Having become used to the facility of engaging with strangers in Melville, I thought engaging with foreigners would be an easy task ... I should have known better.
They are as a rule mistrustful as to my intentions and it would seem that my natural sartorial elegance and suave manner make no difference.
They are in the 'most dangerous city in the world' and they ain't gonna trust nobody.
But I try. Here are the results:
First up the Americans.
I find one Justin sitting at 'my' table in 'my' restaurant (Nuno's) and I buy him a beer when I learn that he is a humanitarian worker in Afghanistan. Justin is sort of uninteresting as just a undercover CIA agent could hope to be. He is vaguely unspecific in all his responses to my questions.
Next up the Dutch.
Now this is quite problematic with the first bunch because my sister Emily's daschund bites their little girl when she wants to play with it. My engagement stops with profuse apologies.
Next Mexico.
The Mexicans are keen to engage but we have communictaion (sic) problems. One of them, Oswaldo speaks a good English and he wants to sell me a good tequila.
I have heard from a variety of reliable sources that the tequila on sale in SA is the worst kind imaginable ... and for the record I can state that if you really want to try the Level 6 on the Baboon Scale babelas ... mix the tequila on sale in SA with any other drink. You would hardly be able to breathe.
So tomorrow at 11:30am I'm going to have a tequila tasting with Oswaldo.
More Americans....
Two very pretty American women (not girls) in the company of two attractive Mexican guys. They are clearly couples but as soon as I use the word 'darkie' one of the American chicks gets miffed and they up and leave without understanding. They even leave behind several half-drunk glasses of South African red. Talk about wasteful consumption....!!
The Dutch again....
My next bunch of Dutch are more satisfactory.
They are filled with happiness. They are dressed in orange and are here to ENJOY. So I get the darkies to team up and sing ... I joined in but clearly I faked it ... Shosholoza.
Incidently I am still convinced it should be our national anthem... But I do not actually know what it means .... So I venture out to consult the nearest darkie ... but where I am most darkies are foreigners ... go figure. They are from Zimbabwe, Zambia or other countries that begin with a Z. Like Congo ... except it doesn't anymore.
So I have to hunt further down the street. I find Gunman ... he is called gunman because he actually packs a gun ... I've seen it. But he is also a Sotho and he tells me shosholoza means: "Move on/Keep on moving."
This I remember as correct from my seSotho endeavours at school. In case you do not know, the prefix indicates the language and as in: the Zulus speak isiZulu, the Xhosas isiXhosa and the Basothos seSotho.
I think I mentioned down the line that this is quite a complicated country. So let's move along SHOSHOLOZA.
So the Dutch speak Dutch to me and I speak Afrikaans to them and since the willingness to undestand each other is there. We love the understandability of each other. Great fun.
Then the Danish..
A group of nine flew in for one game. They got a special deal on the plane tickets, but despite frequent requests from my side they refused to engage... so fuck them ... I really cannot stand people who travel 10 000 miles to stick their heads up their own arses!
Then there is James. He is an American. But he lives here. He is also a darkie. He restores my faith in humankind. James is actually half Native American (Cherokee) and half Haitian.
He came here for the first time in 1999 and after 4 days in Joburg bought himself a house. It says it all.
And then I meet some Chinese from Ghana... I should have known. They wore Ghana T-shirts made in China. This is a sign that I should stop the damn blog for tonight.
Okay I promised the Danes a raw deal .... they support Germany's 4-0 massacre of Australia too loudly for my liking.
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I remember going to a Pieter Dirk Uys performance in Haarlem (I think, some Dutch city anyhow). The Dutch audience seemed to laugh fairly politely in the right places, as did Nicky when I nudged her, and a fine time was had by all. I wasn't sure that Evita Bezuidenhout travelled all that well, but his P W Botha went down a storm. The Danes' only amusement in life, I have been told, is spreading scurrilous stories about the Swedish.
ReplyDelete"...but despite frequent requests from my side they refused to engage... so fuck them ..."
ReplyDeleteWell, fuck you, you drunken bastard! Next time try NOT to start a conversation by pouring red wine on the guys you want to start conversation with... Asshole
Drunken bastard who starts conversations by pouring red wine on people?Years ago,at what was then known as the University of Port Elizabeth I knew just such a bloke.He offended a great many people by his actions,mainly because of the very cheap brands he favoured.He also spilt and dropped on various surfaces,including himself.I have forgotten his name but do remember that he came from the uncivilized Far North.
ReplyDelete