I had an assignment in my English class a while ago to write a small story. The theme was “hope”. Me and a friend decided to write stories that are kind of intertwined since mine is about a character named “Khalid”, and his is about a character named “Sermon” who meets my character Khalid (my friend’s story takes place a few years after mine). There are a lot of in-jokes (for instance, my nick-name is “Hamdo” and that name is used in the story but obviously it’s not me in the story) but I still think it’s funny and I thought I’d share it with you all. By the way, my friend is from eastern Africa which explains why the story takes place in that region.
The eighties were a crazy time. I remember the feeling of optimism that you could sense, walking down the streets of Sloboda, the capital of Koatoka. Our small, but proud, province in the southeast of Ethiopia had just recently been granted autonomy and after years of oppression at the hands of the evil Ethiopian ruler Gebrewaldo who oppressed all minorities in his land, we finally had an autonomous Koatoka. We, the Koato people, were a minority scattered throughout several east African countries. But a leader named Hamdo rised up from the ranks of our people and with the help of the international community, with Communist Yugoslavia taking a leading role, we managed to gain autonomy. We renamed our capital “Sloboda” (meaning “freedom” in the Slavic languages) as an homage to the Yugoslavs that fought for our rights. This was a great step for us but the struggle was still to continue, since there were still other Koato communities in other parts of Ethiopia and beyond that had yet to come as far as we had. The Koato community in Eritrea, for instance, were still treated as second class citizens. However, I had heard of a mighty leader called Dermas IV, rising up and trying to organize the Koato people of Eritrea, inspired by our leader Hamdo. Both Dermas and Hamdo were educated in Sweden, which automatically gained them respect amongst their friends and foes alike.
Even though I was saddened by what happened to other fellow Koatos in the region, nothing seemed to be able to take away the intense feeling of happines, and above all optimism, that I felt after Koatoka gained its status of autonomy. It was truly a huge step for us. And it was with this feeling of happines and optimism that I, Khalid, decided to pursue my dream.
You see, ever since I was a kid I had a desire to become an entertainer. In fact, I come from a family of entertainers. My father was a skilled tap dancer whose fame reached all the way to Kenya, and my grandfather was the most famous singer in all of Koatoka. He was even offered a chance to go to Egypt and perform, but since travelling was hard and dangerous back then (several of his uncles had died of snake bites whilst on journeys), he decided to stay put. This was something he later regretted until the day he died.
As for me, my dream was to become a comedian. Living under the oppressive Gebrewaldo was hard, but my stories about a character I had come up with called “Fle-Fle” always seemed to cheer up the people of my village (a suburb of Sloboda). Ah, I almost start laughing myself just thinking about the absurd scenarios I came up with for Fle-Fle. Once, I came up with a story where Fle-Fle accidentally cooked and ate a rooster that turned out to be the best trained cock fighter in all of eastern Africa, belonging to his brother-in-law. The people of my village have never laughed as hard as they did the day I told them about Fle-Fle’s crazy attempts to try and cover up what he had done. I think the laughter could be heard all the way to our neighboring village when I came to the part where Fle-Fle even accused the President of Benin, who was on a formal visit to Fle-Fles home town at the time, of eating it up. After that story, even the mention of my name would make people smile. The best part is that the story was completely improvised. I’ve always refused to repeat the story since I’m afraid that I won’t be able to tell it with the same passion and skill I did that day, so I prefer that the legend of “Fle-Fle and the rooster” remains one for the ages, untainted by a failed attempt to re-tell it.
My dream had always been to go to America to try and make it in show business. But the evil Gebrewaldo didn’t let us Koatos leave our province at all, so I couldn’t do anything about my dream. That didn’t stop me from keeping the hope alive, though. I had an Ethiopian friend in a nearby Ethiopian town (who wasn’t Koato, so we had to keep our friendship a secret from the authorities) who had a TV and a satellite dish which enabled him to watch American television. We used to watch Saturday Night Live and my dream was to appear on that show some some day. So when we finally got autonomy and the law about leaving the province was changed, I decided to pack my bags and go to America. I will never forget the day of departure. My father had gotten sick and he was on his death bed with only days left to live, so I decided to cancel my trip. But my father, still in his bed, grabbed me by the ear and demanded that I go, for his sake. He told me about his own father’s life long regret about not going to Egypt and said that I should go to America now when I had the chance and that if I made it, it would not only be a great achievement for me personally, but also for him, his father and the entire Koato people. So with tears in my eyes, knowing that this would be the last time I would ever see my father, I sat in the Fiat that the entire village had bought for me for this occasion as a sign of support and love, and drove off to Sudan where a Somali politican living in exile smuggled me into Egypt (I later found out that there was no need for me to be smuggled in since I could’ve just entered the country freely, but I had been misinformed by my uncle). Again, the people of my village chipped in for the bribe I had to give to the Somali man for his help. I then took a plane to New York from an airport in Cairo. When I arrived in New York, I knew that I had made a mistake. Even though I knew the language (since English was one of the official languages of Koatoka), I felt like a fish out of water. Everything seemed to happen in “fast forward” in New York and I couldn’t keep up.
