Mandioca? Dois? Dois?

So we’ve got a Brasilian at our school now. His name is Roderigo and he’s from São Josè dos Pinhais (yes, that’s a city name) near Curitiba. He’s in my class so that’s cool. I think he’s a bit worried coz all of us are so crazy (note: us doesn’t include me. I’m a philosopher). This week, we’re taking him to the girl’s school so he can check out some of the wildlife (wink). We’ve taught him some essential Zimbabwean terms that he’ll be needing. Might as well teach you guys as well:

Braai: literal meaning – barbeque. Slang translation: A lie.
Eg. That’s a braai (that’s a lie)
NB must include associated gestures
Jail: a dry (not funny) joke.
Eg. What did the cookie say when the other was eaten?
“Oh crumbs!”
Crowd responds: “JAIL!”
Goat: a girl who is not pretty at all. Not in the least. No hopes in hell of ever being
Pretty
Sinkwa: literally: bread (in Ndebele). Slang translation: Loser

And people wonder why no one can ever understand what we’re saying. Viva Zimbabwe!!

Romeo, Romeo, is this a dagger I see?

This is one of the poems we’re doing for AS level Literature. It’s by John Donne, a guy round about the time of Shakespeare (hence the complicated language) but he is so much cooler than all the guys of that time (I’m not a nerd, ok?) coz he was what they considered rude, rebellious in his poetry techniques and in general, different. Just thought I’d put up “The Sunne rising” for you guys to get a taste of what we have to decipher. Note: I know how to spell, the poetry is the one with the funny spelling, adding e’s and stuff wherever he sees fit. Read the words as they appear eg mee = me.

Busie old foole, unruly Sunne
Why dost thou thus,
Through windowes and through curtaines call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers seasons run?
Sawcy pedantique wretch, goe chide
Late schoole boyes and sowre prentices
Goe tell court-huntsmen tjat the King will ride
Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clyme
Nor houres, dayes, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beames, so reverend and strong
Why shoulds thou thinke?
I could eclipse them with a winke
But that I would not lose her sight so long:
If her eyes had not blinded thine,
Looke and tomorrow late, tell mee
Whether onth the India’s of spice and Myne
Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with mee.
Aske for those Kings whom thou saw’st yesterday
And thou shalt heare, all here in one bed lay

She is all States, all Princes, I
Nothing else is.
Princes doe but play us; compar’d to this
All honour’s mimique; all wealth alchimie
Thou sunne art halfe as happy as wee
In that the world’s contracted thus;
Thine age askes ese, and since thy duties bee
To warm the world, that’s done in warming us.
Shine here to us and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy centre is, these walls thy spheare

That’s one of the coolest love poems I’ve ever read. If you decipher it, it’s really deep. A bit of brain food for ya ok.

Public service announcement

IS YOUR UNCLE A BEAR?

Call: 0800-BEAR for psychological support and a shotgun.

Cultural Weekend!

Culture. Art. A meeting of some of the most creative minds in our youth today. How could I ever be fooled into thinking Falcon Cultural weekend would have anything to do with the above statements. No matter how much experience I have with such things, my ingenuity always seems to get the best of me. And as always, I’m sorely disappointed.
What should have been an exciting, inspiring, educational weekend turned out to be a let-down. Don’t get me wrong, the weekend was exciting. But more in the “Fear Factor” and “Survivor” sense. Instead of searching for inspiration, we were all searching for bugs in our food. Your reporter was lucky enough to find the leg of a praying mantis in his mashed potato and ants in his strawberry jam. Appetising. But this was all forgotten as the search for drinkable water (or any potable liquids) became our main concern. I mean, I knew that 60% of the world’s potable water problems are in Africa, I just didn’t know they were talking about Falcon alone! We passed many hours in thirst, desperately waiting for the tuckshop to open so we could stock up on warm cokes, our only means of salvation. But this too was a mission since the tuckshop’s open hours changed daily and not a single resident Falcon boy knew at what time it opened. I mean, whilst others are forced to learn the school song and the war-cries and all that “essential” stuff, the answers to life-threatening questions such as these are met with mumbles of “I dunno”.
But I suppose this struggle for survival brought the participants together. No matter what school or what part of the country you came from, the need for food and water drew us together. It was the utopian society that Ngugi spoke of when he said, “…even if a bean should fall to the ground, we will split it amongst ourselves.”

The workshops were interesting to say the least. I took part in the drama workshop. And I prepared a lot for it. I spent the week watching some of the best movies with the most amazing acting seen by man eg Spiceworld to get tips and pointers. I arrived all ready to act my heart out. And that I did. As an elephant! Apparently, acting has become too focused on being good and portraying interesting situations. It’s time to go back to our roots and crawl around with animal masks cawing and coo-cooing and roaring as we once did in kindergarten.
I had the intense pleasure of walking around with a 20 tonne elephant’s mask on and a pillow in my ass (not literally in my ass Julia) and perform a somewhat arousing dance while my castmembers sang “I feel pretty”. Interesting to say the least. Those of you who weren’t there, be glad that you’ll never have to witness such agony in your lives (unless someone forces you to watch Legally Blonde 2 again).
The other workshops produced pretty much the same comments. Except for writing, but no one really cares about writers unless they die in tragic accidents or marry super-celebrities. And I think it’s safe to say those are not likely to happen to our handful of novelists.

So maybe I am being a bit unfair. The weekend wasn’t entirely bad. The best part of the whole experience were the amazing people that were there. There were the CBC guys and…um….yeah, the CBC guys. Kidding! Shout out to all my HIS friends: Yazzi, Lily, Leelolaulela (lali), Pistis and of course, (cue the music) Maria! Maria! Maria! Had a blast with you girls!
Maria, sneaking around, crouching in dark corners, running from security guards and physics classrooms would not have been fun with anybody else. Really miss you.
And now I have school. Merda!