“If you can’t say anything un-nice…”, Disney World, and other illusory constructs - A cultural encounter

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Dreadful things happen in Africa. Even those that have never been to the continent can name three or more dreadful African things.

I can name plenty.

I can also name several dreadful things about Disney World’s Magic Kingdom (queues; gum on the sidewalk; castle actually uninhabited; that vague creosote odor; teenager dressed as Mickey hard as heck to find; “it’s a small world” lily-white and pretentious; central Florida is all around you; etc). I can certainly divulge plenty of horrible things about each the solar system’s inhospitable eight or so other planets (Jupiter, for example: stormy; cold; gaseous; excessive moons; crushing gravity; that silly, mysterious “Great Red Spot”; no Wal-mart, etc.)

As this blog implies, I live in Africa and, despite getting no kickback from the, AU, SADC, or local Chamber of Commerce, I maintain that there are several not-so-terrible things here.

As an example, I have included the story below. Like most stories in this blog and the Swaziland version that preceded it, it showcases one of the continent’s many protagonists.

For no reason in particular…except to generate intrigue, I will call this brief story “Deus ex machina.”

In my free time, I like to mountain bike. Recently, we took a dusty, grueling loop in Botswana’s so-called “bush” (of Ladies No 1 Detective Agency fame). At our destination—the parking lot of a BP garage—one of the group, to his dismay, noticed that his GPS, which he had secured to his handlebars that morning, was affixed no more. Retracing our steps (or rather tire tracks) some 10km's back proved fruitless.

Two weeks later, about half way into a similar bush-ride, we encountered a lady standing on the single dirt track deep within the rural countryside. In her hand she held the GPS device. She had found “the telephone that didn't ring" in the grass near the trail two weeks prior and had been waiting since early that morning for “the men on the bicycles" to pass by. She had stood in the same spot all day the week before, but we had not ridden that weekend.

Neo was her name. Thanks, Neo.