I stayed with a friend of my father. They had gotten to know each other at an international tap dance convention in Addis Abeba (which my father had to sneak in to, since he wasn’t allowed to leave Koatoka) and he let me stay in his apartment in Brooklyn as a favour to my father. His name was Pointdexter but he demanded that I call him Dex. Dex was once a very talented tap dancer who was about to get a big breakthrough and even appeared on the Tonight Show. He got an offer to have his own special on NBC when his greatest rival called Red Ricardo shot him in the knee. He fell into a depression for 6 months and started taking drugs. That’s when his family decided to make an intervention and they did everything they could to help him. After a short stint in rehab he managed to pull himself together and he has been working as a motivational speaker ever since, speaking at colleges and high schools. He used his connections in show business to get me 15 minutes in a popular New York comedy club. I wrote my material and tried to prepare myself the best I could. But a week before I was to perform, I panicked. I was convinced that I was going to fail. Dex, knowing that my fathers dying wish was for his son to make it, decided to help me out. He went to a comedian he had gotten to know in rehab, a really talented and funny comedian originally from Russia called Valodja. But this guy was hooked on drugs and they had taken over his life, so he never became succesful. However, after coming out of rehab he decided to pull himself together and he wrote a great stand-up routine filled with original jokes. He never got a chance to do something of this material since he fell into a relapse, so Dex went to him and bought the material from him for 100$. He made him promise to not use the money for drugs, which Valodja then did (deep down Dex knew that Valodja would use the money for drugs, but he felt that he had to help me out).
So, I went to the comedy club and used Valodja’s material. The crowd loved it and a writer for Saturday Night Live was in the audience that particular night. He loved my stand up routine so much that he decided to bring me on the show to perform that same act. I was thrilled and called back to my family. I got the news that my father had passed away and I was devestated. A deep sense of shame overcame me. I felt like I had betrayed my father and my people, since I got the offer to appear on Saturday Night Live because of another guys material and not because of my own talent and skill. Not only that, I had made Dex go against his principles when he basically sponsored a junkie’s drug addiction just so I wouldn’t fail. So when it was time for me to perform, I decided to do my own material that I had written earlier, even though they thought that I was going to do the same act I did at the comedy club, the same act that had gotten me the gig on the show. But I had to redeem myself and clear my conscience.
When it was time for me to enter the stage, I darn near panicked again. My legs were shaking and the sight of the audience and cameras was almost to much to handle. But this was my dream and I had to seize the opportunity. So I started doing my material. The first joke was an observation about village life in Koatoka, which was so funny to my friends back home that they cried out of laughter when they heard it. They said that I articulate exactly what people think. The New York audience, however, weren’t amused. Some were confused and stared at each other in disbelief, others seemed annoyed. No one laughed. The writer that had gotten me the gig looked like he was going to have a heart attack behind the curtain, I think he was afraid of loosing his job. I continued with my other jokes and still no one laughed. That’s when I realized that something drastic needed to be done. I dropped my routine and did what I never thought I would do, I telled the story about Fle-Fle and the rooster, for a second time. No one laughed. But I didn’t care. I continued. I was determined to finish my story. As I was about to finish, the audience started to boo and I was dragged of the stage and kicked out of the studio. Walking back to Dex’s apartment I still felt a sense of pride that I, a Koato, had managed to appear on Saturday Night Live against all odds sharing Koato humour. Later that week, the writer that had gotten me the spot on the show got fired and it was revealed that my routine in the comedy club was plagiarised after a tabloid newspaper got the story from Valodja, who used the money he got from revealing this, on drugs. Because of a misunderstanding of what I said about the president of Benin in my Fle-Fle story (caused by my poor re-telling of it), a New York Times article even refered to me as a racist.
I was devestated and couldn’t even look Dex in the eyes, after what happened. I went to Valodja, not angry about what he had said to the tabloids because I knew it wasn’t because of me but because he needed money for the drugs, and he offered that I stay with him as compensation for what he had done. I started taking drugs and got hooked. Soon, the drugs took over my life and I became like Valodja. By then, Dex had figured out where I was and he forced me into rehab. After a few months there, I recovered and he sent me back home to Koatoka. He put me on a plane to Egypt and told my uncle to come and pick me up. I couldn’t face my family, so I decided to commit suicide on the plane. But since my name is Khalid, the staff on the plane already had their eyes on me and wouldn’t let me leave my seat, since they thought I might be a terrorist. So I arrived in Cairo and there was my uncle. He took me back to Koatoka in the same Fiat that I had used when leaving home, and I was expecting the worst.
When we finally arrived in Sloboda, I saw a sight I will never forget. The streets were filled with people that had gathered to greet me. They cheered and some even cried out of joy. Even our leader Hamdo was there. They had an enormous picture of me on our tallest building and they had fireworks, music, you name it. My uncle explained to me that while I was in New York, Hamdo had heard that I was to appear on Saturday Night Live, and he decided to organize a live screening of my appearance, using satellite transmission and the best technology available in eastern Africa. People from all over Koatoka gathered in Sloboda and they laughed so hard when they saw my appearance that they couldn’t hear the reaction of the New York audience and they assumed that they found it as funny as they had. They loved my observations about everyday life in the village and found it spot on. But when the time came for me to tell my “Fle-Fle and the rooster” story, they couldn’t believe it and chaos broke out. They started screaming and going berserk out of joy, so much so that they, by their jumping and pushing, managed to accidentaly destroy the great screen that was put up on the town square. So they missed the story and didn’t see me getting booed and dragged of the stage. Now, when I had returned to our homeland, they demanded that I tell the story again…
Epilogue
New generations of Koato boys and girls travel to Sloboda to this day to hear my story about Fle-Fle and the rooster. Not only do they come from other cities of Koatoka, they come from Eritrea, from Somalia and other places were Koato people live. It instils pride in our people, and a sense of hope. Hope that dreams may some day come true and that the Koato people may some day make their collective dream a reality.
I haven’t included the pictures I added to my story that showed how the characters and locations in the story supposedly looked. I’ll just show some examples (this is obviously all fake, these are all real persons/places that I just randomly picked for fun):
1 Comment
November 26, 2007 at 1:56 pm
[...] attempts at comedy (this time, a school assignment, so not a complete waste of time), you can read this old [...]