DUGANAFI GAENANA FALAEH

Thursday, 23 December 2010 19:08

In this edition of Duganafi Gaenana Falaeh, Mr. Peters harps on his biggest Christmas present ever, taking a tumble, a case of impolite politeness, talks down Boris bikes, ‘Gamblish,’ his loathe for teenagers, a hilarious phone conversation and...Hahatai.


Thank you all...

We are in the season of goodwill and I just want to share with you all my biggest Christmas present ever: the un-caging of my dad after eight months in the slammer.
I did a video interview with Amnesty International to this effect and described  my feelings on the biggest good news I received in a while.
Phoning up one’s dad or vice versa is nothing special. But after what I and my family were put through the last eight months, getting a call from my dad has never been more special.
I want to thank all who had been there for me and my family, turned up for demos and helped me through one of the darkest periods of my life.
There aren’t enough Microsoft pages on my lap top to name you all but you know who you are and I’m forever indebted to you.
This thirty year old kid is oh so grateful.

Watch Femi Peters statement on AMnesty International Video here

A long fall...
Readers, if you are over six foot tall, please avoid a tumble.I write from personal experience.
Three weeks ago, I did an interview with Voice of America about my dad’s situation and the violation of human rights around the globe. Their offices are located on Fleet Street and I  was in the area with time to kill for the 3.00pm appointment and thus wandered into a Waterstones store. It’s that time of year when loads of things are half price and I reckon I could get good deals for less.
There was I, listening to music, clutching a Patricia Cornwell novel and glad to be in briefly from the cold and perusing through the paperbacks on offer and elated with the prices. This must be the reason I miscounted the steps down. One moment, I was doing a quick math in my head on how much I got in my account to buy a few books and the next I was descending like an anchor chucked into the deep seas and landed heavily on my left knee. The resounding noise would have woken the dead and had the floor being concrete, I would have gotten crutches for Christmas. Suddenly, fellow shoppers who I presume didnt know I was in the shop rushed over to help me back on my feet.
‘I’m sorry,’ I stuttered. I was never this embarassed before.
Infact, so embarrassed was I I purchased the latest Jeffery Deaver novel, Edge, for £13.99 when I could have gotten it £9.49 on Amazon.
Fallen pride, literally, it seems, can make you reach for your debit card when you don’t have to.

Tit for tat...
I dont know for you but this is what I find excruciatingly irritating: a Manchester United win and someone being rude to you for no reason.
The other day, I was at work munching peanuts as I went through a John Grisham novel. Life offers some pleasures and reading a Grisham novel with the heater on is one of them.
So there I was, thinking life couldn’t get any better when a guy walked in and asked for a co worker of mine.
‘He’s not in, sir,’ I said, half rising, trying to look and be helpful. ‘What’s your name?’
Now, anyone with half an ounce of grey matter would know why I wanted the man’s name. It is to tell my co worker that so and so dropped by, obviously. ‘What’s your name’ is the new ‘can I take a message?’
Well, either the man didn’t like the way I was doing justice to the peanuts or the fact that he came in from the cold as he said gruffly, ‘it’s not your business’ and slightly slammed the door on his way out. For good measure.
Suffice to say, I was stunned. What did he think I needed his name for? Siphone funds from his savings account?
I shrugged it off but didn’t forget. He must have forgotten as weeks later, he came back. It so happened my co worker was out again.
He half beamed a smile and stated his case.
I stood up, emptied my pockets, checked the soles of my shoes, checked my phones, lightly shook a copy of Metro on the table, peeked under the table, lifted my Chelsea mug and checked underneath it.
With the straightest of faces, I looked at him and said, ‘I’m afraid he’s not in, sir.’
If glares would kill, you lot won’t be reading this.

London ain’t cycle friendly
Mayor Boris Johnson is doing his bit to ‘Amsterdamise’ the capital by teaming up with Barclays Bank and  flooding London with bikes called Barclays Cycle Hire or Boris Bikes as it is affectionately dubbed.
Since it kicked off in July, 60, 000 Londoners havde signed up for the scheme and 15, 000 Boris Bikes journeys are made each day from the 335 docking stations around the capital. £1.00 gets you through the day and £40 will do for the year
I can see where Boris is going with this but trying to make London the UK’s answer to Amsterdam is stretching it a bit.
I’m a Londoner and I commute daily on public transport. I can state for free London is not a bike friendly city. In 2008, 83 cyclists were killed on our roads. I once thought of investing in a bike and stick two fingers up Transport For London but opted to pay what TFL demanded than end up sprawled on the tarmac under some truck. Two World Cups ago, I had a rickety bike a pal gave me nicked on a sweltering June afternoon as we watched England play Paraguay. I did gave chase but the small time thief had like 70 yards on me so it was a no contest. I was spitting feathers. Looking back now, that oaf did me a favour.
I applaud Londoners using the bike scheme but like I tell anyone who listens: I don’t know how I’m going to go but it sure won’t be self-inflicted.

