Category: Blog

another one that slipped pass spam-control

From: angela kennedy
Subject: HELLO
My dear, I am miss Melina from Juba, Sudan, single and 19 years old. After accessing your details in the internet site i copied out only your email address. Immediately after going through your information i made up my mind to contact you for long term relationship, and to be my financial manager because you are my choice of trust and i see nothing wrong with the choice that i have made in you. Now that i am in a state of absolute confusion I must let you know that my daddy was the Financial controller to the Common Wealth North African Region.
My parents died during the war in my country and i was able to escape and came to this senegal where my daddy’s money is. I am presently in refugee camp in Senegal. The following information is my purpose of choosing you. Before my daddy died he made me the beneficiary of the amount of 9 Million gbp£ in his account with Islamic Bank in Dakar, Senegal. I arrived Senegal without any pucket money left with me. from the refugee camp i went to Islamic bank and the banker in charge said that because of Senegal bank law that their bank cannot deduct any money from my daddy’s account to give to me until i appoint a foreign partner who will claim and receive the money according to the written agreement that my daddy signed with them. the money is my only hope in life. As soon as Islamic Bank transfers the money into your bank account you will come to senegal and take me to your country. If you cannot come to Senegal you will send down enough money from my money in your account for my journey to meet you in your country airport and you will be at your airport to welcome me.I want you to help me receive the amount and also be my financial and investment manager. i will be very glad to also have a detailed information about you.
Reply me only through my own email address: Melinasalman111@hotmail.com ONLY.
With all my Love
Miss Melina Salmanwith all my love

—–

From: Saaleha Bamjee
Date: 16 Jan 2008 16:49
Subject: re: HELLO
To: Melinasalman111@hotmail.com

My Dear Melina,

Let me start of by saying how pretty and quaint are those little emoticons you’ve included in your email to endear yourself to me.
At 19 and single, you sound like quite a catch. However, I’m straight and some serious commitment issues on my part will not allow for any long-term relationships. My therapist says it’s because I manifest nymphomanic tendencies and being with one person forever scares the f**k out of me (pun intended). The most I can offer you is a facebook friend invite and a good poke now and then.

You’re in a state of absolute confusion? Honey dear, so am I!! You see, my daddy used to be the Chief Treasurer of the Government Bank here in the Republic of Southern Africa. He fled the terrible and evil apartheid regime, and left behind 100million US dollars in a secret bank account in the Cayman Islands that can only be accessed by a Sudanese national who hails from Juba! My daddy’s quite clever and did this so that the 100million US dollars would remain far away from the grubby hands of the evil grubby-handed people he used to call his advisors. I received your email and was immediately concerned as I thought you had somehow found out about my father’s hidden wealth and were trying to swindle me. But I have a knack for reading people’s characters, and I can tell you’re an honest and God-fearing young woman who will prove to be my only hope in life! This is the miracle of Fate and God’s Hand.

We must act swiftly, without a seconds’ hesitance. I’ve not had pucket money for so so long. Send me all your personal details, including your credit card number with its expiry date and CVV number on the back. We require this to verify your identity, and facilitate the process of releasing the 100million US dollars.

I would not recommend you come to our airport as there’s been terrible stories about tourists being hijacked and forced to pledge allegiance to He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, oh what the hell, we call him Zuma. Like that Yahoo! game where the frog shoots coloured balls at other coloured balls, only here the balls are very different.

With all my love,

Saaleha

Capsule Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

I knew that Journalist is a dirty word in Bob’stan.
But surreal, in all the ragged over-use of that word, is the only one that can describe the furtive act of scrawling “Graphic Designer” in the occupation field on the immigration card.

There are other things I learnt in Zim.

