Getting Caught in the Rain on a Motorcycle

I admit that I am not the expert in staying dry, I do not live in British Columbia or England.  But in some ways it is more difficult to stay dry when rain is unexpected.  My first experience with rain riding was extremely shocking.  I had been riding a motorcycle for five months by the time May 1970 came around.   It was my first year in West Africa, where there is a rainy season and a dry season each year. For five months, I had been riding my motorcycle all over the country without any concern for rain, or even cold.

The day I first experienced rain on a motorcycle started out like many others.  I was at the beach for the weekend, and travelling the 200 km. back to my home on a nice Sunday afternoon in May.  About 30 km from home, a sudden thunderstorm came up.  I was wearing a helmet, sunglasses, T-shirt, regular shoes and jeans.  No face shield or windshield, no gloves.  No spare clothes, and of course no rain suit. I had not seen a drop of rain for about six months, and the temperature had been 31 degrees every day.  And, as I said before, I had never in my life ridden a motorcycle in rain.

The first drops of rain that hit me were a big surprise.  It was like being hit by rocks!  I thought about it for a short while.  Was this hail?  No, it was just raindrops.  I slowed down, and that was a bit less painful.  Within a few minutes, the rain was coming down very heavily, and I was soaked completely through and through.  Then the gravel road started to fill up with puddles.  Every puddle almost blasted my feet off the footpegs with the spray. It wasn't too long before the road started to get muddy, and the mud started getting slippery.  Luckily it was a short storm, and within about 20 minutes the sun was out again.  The temperature felt like it had dipped to about 70 degrees during the storm.  Then within another 20 minutes, I was almost totally dry, or at least comfortable again.  Just wondering what had hit me back there.

Unlike Canada, most of the time in Sierra Leone, they didn't bother with the weather reports. For half the year this would be the daily weather report, if they bothered with it at all.  Sun will come up at 6 AM, sunny, high of 92, sun will go down at 6 PM.  For the other half of the year, it would be:  Sun will come up at 6 AM, sunny with afternoon/evening thunderstorms, high of 82, sun will go down at 6 PM.

Many years later, riding in the summer in southern Ontario to me is mostly like being in a dry season.  This year has had more rain than usual, and quite heavy at times.  So how do you prepare for this kind of rain?  I have a windshield and splash guards for my feet.  I usually bring a rain jacket, rain pants, rain mitts, and boot covers with me.  Then I use my smart phone to check the weather radar, so that I know when to put on the rain suit.

A couple of days ago, I was on the 401 and I knew an intense rain storm was coming towards me.  So I stopped early, while it was still dry and put on my rain pants and jacket.  I don't bother with the rain mitts or boot covers.  Right where I expected it, the rain started, and it was really intense, some cars were pulling over. But my visibility was good, so I kept going, and I was only 15 minutes from my destination.  At my Mother's house I had a spare set of clothes if I needed them.

In the rainstorm, the first breach of the defences was my neck.  I had made the mistake of wearing a hoodie under my rain jacket.  The hood was sticking out, and apparently wicking cold water into my jacket.  About ten minutes later, I started to feel cold water from the front zipper area reaching my crotch.  When I got in the house, I changed my clothes and found out that my pant legs were half wet because of the "breathable" rain pants flapping too much.  Also my socks were damp, but this was actually better than I expected, as in a previous rainstorm, my boots had actually filled with water.  These lace-up boots are not advertised as waterproof, but they work surprisingly well as long as water does not run down my leg into the boots.  My T-shirt was mostly dry except for the lower front.  My gloves were completely soaked, but at least no black dye had run out to colour my hands.  And overall I was warm enough, because of the time of year, even though I was a bit wet.

But I have now changed my breathable rain pants to old fashioned PVC.  And next time, no cotton hoodie will be sticking out in the rain.  Always striving to do better.

Travelling Abroad and Dealing With Theft

I feel a need to comment on this particular statement about Sierra Leone. I came across this comment on the internet by Joy M. Hathaway, from Airway Heights, WA.

