NAUGHTY LETTERS ...

Letters penned by Adam Donaldson Powell:

Cher Jacques,

Félicitations ! Ta chanson "Ne me quitte pas" est devenue un succès énorme. Tu  fais sentir ta douleur ... en utilisant la veine ensorcellante de Maurice Ravel, comme dans son " Boléro ", où tu gardes le même refrain et le même ton calme, mais la colère en plus, dans tes mots. Et tu te protèges d'une manière si poignante en me demandant à plusieurs reprises de ne pas te quitter, à en devenir fou de rage. Ta chanson nous ravit, mais en même temps, elle a plongé le poignard dans le coeur de notre conte de fées.

Si seulement tu n'étais pas si lâche. Pourquoi n'as-tu pas pu exprimer tes craintes et tes émotions dans la vie réelle, au lieu de me faire passer pour un citoyen banal? Comme ta stupide maîtresse, qui a voulu exploiter ta gloire et ta réputation ? Tu sais que je ne me suis jamais soucié de telles choses. Je t'ai simplement aimé. Et toi, tu ... tu as seulement été amoureux du romantisme, du simple fait "d'être amoureux ". L'annonce de notre  "enfant d'amour" s'est avérée trop pesante pour toi. J'ai aussi eu peur. Mais tu étais un enfant, jouant à être un homme. Ma fierté ne m'a pas permis de porter les ombres que tu décrivais dans ta chanson. Et comment oses-tu inclure mon chien adoré dans ta chanson pitoyable... ? "Laisse-moi devenir l'ombre de ton ombre, l'ombre de ta main et l'ombre de ton chien "

Tu exprimes ta colère et ta confusion tout en me priant de ne pas te quitter. La vérité est que tu n'étais jamais complètement là dans notre relation d'amour. J'étais un jouet pour toi, un joyau à chérir dans le secret ... mais tu ne m'as jamais vraiment aimée comme un homme devrait aimer une femme. Je sais que je dois sembler amère. En vérité, je ne le suis pas. Je me sens finalement libre de devenir la femme que je suis ... libérée de cet homme immature qui me détruisait avec ses émotions toujours changeantes et extrêmes. Tant d'apitoiement sur soi-même, tant de colère et d'indifférence soudaine ! Non, notre "enfant d'amour" n'a aucune réalité et il n'existera jamais. J'aime ma chambre sans berceau. Pourquoi n'écrirais-tu pas une nouvelle chanson, Jacques ? "la chanson des vieux amants ..."?

Ne me quitte pas ...
ne me quitte pas ...
ne me quitte pas ...
ne me quitte pas ...

Assez !

Je ne t'ai jamais quitté ... parce que je ne t'ai jamais eu.

Entendons-nous : tu ne me parles pas - et je ne te parle pas. C'est mieux comme ça. Tu peux maintenant écrire toutes les chansons que tu veux de notre amour perdu et devenir ainsi encore plus riche et plus célèbre.

Et je me contenterai d'épouser le plombier ou le charpentier.
Je pourrai alors chérir mes enfants, des enfants conçus avec amour.

J'aurais d'utiliser ce subjonctif que tu aimais tant, je regrette de ne pas y avoir pensé plus tôt!

Penses-y,
Z.



Francisco -- mi Mentor querido,

Pienso en usted a menudo ... incluso ahora. Usted es, y usted siempre será, mi Mentor. Somos tan parecidos, usted y yo - ambos hombres de conciencia que condujo nuestros países a hacerse sociedades fuertes con economías modernas. No es siempre fácil conducir aquellos que rechazan ser conducidos ... que deciden permanecer en la ignorancia. Ellos a veces deben ser eliminados para el bien de muchos. Es para eso que los militares y las fuerzas de seguridad son: mantener " la verdadera democracia ".

Una de las grandes decepciones de mi vida era también uno de mis momentos más orgullosos. Era triste de ver que yo fui el único jefe de estado extranjero a asistir en su entierro. Al menos Ferdinand Marcos envió a su esposa Imelda en su lugar. Pero esto era un momento orgulloso para mí : estar solo ante el mundo en la conmemoración de uno de los mayores líderes de la historia ... mi Mentor.

Somos tanto Católico, como por lo tanto somos concedidos con la gracia de Dios. Pueda la memoria de la historia de usted nunca morir. Un día seremos ambos reconocidos por nuestra grandeza y nuestro amor supremo y compasión por nuestra gente.

Hasta entonces, mi amigo querido, descanse en paz y le uniré sobre " el otro lado del tiempo " bastante pronto.

Pensando en tí,
A. Pinochet



Kjære Lysarbeidere,

TAKK FOR MEG ...

Jeg ble født her på Jorden i august 1962, og jeg har alltid ønsket å vende tilbake til den evige Kilden – i hvert fall så lenge som jeg kan huske. Det er mulig at jeg aldri burde inkarnert på Jorden på dette tidspunkt. Jeg har gått fra det å være en naiv person som forsøkte alltid å tro på det beste potensialet i andre mennesker – uansett hvor mye de såret meg eller andre; fra det å prøve å være en «engel» og rettighetsforkjemper på Jorden overfor mange som lider på grunn av at de ikke passer inn i samfunnets bilder av «fine, gode og lykkelige» mennestyper; og fra det å uttrykke gjennom mine kunstneriske arbeider mitt syn på menneskehetens helhet til å være en liten del av Gud som er utslitt og som har sluttet å skinne. Jeg har nå innset at jeg er kun et menneske ... uansett hva jeg eller andre trenger å tro av ulike grunner – og at jeg også trenger en viss livskvalitet for at livet skal ha verdi i den daglige tilværelse.

