The African Queen Behind His Facial Mask
HE is a dear friend of mine called Vincent Jenkin, the self-proclaimed African Queen.
I make it a point to irritate him by calling him Wincent Yenkin, just to poke fun of the Afrikaan language. Afrikaans, which is (hearsay) similar to Dutch, has different phonetics to the English Language. I always tease the Afrikaans and ask them the rationale behind spelling words with a 'W' when it is pronounced as 'V', and 'V' when it is pronounced as 'F'. As if life isn't complicated enough that we have to struggle with more confusions. Just a couple of examples -
Welkom (name of a town) = Vel-Com
Vanderbilpark (name of a town again which actually where Vinnie originates from) = Farn-Der-Bell-Park
My favourite..... which I still STRUGGLE to get this one right....
Vereeniging = Ver-ree-neng-hing (something like that)
And people ask me why I don't want to learn Afrikaans?
Let's not even start with Sutu!
I can't figure that out to save my life.
Anyway, back to Vinnie. I've known Vinnie since university days, introduced by a great friend, Anne-Marie. He is originally from South Africa but has recently gained citizenship in good 'ol Great Britain. He is hilarious and witty, something a girl would look for in a guy EXCEPT for the greatest irony in life - he is gay. A six-foot tall guy with an even taller guy at six-foot-four, I am a sorry sight whenever I stand between them. The "great depression". That's what I call it.
South African Vinnie and his German boyfriend, Ingo, have been together for.... seven? or is it eight years? I can't remember. To me, they have been together forever. They are the sweetest thing.... Oh no.... don't think them as the stereotyped famboyant gays. No no. They are the truest representation of any relationship one could possibly know of. Vinnie is the most immaculate 'housewife' I've ever known! Amazing. I'm always in awe by the state of cleanliness he maintains. And I hail.... I'M NOT WORTHY!
Then there's Ingo. He is the typical man, but a very kind and gentle typical man. I call him the gentle giant. He has two hobbies - one is technology and the other is collecting DVD (which drives Vinnie absolutely up the wall). He works in an IT support company which is perfect because his hobby is his job and he enjoys it. Collecting DVD.... well, what can I say... the last I counted, it was easily over 600 discs. I have no idea what's the latest tally.
So they have a mini-office. Ingo's desk on the left, and Vinnie's on the right. One with a big pile of mess and the other is immaculately organised. Need I say more?
At the end of the day, I insist that they are married and are as normal as most heterosexual couples. Just missing that signature on the dotted line....
One last thing I HAVE to say about them both.... they are the best-est friends anyone can ask for. They had to tolerate my presence and put me up at their place during my month-long struggle with the British Home Office in year 2000. If not for them, I would most likely be at the corner of some street in London begging passerbys, "Spare change. Spare change please."
Till today, their hospitality never fails to impress me when I visit them during my bi-annual trips to England. Vinnie would have the bed nicely set-up with fresh towels to welcome my visit, AND! He would prepare a wonderful breakfast for me.
So with such hospitality during my visits, how could they not be treated like Queens when they come to SA? Except that this year, Vinnie came alone. Ahh well... he was definitely missed but still, welcome home Mr African Queen!
*******************
7th April 2005
The African Queen's Arrival
I was excited!
I was so excited!
After a month of chatting via MSN about his visit and now the day has finally arrived!
Anne, Hennie (Anne's husband) and I were planning of surprising him by organising a reunion in Johannesburg instead of Bloemfontein for a change. Anne called Vinnie to test his enthusiasm about staying in Joey but he was more keen on Bloemfontein as visiting Anne's parents was on his agenda. That was understandable. Anne and Vinnie have been friends for as long as I can remember, and he is also a close family friend of Anne's. Then of course, how could I miss THAT ONE out... NAIDOO. Nevermind about that one. Not worth the mention. So it was decided. Joey plan aborted. Bloemfontein it was.
I was late.
I was sooooooo late.
Vinnie's flight arrived at 0915 hours but can't remember why I was late. I cursed and swore as I was driving to the airport, like vulgarities were my only vocabulary. It didn't help that we have pro-actively corrupted traffic cops here in SA. I had to watch my speed.... only did my usual 140-150 km/h (nevermind the speed limit is 120 km/h) on that sorry-reason-for-a-car of mine, the C180. It always helps when there's manual transmission on an auto car - THE auto car that can't travel up a hill any faster than 20 km/h. I still think that the person who invented auto car ought to be shot. The worst invention. Ever! But that's only me. 99% of the people I know swear by auto cars. Fine. I get it. I'm the weird one.
I arrived at the airport an hour late. I was perspiring buckets from anxiety by the time I arrived. I was worried that Vinnie might think I had forgotten to pick him up and I wasn't sure if his mobile had international roaming. I thought he should be out by now, taking into consideration that it normally takes about 45 minutes for clearance. So I figured that illegal parking at the drop-off zone as I dash in to look for him shouldn't be a big problem.
Ah yah... we are talking about Chooey here. If anything..... any decision ends up being a bad decision.
So I rushed him to look for Vinnie,
So Vinnie was still not out.
So I waited for 5 minutes before the African Queen appeared .
So we hug hug.
So we walked to the car.
So we arrived at the car.
And there was Mr TP issuing me my fine.
200 Rand.
Ah! Who cares!
The African Queen had arrived.
That was all I cared.
We started our journey towards Bloemfontein but we made a short detour to drop by his parents place at Vanderbilpark. Of course they were excited about his arrival and it was only right that he paid them a visit before the Bloem gang abducted him for the weekend. We went to get wine and fresh flowers before arriving at his parents' home as it was their anniversary on the 11th of April and he wanted to surprise them with his sweet thoughts. We spent about 2 hours (I think) at his parents place before we continued our journey down to Bloemfontein.
Along the way to Bloem, Vinnie decided to take out a roll of video tape and started KNITTING. He is currently pursuing an Arts course and I believe this is his foundation year so it involves trying out different areas of Art and Design. Just so happened that his project during that time was based on Fashion and Textile. He decided to work on a very interesting concept based on using film negatives and video tapes to create a coat influenced by his favourite cartoon 0- Yu-Ji-Oh - meets Alexander Mcqueen meets Jean Paul Gaultier.
Based on his initial development ideas he showed me, I was very impressed by what he was experimentating with... audio cables and video tapes. Certainly not an area I would have ever thought of. Only thing is.... he had ALOT to knit! Like ALOT! I refused to help him with the knitting as I knew I had terrible hands for such delicate handwork. Give me the sewing machine and sew up absurd outfits with complicated cut-lines. Not a prob! With pleasure! Knitting? Beading? Good God! I drop stitches faster than a Maclaren F1 at 200 miles an hour and I topple the beads before even stitching. So oh no..... NO KNITTING FOR ME!
The sight was hilarious. The girl was driving and the guy was knitting. It was a sight to behold!
I can't remember what time we arrived in Bloem but anyway, we took the night easy. Anne did the honour of cooking so we ate in. I extended the dinner invitation to Lil Missy as he was with us last year when both Vinnie and Ingo visited......
No comments:
Post a Comment