She starts out by stating she was a Peace Corp volunteer in Magburaka, from 1985 to 1988, and makes a few general comments, but this is the one that got me thinking.

"One of the cultural practices is teaching the boys and girls how to steal. Looking from the outside in, Western cultures teach children it is wrong to steal."

I am actually quite shocked and horrified that anyone would make such a derogatory statement about any country in the world, and this is especially disappointing coming from a Peace Corps volunteer in the same town I was, although not at the same time.

Theft does take place in Sierra Leone. Theft is a bit different in a wealthy country, and a poor country. In a wealthy country like the USA, for example, you would not leave a laptop computer sitting unattended and unsecured on a desk in a classroom day after day, and expect it to be there two weeks later.

A poor country like Sierra Leone is no different to the USA, if you make an allowance for pricing. Let's assume a piece of chalk in Sierra Leone is as valuable as a laptop computer is in the USA. If people are willing to sit all day in the market in the hopes of selling an orange for one cent, (not a profit of one cent, a total price of one cent)  obviously, some may be tempted to casually steal an unattended piece of chalk, and see what they can get for it.

And for something more expensive, they may be willing to hatch a fairly elaborate scheme to steal it. The amount of planning to rob a Brinks truck in the USA may be used to plan the robbery of a mosquito tent or a blanket in Sierra Leone.

I don't know what negative experience gave her the idea that stealing was "being taught to boys and girls", but my own experience in Sierra Leone was that yes, I had some things stolen while I was there. And in Canada, I can recall once or twice having a bicycle stolen, and almost all our neighbours in Canada have had break-in robberies, but not us. (I know what you're thinking, but honestly, it was not me).  Also, there is some theft of office supplies, and hardware and building supplies in various trades. But in a country of vast excess wealth, this petty theft is not crippling to the economy.

I try to take appropriate measures to lock up things that I think may attract thieves. The poorer the country, the more things need to be locked up. In Sierra Leone, things were stolen that no Canadian thief would ever bother with. Just last night, for example, Mary Ann and I were walking through the mall and saw an entire box full of chocolate cookies abandoned on a bench. Because it was in Canada, nobody yet had bothered to pick it up. Not so if there are starving people all around, and I am not saying people in Sierra Leone are starving, but they are not as well fed as Americans.

At one party I attended in Sierra Leone, we were having chicken wings, and the cook, who was Sierra Leonian, asked if he could have all the leftover bones to take back to feed his family. We were probably going to throw them out. And if we had thrown them out, would Joy Hathaway call it "stealing" if somebody came along and took them without permission?

I am pretty sure that parents do not teach their children to steal in Sierra Leone, and people sometimes get beaten up pretty badly when they are caught stealing. That's because, in Sierra Leone, people watch out for thieves and catch them and punish them without bothering to dial 911 and wait for the cops. And they also don't take the attitude that "it's none of my business" if somebody is observed stealing from somebody else.

Let's contrast that attitude to a story that appeared on TV a few weeks ago, about somebody being mugged on the Toronto subway system, where none of the other passengers tried to stop the robbery. That type of thing would not happen in Sierra Leone, because it's a different culture. Not better, not worse, just different. When you travel to other places, you need to try to understand and respect the culture.

The first thing of mine that went missing when I started teaching in Magburaka was my new umbrella. I had left it in the staff room, and it was gone by the end of the day. A few days later I found out who the thief was. You guessed it, the thief was a Peace Corps Volunteer. Was there an explanation? Of course, and I would never use an incident like this to imply that all Americans teach their children to steal. Unless there was proof, such as a hidden video or maybe a collection of handouts and teaching materials to substantiate the claim.

Now let's look at this statement. If "Western cultures teach children it is wrong to steal", does that mean the USA is going to be giving back the land to the Indians? Or that back wages are going to be paid to the slaves? 

Picture: A village in Sierra Leone.