  • I found that I could call on the power of GraySkull and prise a lift-door open with my bare hands after a power-cut had me stuck somewhere between the third floor of the hotel and oblivion.
  • You will not find a single coin-operated vending machine anywhere in the country. The Zim$100 000 note is the smallest denomination accepted by Zimbabweans (correct at time of blog). It’s also the first currency I’ve ever seen with an expiry date. The stupid tourist in me was overtaken by the novelty of being given Zim$3.5 million in lieu of ZAR30. But you spend millions in seconds, and all you have to show for it is the corny photograph you took of the notes spilling across your palms.
  • I ate what looked like fish fillets and tomato chutney. I now know that crocodile tastes something like chicken, but not quite.
  • Mosi oa tunya. Indeed it does. And it’s the smoke that leaves you soaked and in awe of the sheer tenacity of water that cleaves through the earth to assert its path.
  • The sunset over the Zambezi is perfect. That’s it. Perfect. Not even a bunch of Indian guys yelling Hindi across international borders to their Babhis over their cellphones could mar the incredible all-encompassing ‘Perfect’ of the moment. And after over-hearing the ‘baw majaa’ comment to Bhabi, I know they thought so too.

Some visuals here.

waxing on tetris world-views and a puddle of snowman

– Plummeting tetrominoes bring to mind a [simplistic] notion that all of Life is falling pieces.
And the business of living is little more than packing those streaming shapes to fit, along with knowing when to leave gaps for the unexpected.
When you’re dealt the I’s and O’s, it’s lull-time into the static of complacency (much like when Life goes according to seeming plan), and it’s only when the S’s and Z’s come down in chunks, that you pull out the strategies and consider contingencies.
And despite Freddy Mercury wanting to, it’s not a game you can play indefinitely.

—

“Frosty the Snowman
Knew the sun was hot that day
So he said let’s run
And we’ll have some fun
Now before I melt away”
It’s one of the saddest songs I know and it speaks to the transient and ephemeral. Google the lyrics and you will find within them the melody of; passion, spirit, the magic of belief, hope and defiance.
If Muslims had wakes, this is the song I’d want them to play.
Yes, I’m cheese&tinsel like that.

testosterone soap opera

It was that of every great narrative, there-in the dichotomies of human experience; good and evil, light and dark, adversity and triumph.

DSC01431
Stories where they threaded; protagonists on the precipice, the victorious who rise from the ashes of their seeming defeat, the underdog, the powerful and arrogant, brothers in arms.
All of whom were smacked by those moments of utter futility, where even the brief marriage of hand on hand could mean the difference between pride and its death, where to grasp the tensile rope for support is to turn the battle on its flank.

DSC01386This is where gods are made and leveled.

DSC01430
DSC01415There was the bitterness of being close enough to take Victory by her shoulder, only to have no witness of referee to your triumph. But as it is in the Great Plot that guides this through, Good will always prevail.
It is with every tale that there are those who are loved beyond fallibility and those who incite the fevered choirs of “You Suck! You Suck!” when they dare to displace heroes.
And as it is with all the stories of our times, there will always be the ebullient adulation of one or a mass who will erupt in the greatness of the moment when the right man holds up the leather and gold, for all to witness, “I am a champion!”

DSC01449

capsule mthatha (a really little pill)

DSC00042
O.R Tambo International Airport – 6.15am.
Take-off for Mthatha in a Jetstream 4100, one of those R/C looking propeller planes.
(Blah photograph but I do like the Munsch-colours. We all begin in blood.)
DSC00099The tallest building in town.
Mthatha
smells like: damp wood.
tastes like: sweet veld grass.
sounds like: unhurried deliberation.
feels like: the place you would go, to listen to the wind.

Those singular moments of plural possibility…

…sometimes visit upon us when we’re at our most unreceptive.

We shall refer to him as Significant-Geek or sg33k for brevity. This is what I call him when I’m trying to be cute or ironic. That or “Hey Pumpkin, you’re Smashing!” Which is as emo as we get.

Sg33k’s an interesting fella. Incredibly talented and hard-working, he’s so focused it makes me sick. Because I’m as batty and scatter-thunk as they come. If I had a second’s worth of his drive, I’d be on book four and a half.

Sg33k’s also a challenge (not challenged. Although when he laughs sometimes, he has that special person look…) And I know that when he reads over that, he’s going to say “bleh”. That’s just the kind of guy he is. A guy who says “bleh” a lot. And a guy who reads blogs. Sometimes this blog. That’s kinda how we met. But I won’t go into that. He’s not into mush and sentiment, but he did get me my very own domain to which I gush, “You had me at www…”.

So as I was saying…
singular moments blah blah
…sometimes visit upon us when we’re at our most unreceptive.

