The following are actual news excerpts from the African press
in
South Africa, Swaziland, Kenya and Zimbabwe.
1. The Cape Times (Cape Town)
"I have promised to keep his identity confidential,'
said Jack Maxim, a spokeswoman for the Sandston Sun Hotel,
Johannesburg, "but I can confirm that he is no longer
in our employment". "We asked him to clean the lifts
and he spent four days on the job. When I asked him why, he
replied: 'Well, there are forty of them, two on each floor,
and sometimes some of them aren't there'. Eventually, we realized
that he thought each floor had a different lift, and he'd
cleaned the same two twelve times. "We had to let him
go. It seemed best all round. I understand he is now working
for GE Lighting."
2. The Star (Johannesburg):
"The situation is absolutely under control," Transport
Minister Ephraem Magagula told the Swaziland parliament in
Mbabane. "Our nation's merchant navy is perfectly safe.
We just don't know where it is, that's all." Replying
to an MP's question, Minister Magagula admitted that the landlocked
country had completely lost track of its only ship, the Swazimar:
"We believe it is in a sea somewhere. At one time, we
sent a team of men to look for it, but there was a problem
with drink and they failed to find it, and so, technically,
yes, we've lost it a bit. But I categorically reject all suggestions
of incompetence on the part of this government. The Swazimar
is a big ship painted in the sort of nice bright colours you
can see at night. Mark my words, it will turn up. The right
honorable gentleman opposite is a very naughty man, and he
will laugh on the other side of his face when my ship comes
in."
3. The Standard (Kenya):
"What is all the fuss about?" Weseka Sambu asked
a hastily convened news conference at Jomo Kenyatta International
Airport. "A technical hitch
like this could have happened anywhere in the world. You people
are not patriots. You just want to cause trouble." Sambu,
a spokesman for Kenya Airways, was speaking after the cancellation
of a through flight from Kisumu, via Jomo Kenyatta, to Berlin:
"The forty-two passengers had boarded the plane ready
for takeoff, when the pilot noticed one of the tyres was flat.
Kenya Airways did not possess a spare tyre, and unfortunately
the airport nitrogen canister was empty. A passenger suggested
taking the tyre to a petrol station for inflation, but unluckily
the jack had gone missing so we couldn't get the wheel off.
Our engineers tried heroically to re-inflate the tyre with
a bicycle pump, but had no luck, and the pilot even blew into
the valve with, his mouth, but he passed out. "When I
announced that the flight had to be abandoned, one of the
passengers, Mr Mutu, suddenly struck me about the face with
a lifejacket whistle and said we were a national disgrace.
I told him he was being ridiculous, and that there was to
be another flight in a fortnight. And, in the meantime, he
would be able to enjoy the scenery around Kisumu, albeit at
his own expense."
4. From a Zimbabwean newspaper:
While transporting mental patients from Harare to Bulawayo,
the bus driver stopped at a roadside shebeen (beerhall) for
a few beers. When he got back to his vehicle, he found it
empty, with the 20 patients nowhere to be seen. Realizing
the trouble he was in if the truth were uncovered, he halted
his bus at the next bus stop and offered lifts to those in
the queue. Letting 20 people board, he then shut the doors
and drove straight to the Bulawayo mental hospital, where
he hastily handed over his 'charges', warning the nurses that
they were particularly excitable. Staff removed the furious
passengers; it was three days later that suspicions were roused
by the consistency of stories from the 20.
As for the real patients: nothing more has been heard of them
and they have apparently blended comfortably back into Zimbabwean
society.
|