Remember when sweets used to cost 1c? Back in those days, you knew everyone in your neighbourhood and would see them daily when you left your house to go to town or further afield. You used to have your food cooked for you and never had to worry about doing your own washing. The neighbourhood kids were your friends and you would play games with them after school. You had a credit account at the local store.
But was everything so rosy peachy? I mean, you couldn’t have a member of the opposite sex stay over for the night could you? If you had a disagreement with one of your neighbours, you’d have to time excursions from your home so as not to bump into them, or worst stay at home altogether. Being such a close community, if you did something someone didn’t like, rumours would spread pretty quick. You’d have to be socially aware and adept to avoid ostracisation.
Do you remember when you were a new kid on the block? Everyone was interested in you. For a short while you were really popular and got invited to everything. An upbeat start, but you could never manage to become one of the gang because you were too different. Your background was different, the ways you do everyday things sometimes incompatible, the words you use foreign. But never mind, you just pretended that you were the same. Maybe no-one would notice?
Well I better pinch myself to confirm I am not in a time warp because sweets do cost 1c. I know everyone in my neighbourhood, at least by face. My food is cooked everyday and washing done by a widow a few doors down. Everyday, in that perfect time of the day just before sundown when the air is cool but before all light has gone, I join the neighbourhood game of soccer in the field just outside my front door. After the game the real game of who will buy a round of Frutang (orange juice) begins, something that my new friends often try to pin on me given my relative wealth. So I purchase them on my credit account at the toko kedai (local store).
But with this blast from the past, just as yin is the opposite of yang, come the downsides. I have to get permission for residence every month from the “road chief�. A female colleague has come for a week from the US but is forbidden to sleep in a house with men she isn’t married to. Instead each night, like a disciplined teenager, she must leave to go and sleep at the cook’s house and come back in the morning to work.
News spreads quickly. It didn’t take long for the local village boys to know our female guest had arrived. Nothing untoward has happened yet, but what if one of my new welcoming friends found something I did inappropriate for reasons I didn’t understand and the word got around? I dread the day and don’t yet have the language skills that might help mitigate any issues that could yet arise.
I am the new kid on the block. And everyone is interested in me. Kids are trained from an early age to play the game of “Where’s the White Wally� and have perfected it to an art, often letting fire the call of ‘Bule!’ (westerner) from behind fences, around corners, and other nooks and crannies. But why are people interested in me? Not because I am smart, funny, or charismatic. But because I am different. Being different does mean that people do and say things to me they wouldn’t do or say to their fellow countryman. But will that difference become a problem?
Hang on wait, there’s a knock at the door … … ….. it’s my neighbour inviting me out for mango juice. My newest friend has arrived and is waiting, (such is life for the new kid on the block) I better go!
Old kids on the block
