"Rode, Linda - I, A Living Arrow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rode Linda)the string of letters in the silver, do I believe him. I don't tell Dad.
I am seventeen. She stands at the bicycle rack. I know she's just a goose. Her brown hair is curly. The wind blows it into her eyes, her mouth. She pushes it behind her ear. Her nails are long. She folds her arms tightly around her breasts. She laughs about something that an- other girl has said. It's just a goose, but my legs are wobbly. "Do you want to go to the drive-in tonight? I can get my dad's Cortina." She swings her head in my direction. Her eyes widen. They are blue. "I don't think my dad will say yes. My mom and the rest are watch- ing Dallas tonight and I've got to get the kids to bed for them, etcetera." Someone calls her. Stuff you, doll. Later I switch off Dallas and sit with my dad's silver cup in my hands. Oh well, that blond chick in stan- dard eight is also quite nice. Dad is sleeping. I am eighteen. I can go and joll with Dad now. As usual, the boys all stand around the fire. Dad is on his twelfth Lager. He talks so loudly he could wake up a stone. It's just smoke and beer and dirty jokes. I hear Johnny Grey's name. Dad asks me to fetch the trophy ... just says it, just like that: "But you stole that bloody thing from Theron. Mind you, it was quite a good trick. To this day he doesn't know where the damn thing is." This is a shit place. There's a Coke stain on the table cloth, the toilet doesn't flush properly, there are rings on the coffee table, lots of bulbs are blown. And there is a stained tin cup, which once was gleaming silver, stand- ing on the tv. Grade 12 - Rhenish Girls' High, Stellenbosch Prospective foreign tourists to Africa probably visualise the following: a savage land; a land of adventure and the big five; long stretches of endless hills and mountains, covered in lush vegetation; majestic sun- sets spread across the sky ... And this is what Africa is about - to a cer- tain extent. But I want to suggest another view, another "Welcome to Africa": A weary mother sits on the arid ground, clutching her emaciated child. Tears trickle down her gaunt face because she knows that her child is starving and weak, and that there is no more food. This is a common sight in many parts of Africa, a continent torn apart by civil wars and |
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