"Rode, Linda - I, A Living Arrow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rode Linda)

endless droughts.

Bradley Thorpe
Grade 11 - St Stithians, Randburg

The professional Bushmen

Anya Subotzky

The parching heat swallows the truckload of sunburnt tourists. Dust
consumes camera bags, sunglasses, smiles. In this landscape, close and
arching, eyes and souls are lost in vastness. Lying in its innocence, the
pseudo-Bushman village offers a pathetic welcome to expectant guests:
an empty circle of huts cut to the angle of tourist cameras. In the dirt
and heat and puddles of shade, the Bushmen slink in huddles. And hid-
den beyond a hillside, their real tin-shack homes squat amidst desert-
rejected litter.

The pack of tourists approach with smiles of practised fascination as
the professional Bushmen begin their work, uniformed in shivering
nakedness. And hastily stashed beneath a rock, their everyday Western
clothes sneer in pity.

I am sick at the unfolding of this human zoo and my own nauseating
wonder. Slowly, my silent dreams of a golden people crash to reality.

The Bushmen enact their ancient roles while the tourists observe
from behind the safe barrier of the camera lens, held out by each like a
disfigured weapon.

Click! Click! Click!

"Stand a little to the left, won't you?"

Click!

"Yes, next to my wife so that I can see she is taller than you."

Click!

"We've just got to support the dears, Harry. Won't this tortoise shell
make a unique Christmas decoration?"

"Please dance for me? Oh, won't you sing? Come on, sing! Sing! Sing
..."

But the children remain silent, shy, still. Click! And beneath their
smiles, the Bushmen use their own clicks to communicate - soft, low
and ironic.