Thursday, May 1, 2008

FROGGER: SENEGAL EDITION

The video game of my life: biking home

Object of the game: bike from la corps de la paix training center to homestay. Retain life.

Obstacles: alham buses, sept-places, taxis, mopeds, horse-drawn carriages, trucks, bikes, mobs of talibes (begger children) shouting "toubab!" and holding out cans, women with giant water buckets or bunding of sticks on heads, kids who will try to grab moving bike, lovesick men calling out marriage proposals, piles of poo, tire-stabbing mounds of broken glass/nails/etc, goats, cows, hens, pigs, cats, cat-rats, dust-clouds, and most annoyingly, the desert sand field that must be crossed that likes to eat bike tires and spin you out until you fall.

How to Gain Points: Remain Alive
-Gtreet as many passersby as possible in as many languages as you remember. Greeting certain randomy selected people will give you an extra "life" because they will remember you as a friendly toubab and save you if you're later in danger near them
-wear bike pants and keep cuffs from catching in chain. In advanced levels, wear a skirt without showing knees. Keep one hand on them to achieve this, even through as many turns and intersections as possible. If you fail in this endeavor before an old religious pedestrian, you "lose" a "life."
-Keep water-bottle filled, pump tire daily becuse of the slow-leak, oil chain, remember sunglasses
-Bonus points for slapping neighborhood kids high-5 while riding, not sweating yourself soaked, and turning down proposals in various languages
-Minus points for not recognizing/greeting family members or neighbors going undercover as regular passers-by. Or for catching self in the low-hanging laundry line outside the house. Or flashing people trying to get off boy-bike when playing advanced skirt level.
-I haven't decided whether or not biking in the night when the sand field is literally a black hole of space-- should be an advanced level or just make you lose. It probably depends on the moon.

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