Jeg har alltid sagt at jeg ikke er redd for å dø, men heller for å leve et liv uten mening og livskvalitet. Jeg har også sagt at jeg tror gjerne at jeg vil eventuelt dø av mine egne nevroser. Tiden har nå kommet. Mine avtalte oppdrag i denne inkarnasjon er ferdige, og jeg har bestemt meg for ikke å ta på meg flere i denne omgang. Jeg skulle kanskje gjerne vært med og stått i frontlinjen helt frem til 2012 og senere, men jeg velger å avslutte turen ved å følge Dere til døren. Nå er det opp til hver enkelt å bestemme om han/hun vil gå inn i den høyere dimensjonen, eller ikke. Jeg er ikke lei av mitt åndelige arbeide, men veldig sliten av det å leve i et verdenssamfunn hvor både «Gud» og egen identitet karakteriseres av grådighet, selv-opptatthet, manglende medfølelse, penger, makt og separasjonsbilder (dvs. troen på det at mennesker er separate enheter uten sterke tilknytninger til hverandre, plante- og dyrearter, miljøet osv.); hvor mennesker ikke vil forstå og akseptere at vi er alle sammen Gud – at vi alle sammen utgjør «guddommelighet» her på Jorden, og har dermed et stort personlig og felles ansvar med hensyn til det vi skaper og de virkeligheter vi opprettholder gjennom våre tanker, ord og handlinger. Det er blitt veldig vanskelig for meg å se hvor lett det hadde vært for Jordens innbyggere å snu på den utviklingen vi har skapt og som vi skaper for oss og våre etterkommere hvert minutt, og samtidig oppleve den store motstanden som stadig hever grensene med hensyn til både kynisismen og vanskelighetsgraden til den åndelige oppgaven. Motstanden skyldes ikke bare de firkantede og uhensiktsmessige politiske, sosiale, økonomiske og religiøse systemer vi har skapt og institusjonalisert over hele Jorden, men kanskje mest det store antallet individer og grupper som opprettholder tankeganger, ord og handlingsmåter som vi vet at vi selv ikke ønsker å måtte oppleve; men så lenge vi har det bra nok selv i øyeblikket (med hensyn til helse, til personlig og materialistisk trygghet og frihet) så ofrer vi ikke noe for å stå sammen imot det vi vet innerst inne er urettferdig og destruktiv. Enkelte stemmer har begrenset innvirkning – de blir forbipassende og best husket i historiebøker; men en «samlet stemme» kan bevege både mennesker og tankemåter. Jeg skulle ønske at vi var flere på dette viktige tidspunkt i Jordens historie. Det kommer flere nye hver dag, men til og med to menneskeår til blir for mange for meg nå. Jeg vet hva og hvem som venter på andre siden av sløret ... og jeg har hatt hjemlengsel siden jeg ble født.

Jeg forlater dere her på Jorden, men ikke i den åndelige og virkelige helheten. Jeg håper at noe av det jeg har tenkt, sagt, skrevet, kjempet for og gjort har inspirert eller kommer til å inspirere noen andre til å gjøre en ekstra innsats for menneskeheten; og jeg håper at de som har vært såret av meg eller som har såret meg forstår at vi var alle mennesker og en del av det samme guddommelige uttrykket. Ingen er perfekte, og ingen kan bli det heller ... det finnes ingen absolutt sannhet – men vi er her for å oppleve, for å lære av våre erfaringer og (forhåpentligvis) for å legge igjen noe positivt og verdensutviklende i den tiden vi er her på Jorden. Jeg håper at jeg har gjort det for mange ... jeg har i hvert fall gjort det jeg har kunnet og frykter ingen fordømmelser i denne verden eller den virkeligheten jeg har nå valgt å gå mot.

Takk og farvel fra en som kanskje aldri var ment for denne planet, men som ble faktisk her mye lengre enn antatt.

Z. Christensen



Querida Deborah F.

A veces pienso en tí todavía ... aún después de todos estos años. Ahora que eres famosa ... y ahora que has estado casada durante mucho tiempo, adivino que tu nunca piensas en mí o la pasión que una vez teníamos juntos. He escrito una canción sobre nosotros ... perdidos en el momento de pasión: un momento perfecto, y al mismo tiempo, no tan perfecto.

"En este momento":

Tenemos sólamente este momento. Una pausa sola, sin aliento.
Un momento sin comienzo o final. Una eternidad.
Un beso que quema nuestros labios. Una pasión ilimitada.
Un momento que nunca puede ser olvidado.
Mis sueños son siempre mojados cuando me duermo ... pensando en tí.
Una mujer; un hombre ... somos perfectos.
Pero no siempre perfecto juntos. Vivo para aquellos momentos
de perfección. Vivo para morir de amor por tí.
Tenemos sólamente este momento. Una pausa sola, sin aliento.
Un momento sin comienzo o final. Una eternidad.
Mi cuerpo tiembla ... cuando tus pestañas cepillan contra mis mejillas.
Una pasión ilimitada. Un momento que nunca puede ser olvidado.

Abrázame, y nunca me déjes ir. Este es nuestro momento.
Una mujer ... un hombre; somos perfectos.

Perfectamente ahora ... somos perfectos.

Nunca te olvidaré,
Adam

Letters penned by Albert Russo:

excerpts from the fourth of the hilarious series, after

Oh là là Zapinette Video
Zapy goes to New York
Euro-Zapinette

SYNOPSIS of ZULU ZAPY
Fourth novel in a series
by Albert Russo

Zapy and her unky Berky win a ‘humanitarian’ journey to South Africa, a journey promising to be full of surprises and adventures.  When they realize that this trip will not resemble any of the ‘marvellous and fun’ vacations advertised in the travel brochures, it is already too late, for, in his enthusiasm, unky Berky signed the contract, without reading the small type.

And what were the clauses therein contained?  Before earning their ‘fabulous’ excursions in the wildlife reserves, their week-long stay in beautiful Capetown, visiting the stunning Garden Route, riding pregnant ostriches, and lounging on the sparkling sands of a Durban beach, facing the Indian Ocean, among other unique sights, they would first have to fulfill a whole list of duties, that smack like serious, very serious homework.

It is only on the plane flying them to Johannesburg that they actually learn of all these compulsory duties, and of course they can’t turn back.  Once all that fieldwork is accomplished, there is a magnificent reward - the frosting on the cake -: a private encounter with the great Nelson Mandela, and washmore, in his own house.

Zapy is scarlet o’hair with fury, she didn’t expect all of this, Mandela or no Mandela, and wants to strangle her neglectful uncle right there and then, in front of all the passengers.  Black thoughts cross her mind, such as becoming a slave to the Zulu king or sweeping the streets of central Soweto - the huge township near Johannesburg in which, during the apartheid regime, the black servants and workers were compelled to live, under terrible conditions -, while gangs are shooting at each other above her head.

