Riding Solo

I got a motorcycle! Well, sort of. So I asked Fr. Innocent if he could teach me how to drive a motorcycle a few weeks ago. He received permission from Bernard and got a hold of a spare monastery moto that doesn’t get used terribly often. It’s a nice little junker straight out of the early 90’s, has no working accessories (lights, odometer – which reads 00000, speedometer, rpm’s – don’t know the name of that one, horn, gear indicator, or automatic start) and is a little touchy going into 1st, but it runs. I had a nice little hour-long lesson from Emanuel (a French teacher at the school) and then went on a little cruise to Agbebou during which I found out how touchy the 1st gear was. I’m a pro once I get the dang thing rollin’, but that didn’t happen too often. I was the afternoon spectacle everywhere we stopped, because the white guy stalled out about 15 times before finally getting it together. The African sun definitely wasn’t a friend of mine either as I knew what the problem was, being a little too quick off the clutch, but couldn’t find the right touch. As soon as I did though I was about ready to drive to Kara. Had there not been lunch shortly thereafter, I probably would have.

As I parked the moto in the trees, Emanuel showed me how to lock it up and then tossed me the key. That’s right, he tossed me the key. Talk about feeling like I was 15 again. Later that afternoon, after working in the garden and right before a soccer match, I decided to take an implied, but generally looked down upon liberty of mine – freedom of mobility. No one was around, I had an errand to run, and I had the key to a motorcycle. Recipe for a joy ride anyone?

I went down past the school, where I got a few jeers from my students who were in P.E., and headed down the path towards Agbebou. Suddenly the bike stalled and the engine died. Right about then I was thinking ‘oh shit. This one’s gonna blow up in your face – meh oh well, (high British inner voice) it’s only a flesh wound.’ Fortune favored me though. It turns out that I double clutched into 4th by accident and didn’t give the proper amount of gas to keep the engine going.

I made my way all high and mighty like to the bar where I had a tab running from an outing with Blaise the week before. Trying to act in the ‘cool, yeah I’ve gotta bike and I know what I am doing’ attitude I parked my bike right in the middle of the access way without even realizing it. I greeted everyone, who all had rather surprised looks on their faces, paid of the tab and took off. Whether it was my subconscious or my speed demon inside of me or just pure chance I had a perfectly executed, accidental peel out and left the bar in my dust. (fyi peeling out on a dirt/gravel road with 3 ft deep ditches on either side is a little more exhilarating/outride scary than it sounds).

I made it back to the school where I found that no one had stayed to play soccer because the ball is deflated and for some reason no one has figured out a way to keep it inflated (a few of the students have bike pumps at their houses). In any case I made back to the monastery in one piece and with a still functional motorcycle, so I’d call it a good day.