FREDDIE'S CORNER
02-02-2022 by Freddie del Curatolo
"She is different from all the others".
One of the most common expressions you hear in Malindi, when you run into a man (perhaps of a certain age) who is engaged to a local girl, is "...she is really different from all the others".
It is not necessary to be familiar with the Kenyan coast, it is enough to be a "man of the world", in the words of Totò, to have done military service in Cuneo like Flavio, to imagine the scene and pretend nothing happened.
An ex baby-retired man with graying hair, a blissful air and neurons a bit toasted by the sun, hand in hand with a charming and sinuous twenty-year-old from Nairobi.
"She's different from all the others."
Meanwhile, this expression already highlights a "defensive" attitude, a half-admission that one knows and distrusts the Kenyan female universe. But only Kenyan or women in general?
So, instead of mocking the retiree, let's try to understand.
"All the other who, excuse me..."
"Well, come on...you get the picture. I mean, she's not the one-night stand, the girl you met at the beach party..."
"Oh no?"
"No, absolutely! Meanwhile Jasmine I met at the bank."
"Did you now?"
"Yeah. She was sending money to her sister because she's supporting her niece in her studies."
"If I may be indiscreet, how does the girl make a living, allowing herself to support her niece in her studies?"
"That's the problem! When she arrived in Malindi she found a job with a Swiss man's company as an accountant, but then the Swiss man (that pig) was trying and she was forced to quit."
"What a bummer!"
"But luckily, on her way she met me! And I met her...now we live together and maybe in a while we'll get married..."
Let's think about it. Apart from the little story of the Swiss, we are in the presence of a singular encounter, which is not to be denigrated so, for the sake of argument.
The differently young man and Jasmine are two souls in search of something, two people who can give and receive what they need, which is also what makes them feel good about themselves, in the absence of other dreams and other possibilities.
To make it clear: Jasmine was born poor, in Africa, with a father who (if he didn't) wanted to abuse her from the age of nine.
She waited until she came of age to escape as far away from her reality as possible. Six hundred kilometers, by the sea. The only weapon at her disposal: beauty.
We have seen women in Italy make careers and then clean up their image, starting from much less dramatic situations.
Television starlets are just the tip of the iceberg, for every soccer player there is a girl who gets engaged to a Rai or Mediaset executive forty years older?
Why does she do it? For love? Or because "she's different from all the others?"
Absolutely normal, then, that our Jasmine, in the Third World, in order to earn money, occasionally gives herself to some rich mzungu.
And it's almost to be commended that she hasn't abandoned herself to the lasciviousness of malindie good nights, alcohol and easy money. She is looking for a stable relationship, one that will allow her a quiet and comfortable life. At least until the retiree has enough funds to accommodate her....
What about him? He too evidently needs a woman like Jasmine. Perhaps because he comes from a failed marriage in Italy?
Or because, despite having the nail in the coffin, deep down he's sentimental? Or even because for the first time in his life he finds himself before the incomparable beauty of a black and talking Venus who whispers sweet words of love to him?
"If you don't get there, you can't know what it feels like. I finally, at sixty-eight, am in love. I feel like a kid again!"
Viagra does the rest.
She is no different than any of the others, she is simply wiser and more realistic. She may have her moments of sadness, perhaps her countryman lover, but she also knows it's the only way to have a house with plumbing and a television, a car and a little more hope for the future.
Because in the end, it is this world that is never different from any other.
OPINIONS
by Freddie del Curatolo
One of the most recurring expressions that you feel at Malindi when you come across a man (maybe a certain age) who is engaged to a local girl is "... she is different from all the others."
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