She would like to email Mandela immediately upon landing in South Africa, and protest ever so strongly, saying that she has nothing to do with the white pig-faced oppressionerds who treated their black ‘brethren’ so badly, and that therefore she refuses to pay for their crimes, for washmore, she has pals of all colors and creed and that no one can treat her as a rrrracist, quite the opposite... orrr elsie and floozie!

Before they left Paris, clicking on Facenicked, Linkadingdong, Teenyweeny  and meyou indatub, Unky Berky had learnt that he had three distant cousins in South Africa, whose Huguenot forebears had fled France during the religious wars.  Afrer a brief exchange of tectronic messages, they all wished to meet their Camembert relatives so as to catch up on the Révolution Française that beheaded poor Louis XVI and his Marie-Toilette, on why the Concorde had become a museum bird, on whether the French still ate froggies’ legs, on the price of the baguette, and so fork and to hell and gone.

There was Kif, who lived with his family, on a big farmstead in the boorish State of Orange, Tuks, a hairdresser who worked in a posh Durban beauty parlor, and Suzy, an old spinster, who acted as a nurse in a poor Malay neighborhood of Capetown - the poor lassie had been raped several times on her way to the hospital, but never killed, thank goodness, for she seemed to be a tough cookie, tho a bit smashed downstairs.

That was then what our ‘fortunate’ winners would discover in the Rainbow country.

Bon voyage! so say the Frogs, and bon voyage to all of you, readers, dwellers of this here sorry planet of ours, full of carbuncles: all these ills have been caused, to a great extent, by you, gas guzzlers, gobblers of junk food, ozone destroyers - hey, hey, don’t look at me, it’s Zapy talking here!


Three letters to the nerds of this world.

1. IN DA PLANE FLYING TO JOBURG

Jeez is this Joburg flight looong! Long and boooring! and washmore, they don’t even serve any nice fat juicy cheeseburger on board!  Why the hell does Joburg rhyme with my favorite sandwich? Then too, you can’t see a thing through the pothole, coz on top of it, it’s night, you’re like flying across a huge black hole, except that here and there a stupid star grins back at you.  Hey hey!  don’t even begin to think I’m a racist, ok, is it my fault if them astronerds invented the word black hole?  Wouldn’t it be nifty if some friendly Ufo approached our plane to keep us company, I’d love to see the funny faces of their passengers?

Gosh, seven more hours of this rumbling, feet-smelling trip!  This must surely be an elephantine punishment.  During the first three hours, we had dinner - chicken that tasted like fish ... with no chips, bread that was an imitation of baguette but gooey like melted rubber and a piece of cake the color of chocolate, only that you had the impreshun it was filled with  brown marshmellow - followed by a movie with Sylvester full’o mush Stallone; ok, I admit, the hunk has nice biceps which keep bulging on account that he gobbles down unconscious (really, do you se me pronouncing ‘unconscionable’, it’s the most uncushy sound I’ve ever heard from here to eternity!) amounts of soda, French fries and two-pound steaks for snacks - don’t ask what he eats during proper meals.

After the eighth minute, I pulled off my earphones, on account that what came out of his mouth wasn’t at all what you heard from a Shake ‘em pears play, with them thous’, mine’s, thy’s and whatnots that has the highfalutineers ooh and aah like they’re sipping rosé champagne from a flute, but rather the furious grunts of a father bear who’s been bitten on the nuzzle and somewhere else by a swarm of vindicative bees, after they’d find out he’d stolen their precious honeycomb for dessert.  And as if his loud burps and nannygoat retorts weren’t enough, you had the plane’s continous vibrations that kept entertaining you, whether you liked it or not, like there was an orchestra full of meowing violins playing inside your belly.  It can drive you crazy, coz it has the effect of itching powder and you want to scratch your insides like hell, only thing, you can’t reach them.

You want to know why my Unky Berky and I are sitting in this here mambo jumbo jet, do you?  Well, a few weeks ago in a draw at a lottery sponsored by the post-office where he works, my uncle won a ‘humanitarian’ trip for two to South Africa.  When he first announced it, I was delighted at the prospect of discovering lions, hippos, elephants and girafes in their natural habitat, and meeting real funky Zulus dressed like they were in the olden days, then going to the seaside for a nice swim - tho, hey, I’ll have to be on the lookout coz I read somewhere that the Indian Ocean around Durban has lots of sharks that relish little girls like me!

Now that Bonka - that’s what I call that uncle of mine when he gets me bonkers - spaghettified  ... specified schmelzified ... that before we even dreamt of having a good time down all the way under - Aussies, you aint the only ones living to hell and gone! - we would be required to alleviate the lot of our poor African brethren and sistern by working hand in foot with them, like carrying heavy pails of water on the head between the well and their village, five bloody (as the Brits say) miles under a scorching sun, or beating fat cassava roots to a mush for an unconscious number of hours, and only then would we be able to savor the fruits of our labor - mangoes are my favorite.

Humanitarian trip Ha!  Bunch of swindling perverts, you need a pair of binoculars to read the small type that lies below all them grand promises.  Bonka oughta have known better, ain’t he supposed to be an adult and have some experience in life insurance?  Some vacation we won!  I’m not looking forward to it at all, rather backward.  Sometimes I really could use a time machine, but the Jappies haven’t invented them yet, they’re still at the dogbotic stage.

When he saw what ugly faces I was pulling - oh I can look like a real bitchy witch if I want, twisting both my mouth and my nose oppositeways and sometimes even my ears, like they were suddenly smashed against a glass window - he acted nervous, and his two and a half hairs began sticking out like electric wires where his toupet usually stands.   Then, trying to calm me down, he whithpered  - my uncle lithpth, which normally adds to his charm, but when he malfunctions like in this case, he thoundth thoroughly thtoopid : “I think you’ll be happy to know, Zapy, that you have cousins expecting us in South Africa!”

“Since when did we have Zulu relatives?” I shot up, forgetting all about my rage, “Aren’t we supposed to be one third French, one third Italian and one third American?”

“Indeed lovey,” he squeaked, fulla schmaltz - that’s when his face looks like an inflated marshmellow - “but these distant cousins belong to your French tree.”