Gamblish.
Ex-Liverpool and newly sacked Inter Milan manager Rafael Benitez was once said to speak ‘Spanglish’ by the media when he first came to these shores in 2004. I have never listened to the Spanglish he was said to spew but I do know of a language called Gamblish. Any Gambian worth his or her salt, however articulate or eloquent has sometime in his or her life dabbled in Gamblish. For non-Jollofians, Gamblish is short for Gambian English in which the original words are meant to mean an entirely different thing altogether.
And, I must add, it works a treat.
You only know the hilarity of the butchered language when you  travel abroad, haven’t rocked a word of Gamblish in years and hey presto!, someone drops a word and you nearly guffawed your way to an early grave.
A relative of mine who lives in Sweden told me how a friend of his, with a dark sense of humour, looked at another Gambian friend of his and told him, ‘if you drop dead here, I will not full up to send you home!’
The key word, readers, is full up which in Gamblish speak translates as to contribute.
We all know what stress is but in Gamblish, it meants to act hard.
A friend told of a lady being given a lift from an event and told the guy driving, ‘after the turn table, turn right.’ A roundabout passes off as turn table in Gamblish. I laughed so hard I regurgitated the the liver stew I ate  earlier.
You would be forgiven to think ‘ten minutes to play’ means ten minutes to kick off. It aint. It means ten  minutes to full time. Once, for the hell of it, I told my partner Disney the house cat needs to be mounted to make her move out of the way faster as she almost tripped me up. She looked at me weirdly and replied, ‘don’t  say that!’ I hasten to add that mount means to kick at someone or something.
Lip curling how we were coming from different directions over one word...meant differently.
Grrr!
I hate teenagers. God, I do. They are the most callous beings on planet earth. As far as they are concerned, everything revolves around them. They don’t give a toss how loud they are on public transport and think nothing of playing their music with no headphones on. I try to avoid the back upper seats of buses after school hours as these despicable lot make it their ‘zone.’ When I wait for my bus alongside them, I try to look as menacing as possible, which must be hilarious as there is no way you  can cut an intimidating figure when you reading a book, no matter your height or size. I still give it a go, thought. If I could, the whole selfish bunch would be dumped on the Sahara to fend for themselves.
That was how I use to feel until...I visited my sister and we were going through her wedding albums back in 1998 when I did a double take.
Among those who parked Friendship Hostel that day, one suited guy in glasses stood out. While everybody looked like they are at a wedding, this suited guy sat with his hands folded, as if the world owe him an apology.
That guy was me.
As I went through the album, all the photos of me taken translates as me wanting to be elsewhere but there.
For the life of me, I can’t remember why I was acting ‘hard’ for and what really was my problem. If I wasn’t me, I would have denfinitely approached me and asked if all was okay? Aren’t you happy to see your sister tying the knot?
I concluded teenage years are a period in your life when you feel the world and his dog are against you.
Since those photos, I’ve eased off thoughts of bundling teenagers to the desert.
A lifetime ago, I was one of them.

Comedy phone.
The other day, I was on the bus reading a James Patterson novel. One thing I like about his novels are the chapters are never more than four pages so you can knock off a chapter easily, get off your stop, wait for your next bus and start a fresh chapter.
On this particular day, my mobile died on me so I didn’t have music to drown out unwanted cacophonies from fellow commuters. It turned out there was nothing to drown out as almost all the commuters were either reading or sitting quietly, staring ahead, a million things spinning between their ears, probably.
Or so I thought until another commuter  got on. I didn’t have to look up to tell  she was a I-don’t-care teenager as she had all the attributes: talking on her mobile as if she was in her bedroom.
I groaned inwardly.
Now, I’m going to have a voice over to go with my reading, another of life’s irritating bits.
I had no choice but to pretend to read whilst being forced to listen to a one sided phone conversation.
As I listened, I realised this teen’s conversation was hinged with the same words at the beginning of every sentence over and over again.
‘This is me, yeah, are you going to Bev’s birthday bash? This is him yeah, nah, we aint cool like that. This is me yeah, like, I thought you two were going out? This is him yeah, nah, we were close but not an item. This is me yeah, so what’s the problem then? This is him yeah, we just aint cool, you get me? This is me yeah, man up, man. This is him yeah shut up, man...’
I tell you, I spent the whole journey aching not to laugh.
I’ve seen it all now. Not only did a commuter mess up with my reading, she made my day for it.

Merry Christmas to you
I already had my Christmas present fifteen days early. I don’t know how many Christmases I will witness but topping this year’s present would take some doing.
Other than a smoker’s cough, which is funny as I’m not a nicotine addict, I’ll be okay for the big day, spending it with family. I hope you get all you want for Chrismas, stuff yourselves with Christmas dinner with all the trimmings and let yourselves go over the bank holidays.
I plan to do just that myself.
Oh yeah, the cold has kicked in so was wondering if you see a ray of sunshine wondering about, you can always throw it my way...

Hahatai...
Saw this in the letters page of the Metro: ‘How did people in 500BC knew it was 500BC?’

And to prove Brits also have a wry sense of humour, a section of St Andrews, that’s Birmingham City’s ground, broke out in song, ‘you don’t know what you are doing’ at a recent home game I saw on Match of the Day.
The cause?
A fellow fan proposed to his girlfriend on the pitch.
It had a happy ending as she accepted.
As for those fans...