for school this year! This is me: :grin:

 

I'm trying to figure out ways to raise some BIG BUCKS! There are two rural clinics that need help and I want to raise enough money to set up solar systems so they can have electricity. If anyone has any ideas I'm open to suggestions.

 

One of the things I really want to pursue here is to raise money HERE! I want to see Africans begin to plumb their own resources to improve the situation here. It will take time but it needs to be done. Too long have many people here waited for the former colonial powers to bail them out. It creates a culture of dependency. Not that folks in the US, UK, etc. should stop helping, but the move has to be toward gradual self-sufficiency and sustainability.

 

The Third World still needs the manufactured goods and technology the developed countries can provide. The means don't exist here to produce such things. But development begins with a gradual change in attitude.

 

But, as Rocky said, "Who am I?"

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beemerman2k

beemerman2k

Posted
Posted
One of the things I really want to pursue here is to raise money HERE! I want to see Africans begin to plumb their own resources to improve the situation here. It will take time but it needs to be done. Too long have many people here waited for the former colonial powers to bail them out. It creates a culture of dependency. Not that folks in the US, UK, etc. should stop helping, but the move has to be toward gradual self-sufficiency and sustainability.

 

The Third World still needs the manufactured goods and technology the developed countries can provide. The means don't exist here to produce such things. But development begins with a gradual change in attitude.

 

But, as Rocky said, "Who am I?"

 

 

Dude, you are one man making a world of difference :thumbsup:

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