The key answer of exercise 5

Student A

This happened when I was in Algeria with some friends quite a few years back. We had this great idea that we'd buy a donkey and walk along the coast. It seemed like a good idea at the time, sort of romantic and natural. So we bought this donkey from some man we met and started walking along the deserted coast. We saw hardly anyone or any houses. It was fairly typical of the area. So each night we'd camp on a beach and each night the donkey would run back to its village. Funny, I can't remember why but we just walked back to the village each time and when we got there we'd find a group of villagers almost weeping with laughter. They were like, 'What do you expect from a donkey? That's how they are.' On the fourth night, I think it was, the donkey ate its saddle. It was one of those moments where we just all looked at each other and decided enough was enough, you know what I mean?

Student B

This story is sort of depressing. A few years ago my friend Dan and I were hitchhiking from Santiago, Chile to Córdoba in Argentina. We got stuck for a while somewhere, and spent hours standing there with our big cardboard sign that said 'Córdoba' Finally this car pulled over, a beautiful Mercedes I think it was, driven by this really nice Argentinian guy. He was an architect and on his way to Buenos Aires for an important meeting, some big job that was going to change his life. He was a fast driver too, and we got to Córdoba by late afternoon. He dropped us off in the city centre, we said goodbye. Strange, we didn't exchange numbers or anything, and I wish we had. Anyway, Dan had the sign and found a rubbish bin to throw it into, but then he was like, 'Hey, what's this?' and then 'Oh, no ... '. Then he showed me: It was the architect's cardboard portfolio, full of the drawings that he was taking to his meeting, Somehow we had picked it up instead of our sign. It was one of those moments when I just wanted to die.