New Series? The stuff we did .. of bikes and bows

Recently, I was going through pictures (as a mum does) and I stumbled upon a picture of my kids riding motorbikes. And I immediately thought: that is something they did because their stepdad did it. And of course, he did it because Africa is an ideal place to do so: ride a dirtbike. So then the thought hit me: I am going to tell people about the stuff we did because we lived where we lived. 
And yes... you could debate they might have done some of these things in Belgium but let us not over-analyze the fun out of this. I will definitely have fun reminiscing about the cool stuff we did.

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So this is the picture in question. The girls went around the track to get comfortable with the bike and after some laps, they got a briefing from A. And although it never became their big passion, I was happy they tried and that they were open to his favourite passtime. Maybe I should have forced them to stick with it for a while at least but well.. At least they tried and they are now comfortable on a bike. 

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Motorbikes were not the only thing they rode by the way.. 
And the irony? It was a bit of a hassle to teach them how to ride a normal bike. Flat, paved roads are not exactly a regular thing in Africa and the children-size bicycles we had to import! Not your regular story when you come from 'le plat pays'. So the eldest ended up learning to ride a bicycle in Belgium when we were there and the youngest learnt on the raspberry farm. 

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Another thing they tried (I should say: we tried), was archery. In Africa, we had the opportunity to meet a lot of different people, and their hobby or profession, and one of them happened to be a world renowned bowhunter. The three of us learnt how to handle a bow, and practiced several times. The same person actually also taught us how to shoot a gun, and even though I am strongly against firearms, I also believe it is better to teach your kids how to swim than fence the pool so they are now no longer nervous around a gun. But I hope this statement will never be put to the test.  

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Stay tuned.. because I am already inspired to write the next post! So many stories..