‘Quite smoking dammit’, ‘Get off facebook’, ‘You know, he just may be the One’; those missives hit you like hailstones in the highveld, chipping and denting, indelibly.

It only takes that moment for volumes within you to displace in eureka-fashion, sans, we hope, the running through the streets of Syracuse naked.

I’ve just had that moment.

And it’s terrifying. Because even though the possibilities are vast and unmeasurable, it’s like continental drift. The pieces can go anywhere, but back.

And now I’ve gone and blogged it.

There’s no such thing as The One. But there is The One you choose.

And yeah, I guess I’ve chosen.

Bleh.

this time from Ougadougou

From: mutamuta baruka
Reply to: muta_baruka@yahoo.fr
Date: Mar 27, 2007 12:00 PM
Subject:BUSINESS PARTNER NEEDED

THE DESK OF DR MUTA BARUKA
BILL AND EXCHANGE MANAGER
BANK OF AFRICA.
OUAGADOUGOU,BURKINA FASO.
TOP SECRET

Dear Friend,

I am DR MUTA BARUKA, bill and exchange manager at the foreign remittance department of BANK OF AFRICA. I got your contact from the internet ,while seaching for an honest and trust worthy person, who will assist me to implement this transfer. l discovered the sum of Twenty Two million and five hundred thousand United States Dollars (USD22.5M) belonging to a deceased customer of this bank.

The fund has been lying in a suspence account without anybody coming to put claim over the money since the account owner late Mr Salla khatif from Lebanese , who was involved in the December 25Th 2003 Benin plane crash. Here is the air crash
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/africa/12/26/benin.crash/index.html
The said fund is now ready for transfer to a foriegn account whose owner will be portrayed as the beneficiary and next of kin to the deceased customer of the bank. Since we got information about his death, we have been expecting his next of kin to come over and claim his money because we cannot release it unless somebody applies for it as next of kin or relation to the deceased as indicated in our banking guidlines and laws but unfortunately we learnt that all his supposed next of kin or relation died alongside with him at the plane crash leaving nobody behind for the claim.

It is therefore upon this discovery that I decided to make this business proposal to you and release the money to you as the next of kin or relation to the deceased for safety and subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for it and I don’t want this money to go into the bank treasury as unclaimed bill.

The banking law and guidline here stipulates that if such money remained unclaimed after five years, the money will be transfered into the bank treasury as unclaimed fund. The request of foreigner as next of kin in this business is occassioned by the fact that the customer was a foreigner and a Burkinabe cannot stand as next of kin to a foreigner. I therefore soliciting for your assistance to come forward as the next of kin, I have agreed that 40% of this money will be for you as the beneficiary in respect of the provision of your Account and services rendered, 55% would be for me while 5% will be for expencses incured during the cause of this transaction If the money is transferred to your Account from BANK OF AFRICA, I and my family in this transaction will proceed immediately to your country for our own share of the money.

I expect you to keep this business strictly confidential and secret as you may wish to know that I am Bank official. Be rest assured that this business is 100% riskfree on both side and every arrangement to transfer this money to the Account you are going to provide have been concluded provided we maintain the confidentiality and secreceirity involved.

1.your sex

2.your age

3.occupation

4.your nationality

5.telephone no.

I am looking forward for your prompt response.

Yours faithfully,

DR MUTA BARUKA

—-

From: Saaleha Bamjee
Date: Mar 29, 2007 11:01 AM
Subject: Re: BUSINESS PARTNER NEEDED
To: muta_baruka@yahoo.fr

Dear Mutamuta Baruka,

Your name instills in me the maddening urge to put your moniker to music, something with a spicy-latin beat, like a rumba or a sexy samba. Can you hear my maraca’s baby? – “boom, chicky boom chi, muta-muta, ba-ruka, boom, chicky boom, chi.”

But I digress, I don’t usually get people emailing me when they search the internet for terms such as honest and trustworthy. Certainly not after that misunderstanding with the orphanage lunches and my account at Prada. How much do four-year-olds need to eat anyway?

Anyhoo, the sum of Twenty Two million and Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars (USD22.5M) held in a “suspence” account (i have a suspense account too. my creditors are always wondering when they’ll get paid -grin-) could not have come at a better time.

However, since joining the Church of Former Day Heavenly Goody’s Latter Day Rumble In The Jungle, I’ve learnt the path of selflessness and would prefer that the money be sent to a better cause.

