I wrote this piece a while back and submitted it to one of the big blogs in the African blogosphere in the hopes of being published as a guest author. But alas, I felt the sting of rejection
On the bright side, this piece gets published anyway
….and since there are a whole bunch of you new readers, I would like to welcome you with a tale of one of my experiences from my early days of Australian life. If you enjoy the peace, make sure you leave a comment with a little anecdote of your own.
Five weary travellers rested their behinds on the isn’t-this-a-four-star-restaurant-why-are-they-giving-us-two-star seats. It had been a tiring, but exciting day. The travellers hailed from the land known as Africa (Cradle of civilization since the dawn of time, thank you very much). They had thoroughly enjoyed their day spent walking around, gawking and poking at these weird human beings known as Australians.
Weird creatures they were. Instead of speaking with their mouth like normal people, their words seemed to come from the end of the throat. They claimed to speak the language made famous by the Queen, but for some weird reason everything that came out of their mouth sounded like
“Robo, Yobo, Yeeennooouuuu mate!”
“Mate!”
That was the only word they had heard all day and they liked it:
“Mate!”
So as their backsides rested upon the varnished wood seats and they stared in bewilderment at the excess of spoons on the table (aren’t soup and food are eaten with the same spoon?..you must transfer flavour man) a “mate” of theirs came.
“Hello mate!” They all crooned like an out of tune choir
“Hello!” chirped a bright eyed, black haired girl. She looked like an Amber, so let’s call her, “like so totally Amber, Oh my God!”
Hmmm, the Africans knew they needed time to balance out their need to eat with their need to save as much money as possible. So they decided in the interim that image really was nothing and thirst was everything.
The matriarch of the group, confident as an MP declaring on national television that he will beat up his colleague, stepped up to be the first to speak to future cheerleader, Amber.
“I would like some juice!”
Amber stopped stunned! I would say she looked like a deer in the headlights but in truth she looked like the deer after being hit by a car as it flew through the air wondering what just happened.
“What?”
“Oh sorry, I want some juice!”
Amber’s eyes rolled into the back of her head looking for some form of truth in the woman’s words but came up short. Amber decided it was time to try and speak to this weird African woman:
“Did you say you want grease?”
“Juice!”
“Feet?”
“Juice!”
“Jebeet!”
“Dear Lord!” Exclaimed the woman and in her native tongue tried to calm her family, “Don’t worry, this woman is a retard. We need to speak to her in sign language.”
And so in that moment, the family engaged in their first ever miming group performance: They lifted their hands to their mouths. End of act 1. They opened their mouths. End of Act 2 With the smoothness of an impotent Marlboro man, they concluded the act by motioning for drinks to enter their mouths.
“Juice! Juice! Juice! Ya kukunywa! Ya kunyua!Drinking! Sippy! Sippy!” They all said in an effort to get a message through to the mentally challenged girl.
Finally, success. Her eyes glowed with the magnificence of an ember of fire that was just about to die but had just sparked back to life in its final moments.
“OOOOOOOOhhhhh”
“Oooooohhhhh,” the family said, thinking it was a round song.
“You want Juuuuuusssss!”
Everyone in the family restrained their urge to speak. They saw just what the matriach was talking about: poor girl, I wonder how they allow her to work with such a debilitating condition. She couldn’t even pronounce basic words.
“Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!” They all nodded in Unison.
And five minutes later, the lady brought some Juuuuuusss.
And with that ended the drama that was their fast day in this fresh new land. That episode quickly and easily made way for the drama that was still to come. Good times!
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