“So we are monkeys, after all, if our ancestors climbed trees!” I replied, annoyed.

Bonka started giggling like a chimp and said: “You are something, Zapy!  But jokes aside, it’s part of your family, not mine and mummy’s; the Villiers branch which is on your daddy’s side, were Huguenots.  They were lucky they could emigrate to South Africa, on account of the religious wars being waged in France between the Catholics and the Protestants.  Many of the latter who couldn’t escape were slain, the poor souls.  It’s like today’s Islamic terrorists who want to punish those who refuse to become fundamentalists like them, killing many innocent people, mostly Muslims.”

Let me tell you something about that mixed-up family of mine.  My mom, who owns a posh beauty parlor in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, came, like Bonka, from Italy, and married an American bozo with some French ancestry when she joined my uncle in the United States, even if the husband, my father, ran away, abandoning the two of us.  That’s why I’m called McInnerny.  She kept her Christian name, Laura, which is kosher everywhere.  It was my father who apparently insisted that I be named Esmeralda, after his favorite aunt who was an actress in the olden days - I’ve never seen any movies with her, even late at night on television when they show them long and boring prehistoric films (without the dinosaurs though).  When I question my mom on him she dismisses the subject by saying that he wasn’t worth a dime.  Dime or not, he apparently joined the head shrinkers down in the Brazilian jungle on account that he was sick and tired of the money-grabbing broads from the West - that’s us -, swapping them for the lil braided bunnies, all covered in mud, that roam around stark naked, tits pointing every which way, according to their age, and proudly flaunting their nozzles pierced with a toad’s bone - these are apparently more genuine than our Prada and Gucci accessories.  Bonka vaguely told me that my father was a womanizer galore- what a miser! -, so that he must have been quite happy with the lil Indians coz they offer their wives to all and sundry, and not only on Sundays, once you become buddies with them.   According to Bonka, my parents divorced a few months after I was born, and he too says it was better that way.  That gives me no clue as to who my father actually was.  Grownups can be so selfish!  They always want to keep everything to themselves.  Well, one day, without advising  anyone, I’ll go and search for him, even if he went into hiding in the Amazon forest.

There’s a show on one of the French channels called “Lost and Found” and they help you seek a member of the family or a friend who has disappeared.  There was once a Canadian kid who thanks to them got reunited with his twin sister and their mother.  I should call the manager of that show and tell him my story so we can track down old McInnerny.  Who knows, he might turn up this way and give me a few explanations.

Lassie but not Lucy (‘last but not least’ is an expreshon for the la-di-da’s, so don’t  expect me to use it), I have a darlin lil brother called Peter, my mother had with Firmin the vermin.  I must also tell you that my mom is a staunch felinist (coz she has the claws of a lionness) and that she chucks out of our house most of the men she dates after the week is over.  Firmin was an exception since she expected a baby from him.  But once she could take care of lil Peter, out he went too, and through the French window, coz he too was a good-for-nothin insurance man who gallivanted with his friend’s wives, pretending he had business dinners thrice a week (ooh I like that word, it sounds like Cantonese rice which I looove).

Do you find this aside too long?  Hey, who’s the writer here, ok!

I won’t give you details about the rest of the journey, between the passengers’ cheese-smelling toes - most of them took their shoes and even their socks off -, not always a dainty sight, specially when you caught a glimpse (too cute a word for what follows!) of some curved nails and the soles of the adult folk, veering from murky green to crushed-peanut yellow! - and Oink Bonka’s snores: he was huffing like an old pregnant ostrich, after he had downed a glass of orange juice and munched two warm croissant or a ham and brie sandwhich - yeah, with South African Airways you didn’t have time to get hungry on account that they served you something to eat or to drink every second hour, to the point that you never knew whether you were having breakfast, brunch or a midnight snack, not mentioning the hot dinners, whose number I stopped counting.

One of the least palatable (ain’t that a smart word!) interludes was queuing up in front of the restrooms.  Some of them dudes looked like they came out of the cage of a grizzly bear or of a tired warthog and you had better not make eye contact if you wanted to stay in one piece, specially if, like me, you tried to sneak in the line - hey little girls too need to relieve themselves, not just them fat asses.  I won’t insist either on the silent but oh so breath-fouling farts that float around the place, provoking gun-toting looks from your immediate neigbhor who, by the way, may be THE perpetrator.   Even if I’m part American, I hold an ever lasting grudge against the Yanks for having sunk the Concorde.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, let me remind you of some facts, which Bonka relayed to me.  Eons ago - I wasn’t even born -, the FAA did everything they could to delay Concorde flights to the US, just because America didn’t have its own SST yet, jealous bitches!, claiming that they were too noisy, that they consumed too much kerosene and so fork and ding dong.  And once they did allow the Great Swift Bird to land in the US of A, it was only in Washington DC and in New York, not L.A., not San Francisco or Chicago, envious losers that they were.

Because of that nasty policy imposed by a bunch of bigshot nitwits, and the petrol crisis in the seventies, the large national companies of the world started cancelling their initial orders for Concordes.  And that’s when the Big Swift Bird began its slow fatal descent, carrying only the rich and famous, serving them champagne, caviar and lobster at the click of a finger.

If the Yanks had been a little more fair-play, we would all by now be traveling mostly in supersonic planes, at least sfars  long-distance flights are concerned, not having to sweat it out for an unconscious length of time confined like pressure-cooked animals in them stinking flying zoos.



2. WHAT KIND OF AFRICA IS THIS?

We landed in Johannesburg early in the morning, under a dazzling sun, red-eyed, blocked-eared, dry-mouthed and stuffed-nosed, with our clothes as creased as our pumpernickeled faces - even I looked like a premature adult midget -, and a mega rhinoceros stink clinging to our skin, coz, when you add the smells of 200+ passengers confined in a cabin for ten farting hours, that’s what you get.

Gosh was it cold outside - July here is winter and washmore the city lies at an altitude of 5,750 feet above sea level; this, mind you, ain’t a place for you heart-attack candidates - I’ll have to keep a close watch on Bonka, on account that he gets a mini seizure for the slightest reason, and if you don’t give him a good quick thrashing he starts performing spastic, like them lassies who are convinced that they are pregnant when in truth they’re just bloated.  How do I know all this?  You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff my mom hears in the beauty parlor she owns, it’s hair-raiding.