Hence, I attach the details of a noble movement to which I feel all these monies be directed:

The Friends of Jacob Zuma Trust
First National Bank
Durban, South Africa
Branch Code: 221426
Cheque Account number: 62087217818

Thanking you Kindly,

Saaleha Bamjee

capsule roadtrip (mafikeng)

There’s something about a 300km stretch of tar.

Something about the road that pulls at you to start pulling together.

And that’s what happens on the N14 from Krugersdorp, all the way through to Ventersdorp and the R503 pass Coligny and Lichtenburg on the route to Mafikeng.

You pull together.

Just me, Duritz and De La Rocha (who screams in an oracle of irony “Fuck the police” just as I drive pass a hoot of speed cops on the roadside.)

Just me and a long way ahead

The Aveo chews kilometres at a rate she never dreamt when her rubber smacked the streets of the city. But out here, her voice breaks, and she croons like a lounge singer to her audience of enquiring sunflowers who could not tear their faces away.

And while Aveo is seduced by the way she’s been allowed to stretch out on this country route, the mind of a lone driver charts its own course, looking forward, back and where I’m at.

And on that road to Mafikeng, one realises that there’s lots to pull together.

So between the RATM and Counting Crows, old risks are weighed up against each other, their consequences lined up like dominoes arranged to form the face of Elvis.
A finger nudge, tik tik tik tik.
I count the number of times on one hand. I will nudge again.

The edges of some parts of the road looked like they’d been masticated by a tar-monster on a bulimic binge. It was only suddenly, when static washed out Duritz telling me that Richard Manuel is dead, and the rooibos-bred voice on the traffic station floods out my speakers, that I wonder if I entered an alternate dimension when I passed that roadside stall selling “Tamaties!!!”
I drive on with my fingers melted securely to the steering wheel, generating reservations about the innocence of the seed bars I ate earlier. The traffic voice stops its loop about the backup on the N1 and the trouble with the traffic lights near Booysens. Duritz displaces the weird energy left behind by the strange intrusion, “And what brings me down now is love, Cause I can never get enough”. Sing on man. I pull together.

Priced to go…

I park at a garage rest stop where the signs proclaim the toilets to be clean. I order a cup of coffee at the take-away. “Percolated?” they ask which confirm my suspicions that I’d entered into the bizzarro space-time continuum at the padstaal* with the histrionic tomatoes.
“Yah, that’s fine,” I say, hearing the crackly jingle, “Ricoffy, fresh percolated taste” ricochet in my head disturbingly. I wonder when they’ll start calling it filter coffee in these parts.
What I receive tastes like ditchwater that’s been strained through two layers of dirty dishcloths and nuked for good measure.
So much for percolated I think as I empty the blasphemous abomination out onto the lawn. It’s so vile, I forget about any ants encountering the liquid and mutating.

And I’m on the road again, carding my thoughts, making neat piles of things as I pass a small dam, its water reflecting scatters of the sun, so pretty and sparkly.

The drive is longer still and I start thinking about the people in my life especially the one whose eyes crinkle up at the corners when they smile and the thought of whom leaves me with a warmth and tenderness I can not title.

I pull together until the sign ahead reads Mafikeng.
The woman at the guest house offers to take me to the halaal steers. Those questionable seed bars ingested earlier were about as substantial as eating clouds.
She can see I’m hungry enough to devour anything in an unladylike manner.

Every sentence out of her fastens to a close with a ribbon of “mm” or “aah”. The next day I find this to be a general idiosyncrasy of towns inhabitants. It’s such a distinctive “mm” conveying agreement and consideration in just that one sound, Mmabatho*.

In the afternoon I pensivate my route back to the city.

There’s just something about a 300km stretch of tar.
It pulls at you to pull together.

—

*tomatoes
*roadside stall
*an area part of Mafikeng.

Just for you Aadi

Even skeletons need to be dusted off from their cupboard shelves and taken out for a walk sometimes.

And the company along the way is always appreciated.

‘Coz those bones get too heavy for just one person to hold.

And rather two people looking the fool walking around a park with their arms full of vertebrae, fibulae and tarsals, than one silly girl who’s a banana slice short of a fruit-salad.