Introduction:
How would you feel if an African brother tries to defraud you in a foreign land? How would you feel if he employs a deception for profit to himself? Especially when you have met him in the street a few times and did commune? Budapest is not like your London or New York or Berlin or Paris where many Africans reside. Here in Budapest, African brothers know one another – almost by name. What devilish impulse then moved our brother to do what he did?
The Day an African Brother Tried to Rip Off Another
A childhood friend recently paid us a visit from England. It was a visit both families had waited anxiously for six months or even more. It was going to be a perfect re-union even though he and I saw each other about three years ago in Nigeria. That was before he relocated to the United Kingdom through the High Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP). Since then we have been able to communicate only through telephone and e-mail.
Although he supposed to have played a very important role during my marriage, having been the major link between my lovely wife and me, but before the day of our marriage, my friend had left Nigeria for greener pastures in UK. The birth of our baby should have been another opportunity for us to meet, but again circumstances stood our way. Then we were sure it was going to be his first birthday for the re-union but again our son’s birthday almost coincided with his son’s. He couldn’t make it...
I have chosen to go into details about our relationship in order for the readers to know how significant the visit of my childhood friend, Kola Akande, to Hungary was. Before he came to Hungary, I had briefed him about the population of Africans in Hungary. He was perhaps curious to know how many he’d see or meet. He was actually counting them before returning to his base in Manchester where I suppose Africans are residing in large numbers.
Kola Akande arrived in Budapest on a Saturday night and departed on a Friday night. He spent six good days with us. My friend is a good sleeper, perhaps it was the reason we couldn’t go out on the first three days. By the way, Sunday was a special day we had chosen for him to meet our family friend, Ling Edina. So it was on Wednesday we went out.
And it was that day he met the first African in Hungary. Unfortunately, it was not a pleasant experience for him. The first African he met in Hungary turned out to be a cheat. I won’t say a disgrace because I think he was only trying to maximize profit, and it didn’t matter whether the victim or victims are his own brothers. Business is business and a casual brother is another ball game. Na brother solidarity we go chop for obodo land?
This is how it happened. Akande needed a charger for his Nokia phone. He had miscalculated by thinking that the socket we use in Hungary is the same as that of United Kingdom’s. In UK they use three-way socket while we prefer two-way socket in Hungary. So he couldn’t use his charger. In order to make use of his phone, we must get a charger otherwise he won’t be able to communicate to the larger world, a thought akin to being extricate from the universe. It is as if the world stood still before the advent of the mobile phone and other electronic gadgets.
As a near perfect host, I was indeed going to go the extra mile to provide this elusive charger. Ordinary charger had become something so significant for my friend to further enjoy his stay in Budapest. I was so worried as if it was more than ordinary charger. I became emotional by questioning why European countries, upon the shout about One Europe, had failed to provide similar socket all over. I must have been operating under an emotional misconception resulting from incorrect reasoning.
Whatever you think, it was on this premise we set out on that Wednesday afternoon to search for the Nokia phone charger. It turned out that the charger is not scarce at all, for we found it in the first shop at Deák tér underground. I had a sigh of relief. I honestly do not know why I was so apprehensive over a charger that is as common as mobile phone itself. At this point I was so happy because our African brother was right there in the shop to sell it for us. Akande was happy too; he had finally met an African brother.
We exchanged the usual African brother’s greetings. Although we are not friends, I had met this guy a few times in the street, and each time we did commune unlike certain African brothers who would turn their eyes in the other direction in order to avoid saying, "Hello". And these brothers do end up feeling abashed when you eventually say the hello that seems so heavy in their mouth. This is a story for another day.
Sorry for the digression o jare.
"We’re looking for a Nokia charger 502," I said immediately we had finished the salutation.
"Em, it is FT 5000," said our African brother firmly.
"FT 5000!" Akande almost screamed. A Chartered Accountant, prudent as ever might have calculated the sum in pound sterling. "Bablo, let’s leave it. It doesn’t worth it. It’s only three pounds in Britain and it shouldn’t be more than FT 1000".
"It’s expensive because this phone is new in Hungary," our African brother countered.
Akande had started leaving the premises before another guy, an Arab, said that I should pay FT 3000. I would have paid but Akande insisted we try another shop.
Akande was very disappointed judging from his countenance. We took the underground to the Western Railway Station called Nyugati Pályaudvár. We went straight to the ground floor where we saw some vendors dealing in mobile phones. We entered a kiosk managed by a Hungarian. He showed us two different types of the exact Nokia charger we were looking for. "There’s original and there’s fake," he explained in broken English. "The fake is FT 1000, the original is FT 2000".
Akande gave me a look of I told you so. The one that our African brother wanted to sell for FT 5000 or FT 3000 resembles very much the fake one. Akande chose the fake one because, according to him, he’d use it for only three days. We were happy we didn’t allow our African brother to outsmart us. The charger did not disappoint us but the only African man my friend met in Hungary did.
By Hakeem Babalola
Copyright 2008 mysmallvoice@yahoo.com