This here grand city, built on gold, with its thruways, huge shopping malls, high-rises, and all the honking and tonking that you hear along the roads, reminded me more of L.A. or of Philadelphia, than of an African town.  You wonder at times if you haven’t boarded the wrong flight, coming here.

But low and bee hold, instead of treating us like any normal tourists who have suffered post-traumatic blahs on account of an unconsciously long trip - my tummy was rumbling like there were three drums beating at the same time, which gave me electric headaches, like I didn’t have enough with my ears buzzing and my nose running on account of the pressure-cooked air, now hot, now cold, but never right, that blew in from the ceiling - they put us up in a dingy lil hotel with walls half flaked off, and a bathroom dating back to the 1930’s, like my grand-mother used to have.

We were located near a botanical garden called ‘The Wilds’, which apparently contains every type of plant and flower found in the country, including orchids of all shapes and colors, some even resembling spiders, pink, purple and yellow high-biscuits (try to pronounce ‘hibiscusses’, it sounds almost like a cuss word), proteas, which is South Africa’s emblematic flower but which looks more like a giant artichoke, dipped in a mixture of red and orange paint, as well as those incredible strelizias, aka birds of paradise, that look like they want to attack you with their long pointed beaks, so forget about the paradise and don’t try to stroke them.

My uncle who’s a real softie was delighted, for he can spend twenty bloomin’ minutes sniffing a bloomin’ rose, that’s a rose, that’s a rose - so Gertrude used to say when she was stoned -, driving you up the rosebush and into the lake, full of water lilies.  You need a lot of patience with growl-ups’ shenanigans.  But since we had so much on our program, he could only afford two short visits to the garden, thank goddess, coz to watch bees gathering pollen then buzzing around your ears, scaring the wits out of you, ain’t exactly my cup of tea.

Joburg is South Africa’s largest city, and the richest too, on account of the gold found nearby.  All the hullabaloo started in 1886.

They took us to the Witwatersrand mines and we were lifted down through one of the galeries which felt hotter and hellisher as we got deeper inside.  Then they explained to us that in order to produce one ounce of gold you needed to extract more than three tons of ore, using 5440 litres of water, 572 kilowatt hours of electricity, 12 cubic meters of compressed air, a mega load of dynamite and tons of chemicals.  And that after the gold-containing ore was brought to light, it still had to pass many more processing stages in a gold refinery, until the precious metal eventually reached the state of absolute purity.  Did you really believe I could remember all these figures and particulars?  Shucks, I had to recopy them from a brochure they handed out to all and sundry (but never on Sunday), that’s the two of us, Bonka and me, plus two other bozos that looked like they had just escaped a massive fire, with their hair sticking out like sizzling wire and their teeth black as coal - you couldn’t even tell their age or their race.  Coz, if you want to know, I’m supposed to keep a diary and give a sum-up of our trip once I get back to Paris so that my classroom can benefit from all this knowledge.  Jeezette! - that’s Jesus’ sister -, if they don’t pay me at least double what Bill Clinton gets for his lectures that smell of rotten lettuces, I’ll cover the whole school with the ugliest graffiti they have ever seen.

Once we were hoisted back to the surface, and to thank us for our ‘kind attention’ - bloomin’ tension is what I felt! -, they offered us each a tiny weeny gold nugget with a hole in it so that you could wear it as a pendant.  A hole in the head, yeah, big deal!  Then we watched a show of traditional dancers, who wore leopard skins and bangles around their arms and feet that tinkled like rain drops falling ... etc. - you don’t experct me to sing that corny song, do you!  But then at the sound of the drums, they hurled themselves up in the air like the big cats they were imitating, and that was darn impressive.

That same afternoon - we had no time for a bloomin’ nap! (isn’t it niftier to use that  word instead of ‘fucking’, when the Brits want to get nasty they pronounce if ‘fookin’, hey, if you bug me that’s what I’m going to say!) - they took us on a city tour which included the observatory, the Africana museum and the Institute of Medical Research - well I never! as if I was going to become a doctor or something -, and we were shown the most horrendous pictures of people suffering from Aids.  Then, we got to meet a few sick children.  It broke my heart to see how emaciated - look up your dictionary!  I won’t repeat this every time I shall use a ladida word, ok - and how blank they looked, specially since what you could see mostly were their huge eyes staring in the void.  I had to pinch myself - hey, discreetly, coz I didn’t want to appear like a dumbo in front of all those poor dears - to make sure I still had some fat under my skin, on account that Bonka keeps saying I’m too thin.

The next morning off we went to Alexandra, the township - that’s how they called the black ghettos in the past - in Joburg, where Nelson Mandela lived as a student.  If you didn’t know it by now, he became the first President of democratic South Africa, after having spent almost 30 years in prison, on account of them white apartheid criminals.  During apartheid the Europeans forbade all non-Whites, that is the Blacks, the Indians, the Malays, the Chinese and the Coloureds - people of mixed blood - to eat at their restaurants, go to their schools, their theaters, or get treated in their hospitals, on account that they were considered the underdogs - strange word, no? like the baas (master in Afrikaans - the language spoken by the Boers, which is derived from Dutch) were maybe the upperdogs?

Nelson Mandela must be a saint, coz if they did to me the hundredth of what he endured, I would have kalachnikoved every one of them racists, but instead of that, he extended his hand to all the sundance kids (enough already with ‘all and sundry’!), setting up his ‘Truth and Reconciliation’ campaign, so that the former victims wouldn’t take revenge on their former torturers.  It was lucky he didn’t apply Jesus’ strange morals of turning your right cheek after a mameluk slapped your left one.  What kinda maze-o’-kiss-schtick is that?

This is where our real first chore started.  We were introduced to the Khuinana family - hey don’t snigger (I wonder if this word comes from the insulting ‘nigger’), that’s their real name -, lived, all five of them, crammed in that tiny room where the young Nelson stayed in the nineteen forties.  What misery!

