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Duganafi Gaenana Falaeh With Femi Peters Jr. (Chelsea)
Saturday, 04 September 2010 21:27
In this edition of Duganafi Gaenana Falaeh, Mr. Peters kicks Muslim-phobia to touch, encounters toilet trouble, tells
off TFL, questions his human feelings, wants a Ferrari, talks of superstition and…Hahatai. Please read on…Enough is enough!
I don’t know for you but this is how I grew up: I was born in a country made up of 90% Muslims, went to Catholic nursery, primary, middle and
high schools, had a Muslim for a best friend, had Muslims for friends, hung out with them, ate at their homes, hung around during Ramadan evenings, was ever-present during Tobaski, dated their sisters and daughters and hung out with them after school and after work.What I’m trying to say is I’m sick to the finger tips of stomaching Muslim-bashing. I know these people like I know myself. If the Brits are the most charitable people on earth, Muslims are the most generous lot I have come across.
Sadly, some people in the West have a twisted opinion.
I remember an old flame’s sister categorically stating she can’t stand Muslims and my old flame sarcastically putting it, ‘and they are all called Muhammed!’
Looking back, I think my outburst didn’t help our months old relationship. No regrets harboured.
This week, a Nigerian pal of mine took Muslim-mashing to new heights.
The dolt argued, vehemently I must add, that non-Muslims are discriminated against in The Gambia!
I want to believe if a photo was snapped of me at that moment, my jaw would have been next to my Nike trainers.
When I made it clear I never experienced such growing up, he was adamant that it happens in rural areas.
The same rural areas where palm-wine tapping and pig-rearing Manjago and Jola farmers co-habit side by side with their Muslim brothers and sisters.
As I write this, I can’t help but picture in my minds eye King Fahd Mosque and Holy Spirit Church facing each other on Box Bar Road in Banjul north. If that is not two faiths co-habiting in tranquillity, name a place and time and I’m available to be dipped in a barrel of boiling tar. Feet first. Slowly.
What was sad was the guy believed the brown stuff passing for words emitting from his gob, no doubt spoon-fed by the media and I couldn’t make him see things any different.
I might have gone down that same path had I not grew up how I did. In every lot, there are a few bad eggs and Muslims are no different. Generalizing a whole lot thanks to a bad few is insane. Case in point, the two times I have encountered racism were by English men but would I be right to tag all the inhabitants of this island xenophobic? All the Chelsea games I have watched live were actualized by an English couple, Jayne and Maurice Herring. They didn’t know me from Adam but they chose to make me live me a dream. Racists? Give me a break!
For what it is worth, all old Aku women are racists. Does that make me racist? Well, considering my favourite tribe are the Wollofs, draw your own conclusion.
The sooner we all get it in that we live in a world where there is a bad lot among any lot, including Muslims, the better.
I want no lawsuit, thank you very much!
The other day, I was caught short and made my way to a public toilet. As I passed the women’s loo, I heard someone call out, ‘hello?’ Naturally, I crudely concluded some very unlady-like lady was taking a dump or a leak and yammering away on her phone. I emptied the burden in my bladder, relieved as I washed my hands. Fellas, there is nothing much pressing, literally, than a bladderful wanting out.
There I was, using the dryer, happy that I can continue with my reading on the bus in comfort when I heard a voice called out, ‘didn’t you hear me say hello?’
I turned and there was a lady looking daggers like me like I just told her I eat newly born babies for breakfast.
‘Sorry?’ I asked, puzzled.
‘Well, I was stuck in the loo and couldn’t get out. I had to jump over the door,’ she spat at me, like it was my fault.
‘Of course, I heard you but I thought you were on your phone,’ I replied and she blew out her cheeks, which I translated as ‘how thick can you get?’
That riled me a bit and I told her, ‘if you had shouted help rather than hello, things might have been different. Would you have understood if you had turned out to be on your phone and find a guy twice your size in the women’s toilet with you whose only error was mistaking your hello for help?’
She had no come back for that and I told her what I told a woman who glared at me when all I did was pick up her credit card from the floor at the queue in Tesco.
‘No good deed goes unpunished, love’ and added, ‘there are a lot of things I want at this moment but a lawsuit for alleged rape and my name on the sex offenders register are not on my to-acquire list.’ And I did what I so loathe people doing to me: saying sorry when I was far from it.
Which was called for, under the, er, toilet circumstances.
Shame on you, TFL!
Last weekend, I lost my Oyster card on the bus. It had a week’s worth of travel on it and I was gutted. I had to fork out almost £20.00 to get another and added a week’s travel on it. I did so as, having registered the lost Oyster card, I was sure Transport For London would refund me the travel time on it. Hence the reason I called up the talk time-guzzling 0845 number.
Tells you how much I know.
The posh-sounding lady at the other end of the phone took down all my details only for her to tell me I won’t be refunded of the travel time on the lost card as, according to her, by the time they would have gotten back to me, it would have gone past a week.
