Will the Brit in Britain please stand up?

25.  I have met some interesting people since landing on the island. Just this weekend we met an Irish gypsy. We were on a train to Kensington Gardens to meet a long-time SA school friend and visit the Diana Memorial Children’s playground. The gypsy guy was very kind to let my son take his seat next to the window on the train. He had a few teeth and a couple of these were gold, but otherwise from outward appearance you wouldn’t have pegged him as a traveller. Until he told us. “I’s an Irish gypo,” he said. He then pointed at our children and asked; “Is this all ya kids?” We figured the one screeching and jumping on the seat like a banshee and the other trying to climb out of the window were more than enough. We were wrong. “Seven I’s got. Me and the missus ‘ave been married for 15 years.” They’ve virtually had a child every two years for 15 years. Respect. I can’t stop bragging that I’ve sired two human beings. Via C-sections noggal. I’ll bet the gypos don’t do Caesars. They’re way too hard-core.

I was devastated when he got off at the next stop. I wanted to ask him where his kids were. About the gypsy weddings, Holy Communions and prom dances. I wanted to know where gypsies get the cash to afford all that bling and finery if they don’t have a regular job? Why don’t they spend all that cash on a house or a car? Why do they have to use horses? Do they treat their horses well? What’s up with all the grill-work and fake tan? So many questions. So little time. My husband joked that I should’ve asked for his number. I agreed. I wasn’t joking though. 

I was invited to a mum’s coffee morning last week. I nearly wept with joy at the gesture of friendship and then I nearly wept with fear that I’d scare the bejesus out of them and they’d never invite me again. It was ok. I think. I tried not to talk too much. But for me that’s the equivalent of being a wino at a wine farm. Restraint and discretion have never been my strong points. We spent a lot of time talking about the Oscar Pistorius case. Not by my initiation. I’d rather gargle paint thinners. But there’s genuine mystification by the media-savvy public at large here that he’s allowed to continue his life as normal. I explained that’s just the way it works in South Africa. Most public figures have had some brush with the law. Murder, fraud, corruption, or a combination thereof. Oscar’s no different. Well he is different. He’s an amputee and has to put legs on. But he can still shoot someone. Legless or not. So not that different. 

To move the focus off Oscar and in the spirit of sharing which is something we Saffas do… I lifted my leg on to the table and rolled up my jeanpant. I then tried to pass off the scar of the teen tattoo that my father-in-law surgically removed from my ankle as a Great White shark bite. I had them all but convinced until my plot started to resemble the opening scenes of Jaws. Midnight swim in the ocean turns into carnage. Except I wasn’t pulled to pieces, just nibbled. Eventually I had to confess the far less interesting truth that 14 years ago I was in Soho in Londontown. I was young, slightly tipsy and in love and a tattoo seemed like a good idea at the time. Not so much in the sober light of day. We’ve all been there. Done that. Not necessarily with the ink to prove it. But probably close. I think I should’ve stuck to the Jaws sub-plot. Or maybe a stabbing? Clearly I’ll have to work on this. In the group, I met a mum who’s Irish, married to a Mauritian man and they have two children. She explained how on a trip to Mauritius to visit her husband’s family they were stopped in a roadblock where the police assumed that her husband was her driver. The fact that a white Irish lady would be married to local man of colour wasn’t very plausible to the Mauritian coppers. She described the traffic as chaotic; no one obeyed the rules of the road. And there were animals - goats and cows and the like - lurking all over the place. Heart of Darkness indeed! Only I could relate. Except hearing about racial stereotyping, roadblocks, traffic carnage and animals on the roads made me so homesick. I couldn't feign shock and horror. I couldn't be derisive. I could only be proud. In a weirdly nostalgic way.

Our neighbour is a lovely German lady. She’s married to a Cameroonian man and they have three children. My son enjoys playing with a boy at school who’s Portuguese. He’s equally as fond of a chap in his class named Nigel whose family originally hails from Jamaica. I’ve met a Polish mum who’s been in the UK for over 10 years and a German mum who’s married to an Albanian man who came to Britain as a refugee. The man who owns the local newsagents is from India. The private dentist up the road is South African.

I have met some interesting people since landing on the island. And you know the funniest thing? None of them are British.

The Union Jack (British) or Jacek (Polish), Johannes (German) or Jakov (Albanian). This flag should really be re-named the Union of Jacks from all Nations. #Just Saying.