Thank goddess we were accompanied by two fierce-looking guys who both looked like them American wrestlers who perform on the rings half naked and sweating like they just came out of a jacuzzi full of olive oil, only here they wore bermudas and tee-shirts - Jeezette, you oughta see them bulging biceps! -, coz this section of town was run-down and full of alcoholics anonymouses and drug-addicts - you had to see what fangs some of them had, even when all the front teeth were missing - they would kill, not just you and me, but their grannies too, and if need be, their dead ancestors, in order to get money for a glas of adulturated booze (I hope I won’t become adulturated once I’m a grown-up, like  most politicians we watch on television) or their white powder - it’s called heroin, but adulturated or not, I don’t  see what heroes have to do with the stuff - which they sniff and which, minutes later, makes their eyes roll like drunk marbles, and then squint maddeningly, ready to pop out of their sockets.  And amid all of the hullabaloo you have these gangs fighting each other with long sharp knives, while some poor lady, crouched next to a big pot, is cooking her millie meal, hoping nothing happens to her.

The cruelest among these thugs punish their victims by tying an old car tire around their necks and burn them, giving out an awful smell of roast beef and molten rubber.  What barbaric customs!  Yeah, this is what we learn as we get acquainted with the local population, gosh what kind of mind polution is that?

Apparently Alexandra will be razed, at least its awfullest section, with its stinking open sewage and its miles and miles of shacks, and it will be replaced by rows of social housing with running water and electricity.  They also intended to build a museum named after Nelson Mandela right where he used to live, on the corner of Seventh and Hofmeyr street, where we visited the Khuinanas.  By the way, our homework here was to study their case history and to ask them a whole list of questions which we would then have to report back to the authorities so that they might better their lot.  The two tots were adorable, even if the boy was full of snots and I had to wipe his nose - yuk yuk!  The eldest wasn’t home, goddess knew what he was up to, coz he had been arrested several times for pimping - thirteen years old! Can you imagine? To see all that poverty and the human degradation that goes with it was the worst thing I had ever faced.  It churned up my stomach and gave me a stomping headache, not to mention the smells I was carrying with me.  And to think washmore that some of the children my age we came across in that township would soon die because of poor hygiene and  lack of basic medical care, was going to give me nightmares from here to eternity.  What did I do to deserve this?  Grrrowl-ups!  All on account that Oinky Bonka missed the clauses of our ‘humanitarian trip’, written in small type - footnotes ha!  Footsek say the Afrikaners, which translates to a kick in the ass.  When I get back to France I’ll become a felinist militant to protect the rights of children in the world, coz you can’t let things continue this way.

Keep it to yourself, orrr else!  but after this catastrophobic experience, going back to the hotel - it didn’t look dingy anymore -, we walked through The Wilds and all of a sudden I was delighted to be surrounded by them flowers wafting and woofing left right and center, like they were hordes - does this come from ‘whores’? uncanny, ain’t it! -of angels fallen from the skies.  And yeah, I mumbled that corny poem by Gertrude the Stone - she was supposed to be an avant-garde American lesbie authoress who lived in Gay Paree in the 1920’s and 1930’s: “a rose is a rose is a rose.”  I hope this isn’t the beginning of old-timer’s disease - who ever invented the mashed up word ‘alzheimer’ is probably being horswhipped to hell and gone -, I’m much too young for this.



3. MEETING WITH KIF & WIFEY

Before I even start my next story, let me fill you in concerning South Africa’s political administration.  This here Rainbow nation doesn’t have one capital like most other countries, but three.  Yeah three, you read right!  And thus, Pretoria is the administrative capital, while Bloemfontein is the judicial capital, and Cape Town, the legislative capital.  How come, you ask?  After fighting each other like mad, the British, who won over the Boers, established the Union of South Africa in 1910.  The latter, mainly immigrants from Holland, but also from France, upon losing the war, were sent in great numbers to rot in the world’s first concentration camps.  Did you know that the Brits invented them before the nazis?  Believing that they needed the Boers at their side, coz, like them, they were lily white, in order to fight the Zulus and the other black tribes who might want to rebel against them - Jeezette is this a complicated setup! - the Brits included Pretoria and Bloemfontein (which is Afrikaans for bloomin’ flower fountain, on account that the streets there are lined with rows of flame trees and jacarandas), which were the two capitals of the former Boere Republic, with Capetown, as the three capitals of the newly formed Union.

Once we got to Pretoria whose Parliament building looks like a huge spread eagle, ready to swoop down on you, Bonka phoned our first relative.  That was how cousin Kif invited us to spend a week with him at his ranch near Gravelotte.  At first, I asked myself if the place was named like that because it was full of graves, but then I learnt that the French Huguenots named it after a town in Lorraine.  It is smack in the Limpopo bushveld, not too far from Kruger National Park, the country’s major animal reserve, and the northern Drakensberg (Arikaans for Dragon Mountain), which is supposed to be the highest mountain range in the region.  And for those who love booze - thank goddess, ‘those’ doesn’t include Bonka or me -, there’s even a liquor bar hidden in the trunk of a giant baobab tree, just a few kilometers from Gravelotte. “What!” I shot at my uncle, croaking in my toadiest  voice, “a whole week, milking cows and feeding chickens?”  I then wheezed like there was no tomorrow, pretending I was on the brink of a breakdown - ain’t that a rolling phrase! -, specially after having endured the sight of so much misery in Alexandra.

In emergency cases like this one, my uncle starts pussyfooting - he’s more of a pussy than anything else -, and doesn’t know whether he’s coming or going, he rather turns in circles, until I bawl “stop it already!”

Bonka stared at me, totally nonpussied (nonplussed ... nonplush ... splash it), his face white and twisted like a frozen yogurt, eyes all screwed up, then something clicked in his brain and, in his sweetest, lovey-doviest voice he told me that cousin Kif offered to drive us himself through his section of Kruger Park and that he would act as our personal ranger.  That news calmed me down.  What redeems my uncle when he gets on my bloomin’ nerves and I have to holler at him, is that he soon stops dillydallying, like an old television that you bang with your fist to get its sound back.