What was the point of registering the oyster then, I asked her, stunned.
She mumbled some claptrap about TLF procedure and added she could put it through for me but there are no guarantees I will get my lost travel time back.
I thanked her and hung up, spitting feathers that my talk time was low and my problem unsolved.
Rather than register the new card I bought, I chose not to and tore up the form as I know what lies in wait should I lose it again.
TFL, a company that puts up its travel prices yearly, clearly has no refund policy for its weekly top up customers.
Pity they are my only way of getting around London so not giving them my details on my new Oyster card is the only way I could stand up to them.
Shame on you, non-refunding bullies!
Time to reflect…
Two columns, I harped on un-neighbourliness and how I up to my ears in it.
On Bank holiday Monday, I answered a knock on the door and standing there was an old woman heavily attired despite the Banjul weather in London that day.
In an Irish twang, she told me she lives next door and wanted someone to look out for her while she takes a bath.
I could have done it were she a man so I told her no one was home at the moment to help her out but as soon as one was in, I would let them know.
That was the first time I had clapped eyes on her and it turned out to be the last time. She passed away three days later.
It hit my household hard. Even Disney, the house cat, was acting weird and chose not to come in for her meal and passed the night in the garden. I figured she somehow knew the days of scaling the fence and getting fed by the old lady are no more. Despite everybody saddened by the loss of life next door, I couldn’t really blend in with them. Don’t get me wrong, I do feel the passing of any being but, because I never knew her, I couldn’t be, to put it, all over the place over it. Her passing thought me what I already knew but brought it to a sharper focus: being un-neighbourly is not washing.
I’m seriously contemplating doing a barbeque, knock on people’s doors and invite them over for a get-to-know-you session. Not only will I get to know what they look like but I will get to know their names and surnames, what they do and what type of books and music they into.
Getting a barbeque going is no big deal. Knocking on someone’s door and telling them, ‘hi, I’m Femi Peters from flat 4. We are doing a barbeque. Fancy joining us? What was your name again?’ is the bigger deal.
I need a new heart to plunge into that one, I’m afraid. Maybe a few beers might help.
Pity I don’t drink.
We need more Ferrari’s over here!
No, I’ve not gone to the dealership, to paraphrase the Yanks, to get a Ferrari only to learn there are none in the UK .
If I get to the position to be able to whip out a chequebook and purchase a Ferrari, I promise I will give the few readers of this drivel that disguises as a column a ride down the M25.
I’m on about US judge Gary Ferrari who, like the car that bears his surname, is never slow to get to one spot from another. In his case, to be accurate, never slow in dishing out justice at its best.
Knife attacker Charles Proctor had the misfortune of being arraigned before the by-the-book judge for preying on women. He was jailed for 433 years plus 11 life sentences which is believed to be the longest jail term ever. With the average life term wrapping up at 70 years, 45 year old Proctor faces 1, 203 years as state property. Or, if you reach for your calculator like I did, Proctor has to live and die and live and die seventeen times to wrap up the time.
‘You are a violent and dangerous human being. I can say absolutely you deserve each of these 433 years,’ Judge Ferrari told him at a court in Long Beach , California .
I love it when judges give out life but hide it behind donkey years. Bernard Maddof comes to mind. Now all we need are more Ferrari’s helming UK courts and issuing out Ferrari-esque time and, suddenly, we would have a tamer, tolerant society. That I can guarantee you like I can guarantee you president Jammeh will win next year’s elections even if he chose not to run.
And we all know how.
Superstition? A dogged habit, more like.
A few columns ago, I laid bare my weird superstitious ways. One of which include sitting in the same seat in church for the past 6 years.
That had to change two Sundays ago when the reverend asked me to sit in the front pew and handle the remote control for the two church screens from which the congregation could follow the service. I protested I’ve been sitting in the same place for years and if I change, something might go wrong!
Like what, she wondered.
I shrugged. As a District Church Council member, it won’t be a good look to fail to assist in church duties simply because I got odd superstitious ways.
I did sit in the front pew and the service went well. Nothing went wrong. I didn’t get run over by a bus, lost my wallet or get mugged.
I thought of shaking all my superstitious ways but couldn’t. Come next Sunday, I was back in my favourite seat, reading my novel before the service and leaving by the side gate.
Old habits die hard.
Hahatai…
Now, this is a family-friendly media outlet so the joke I’m going to tell you, its key word would be blotted out and you won’t get it if you aren’t versed in Wollof. Feel free to email me if you want a full version of it.
My dad told me how he was taking my baby brother to school when they came across a friend of his.
‘This boy disrespected my mother yesterday,’ he told my dad. With back-up solidified, he told the boy, ‘Man tamit, dama **** sa ndeye!’
Apologies if you found the gag distasteful but I just couldn’t resist sharing it.
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