Before meeting with Kif, we had to go admire the Vortrekker monument in Pretoria, this is a red marble and granit mastodon - it doesn’t look a bit  like a granny, I can tell you - which commemorates the long and sweaty trek - now you see where this word comes from, uh! - of thousands of Boers fleeing the British troops in chariots and heading north.  Some of the scenes carved on the walls can rip your innards apart, they’re so painful to look at.

Bonka explained that even though it was the Afrikaners who invented apartheid, they consider themselves to be as genuinely South Africans as the Blacks, on account that they lived a life of blood and tears, and later of roses too, and that they plowed and tilled the soil (which they sometimes - not always, let’s be fair! - stole from their rightful owners), braking their backs and those of their workers, while the Brits were geared more toward commerce and industry, opening the first gold and diamond mines of the continent.

You oughta see what cousin Kif looks like!  First of all, when he speaks English, he rolls his r’s with such gusto you’d think he was munching them dog biscuits hard like stones, his mother tongue being Afrikaans, a language derived from Dutch, mixed with French and Zulu words.  Did I already tell you? I can repeat myself as often as I want, who’s the writer, uh?

In the 17th century a number of Dutchmen settled in the Cape of Good Hope, which the Portuguese explorers had discovered before.  They fought against the original dwellers, the Hottentots, aka Khoi Khoi - you pronounce it like ‘ahoy’, sans the a, but don’t make any insulting jokes, ok! - while at the same time, they slept with their women, on account that they came as lonely single men.  That is why nowadays you fiind so many coloureds in the country.  But once they brought the white ladies in the land, those same Boers dumped their Khoi Khoi mistress.

The Boers who later called themsleves Afrikaners headed east in what would become the province of KwaZulu-Natal and waged wars against the Xhosa (say Hossa), one of the local Zulu tribes, of which the great Nelson Mandela is a descendant, being himself the son of an important chief.  There, they attacked the proud and fierce king Shaka, who was also supposed to be very cruel, smashing rivals of other tribes to bloody pulp and murdering anyone of his own clan whom he believed was a traitor.  King Shaka was said to lead an army of ten thousand warriers, but since he was attacked by both the British and the Boers, as well as by opposing tribes, he lost the final battle.

I understand now why they say South Africa is such a violent country, it grew up that way, with the Boers fighting the Bantus, the Bantus fighting each other, the Brits fighting the latter and then again the Boers. And as if this wasn’t enough, the Brits who certainly didn’t do the coolest thing they knew, imported coolies from Malaysia, from Infia and even from China, to slave for them, something that enraged the local population who considered these foreigners to be new enemies coming from faraway places, bringing along strange customs they didn’t understand.  Jeezette, what a hodgepodge of mashed stuff (melting pot, my foot)!  And all of this is supposed to have given birth to a Rainbow Nation!  Maybe it is in this here land of milk,  crushed wasps and honey that the original ketchup was created, coz I read somewhere that the rivers here were awash (hey, I can also be poetic, if I want) with blood.

Let’s go back to where we started.  Cousin Kif raises chickens, turkeys, rabbits, pigs, cows and all the bull that goes with it, stink- and crapwise - you have guessed, haven’t you, that I ain’t no country girl, and that when Bonka and I are thrust into similar situashuns, we look like two crazed bees in a bloomin’ bonnet, and that’s when I feel like squashing him to bits coz he’s the one to suggest such nannities (a little girl can’t say ‘inanities’, she would sound like a nannygoat).

Think of Obelix, the Michelin-like buddy of Asterix, the comics hero of ancient Gaul who forever picks up fights with the invading Roman legions, sporting a huge red schozzle, cheeks the color of strawberries - with a zillion tiny warts -, and a huge head of orangey hair whose ends twist and twirl like live worms, and you get the picture of Kif.  Our cousin only wears khaki shorts that make his thick legs look like gammons, while his safari shirt is so tight his nipples seem to be aiming at you, ready to fire.  His arms are so bushy you could knot them in dozens of  little braids, ditto for the hairs that sprout out of his torso, on account that the three upper butrtons have exploded long ago.  His barrel-like wifey is called Maatje (pronounce Mahh - tcha) and obediently repeats everything her hubby says, like she is the fat puppet of an even fatter ventriloquist.  They seem to get on famously, even tho she has a mustache, which she tries to hide under layers of powder - actually, if she added some more of this heavy makeup she could perform in a big deparment store as Mother Christmas, coz nowadays women can do all the jobs under the sun, thank felinism and thank Goddess.

The couple - with their size, I would say the quadruple - has two kids (Goddess knows how large they are) have been sent to boarding school north of here in a town called Louis Trichardt, which lies near the border with Zimbabwe - look at the world map, I ain’t your geography teacher, ok!

The quadrangle’s livingroom is adorned with beastly tusks that are not one bit  adorable, on the contrary, they look terrifying, specially when half the lights are off.  They’re Kif’s hunting trophees.  A good thing he’s no longer allowed to go after the big game like he used to, coz with people like him we would soon have no big cats or elephants left - between you and me, they can continue to train themselves on scorpions, crocodiles and snakes, on account that I have no compashun  whatsoever for them nasty bummers.  Buddhists apparently believe we shouldn’t kill any living being, not even the damn mosquitoes that cause malaria and sleeping sickness.  I lovya good old Buddha, but not the damn critters; tell me tho, how come you’re always bulging on all sides, if you don’t eat any meat or fish?  I’ve never heard of anyone becoming obese, just munching carrots and raw spinach, or having avocado for an entrée and a pear or a kiwi for dessert!

Kif misses the good old times (that’s apartheid, dummy) where he could hunt all the animals he wanted, and he doesn’t stop lashing out against the new government, treating them as a bunch of kaffirs who dare dictate him what to do - by the way that stinking word kaffir comes from the Arabic, coz even nowadays Arabs consider Blacks like slaves, look how many hundreds of thousands they’re still killing in Darfur and in southern Sudan.

Kif can’t stand Blacks, Jews or homeysetchuals (many people call them gays, but I don’t see what’s so gay about being in love with someone of your own sex, or with your dog or your cat, for that matter).  Goddess, if Kif only knew that my uncle is a bye and bye homey - apparently, after being heathersetchual, he turned bi, then hey ho - hey, there’s nothing wrong with that, understand?  If ever you’re homeyfobic, I’ll send you and your family straight to Saudi Arabia or to Yemen, where women are forced to serve men, whether it’s their father, their brother or even their cousin, dressed like black ghosts, and to be beaten up black and blue for the slightest reason or for no reason at all, and where your closet homey son will have his head cut off in a public square.  And don’t tell me to mind my own business, what’s frreedom of expreshun for?

Bonka told me that South Africa has a homey friendly constitution, unlike most of the continent where the governments want to send them to hell and gone, compliments of the prison guards, with no return ticket.

You oughta see how nicely Kif and his Kiffette are looking after us in spite of their being such racists.  They prepared a wonderfful braavleis (the local barbecue) for us, with half a dozen chickens, two piglets and a whole calf, turning on various skewers.  Goddess almighty, I hope we won’t have to eat it all in one go, our livers might burst open.  I had a taste of each, very juicy and finger-lickin’ delicious - Bonka’s mouth was dripping quite indecently - , specially with the mashed potato and the corn on the cob slightly burnt on top, just the way I like.  We drank some wonderful Cape wine with it - we French (at least part of me) have to be careful, coz nowadays on account of globalization we ain’t the only ones producing Goddess’ favorite elixir (how’s that for e-ru-di-tion?).  The whole thing smelled out of this world, so much so that I began sniffing myself like I came out of a Roman bath delightfully scented.

All the while Kiffette was stuffing herself with a variety of meats - yes yes, even if it sounds unbelievable, I really saw the three kinds sprouting out of her mouth, how she managed to get them together baffles me -, her chubby checker of a hubby started singing a folksong in Afrikaans called ‘Sarie Marais’.  Since it’s supposed to be about love, Kiffette stopped chewing and joined in.  She even had a few tears in her eyes, on account that even fat boorish - you do see where the word comes from, hey - people can be sentimental.

Contrary to the image some have about colonialists resting the whole day on hammocks and being fanned by piccanins - that’s racist for little black boys, serving the white baas, so don’t use it, ok -, Kif and his Kiffette get up at cockcrow, and go tend to their animals, filling up their mangers, delivering a calf or giving drugs to those who caught a virus, a bad cold or have diarrhea - what a word!  And when it gets real bad, how do you write it? Diaarrrhhheeooaa?  Jeezette does it stink, already!  Apparently mad cow disease hasn’t gotten here yet.  It’s enough that the country has the highest rate of HIV in the world.  Before President Zuma took office, the Minister of Health pretended that you could get rid of AIDS by eating beetroot and garlic.  How thtoopid can one be, and criminal too, coz people believed it and many patients died, listening to that bunk.

The Blacks who work for Kif and Maatje - I was advised not to call them Africans, since the white Afrikaners too consider themselves to be indigenous to this land - take care of the land, harvesting and hoeing it, on account that all the food its residents eat: vegetables, fruit and meat, are grown on the estate.

Everywhere you turn here there’s a waft of dung mixed with that of straw and of burnt feathers.  So much so that, in the beginning, I kept sniffing under my armpits, thinking I was the one having BO, and spreading it around me.  But no matter how many times you shower yourself, the stink remains, you’d think that even the soap is made out of it.  I oughta launch this new sustainable perfume called ‘Dung’o feathers’ for all of them nature lovers fed up with their polluted city life. Between meals Kif kept chomping at something that was dark red and stringy.  At first I thought it was some sort of local chewing gum, but when I asked him if I could get some too, he guffawed then told me to wait.  Minutes later he came back from the pantry with what I believed was a piece of bark.  He then handed it to me and said:

“This is the best lekker biltong you will find in the crountry, we make it right here at home, using the finest rump beef.  After you get all the blood out, you cure and smoke it and then let it dry for at least 3 days, sometimes even a whole week. Come on, taste it and tell me what you think.”

It looked a bit disgusting to me, specially after his explanation.  I hesitated for a while then started munching on it very slowly, and the more I munched, the more I liked the stuff, tough and stringy as it was.  You have that spicy taste of dry meat lingering at the back of your tongue, yet, at the same time you get addicted to it and keep chewing cowwise like there’s no tomorrow, which gets on your bloomin’ nerves, so much so that I felt like pinching my uncle every now and then, as a preventive measure, coz he always eventually comes out with some cocky bulldog story that drives me up the wall.

Pharmacists all over the world oughta sell biltong to all and sundry fatsos, instead of them awful slimming powders (that slim only your wallet and nothing else), on account that you can chew the same piece of meat all day long and have the impreshun you’ve had a good and lasting meal, sans the calories.

By the way, during the barbecue Maatje offered me boerewors, a kind of thick sausage that really looked like a spiraling piece of dogshit and, even though I didn’t want to be rude, a loud bark crackled out of my mouth which froze her instantly, so she didn’t insist, and neither did I.

On the second day of our visit to the farm Kif woke us up before the sun even rose, on account that he absolutely wanted us to watch how he was going to bottle-feed a calf that was born during the night.

“You may never have that opportunity again in your life, darling,” he woofed, “you must come and see this”.

When my second eye opened, coz when I get up, I wink at the world first to be sure I’m not still dreaming, I absolutely wanted to twist his ears and something else which I can’t mention here that has to do with propriety, coz I don’t believe in vulgarity - didn’t you notice it already?  Well, wake up!

So there we went, Bonka and I, following the baas like two yawning zombies.

“After Catje - Kif gives each of his animals a name - I’ll introduce you to her elder brother, and you’ll have the privilege of taking care of him personally.”

A fat lot I was in the mood to nurse Catje’s brother, what a privilege!  And instead of saying yes, I gave out a half groan.  Sis, as they say here - no, it doesn’t mean sister, but too revolting for words - I began to drool like a bitch in heat, all the while I was perspiring.  It sometimes happens to me when Bonka goofs up and I have to right the helm.  My sight was so blurred that big drops of sweat and some tears of rage fell into the bucket of fresh milk and that I tripped over it, spilling its whole content on the straw.

I was suddenly so embarrassed I didn’t know where to look anymore, coz suddenly my vision became terribly focused.  That is when you realize how hard farmers work and you no longer dare make fun of them.  My knees began to knock together like two frantic bones greeting each other after a long separation.  Some vacation!

(Art by Adam Donaldson Powell.)