Read The Further Adventures of an Idiot Abroad Online
Authors: Karl Pilkington
Tags: #General, #humor
The Further Adventures of an Idiot Abroad (28 page)
Primrose Hill or Hampstead used to be the place to go celebrity spotting, but these days they tend to hang out in the English channel raising money for charity. You
can’t turn the local news on these days without hearing about someone off TV swimming across the channel. No wonder immigrant numbers are going up. It’s obvious how easy it is to
swim over to our country when chubby celebs are doing it for fun.
The problem is, it’s hard to know what to give your money to. I read that money was raised for an elephant that needed a pair of slippers for its sore feet, and another story was about a
man in America who had testicles so big he almost played keepie uppie with them as he walked down the street. They were so swollen they weighed seven stone, but he couldn’t afford to get them
sorted, and yet there’s an elephant wandering about wearing slippers!
Once we had arrived in South Africa, we headed for a place called Diepsloot, one of Jo’burg’s most densely populated and poor townships. As I stood by the road
waiting for a man called Sepo to pick me up, there were shacks as far as my eyes could see. They were built like bonfires, with any materials they could get their hands on used to put a roof over
their head. I wasn’t too shocked at the sight, as it’s one we’re shown on TV again and again. I was ready for it, but what was different from the TV coverage of places like this
was that not everybody was ill and fed-up. The mood was similar to the estate I grew up on, where the people knew they hadn’t had much luck in life but were just getting on with it. The
atmosphere was surprisingly upbeat and had more of a community feel than the street I live on.
I met Sepo, a man who helps raise awareness and money for the townships. He gave me a handshake that was so long and complicated I’d seen less effort go into a dance routine on Strictly
Come Dancing. If this is how everyone shakes hands, no wonder it’s taking so long to get stuff sorted out here.
I got in his car and we started talking.
KARL
: How many people are in this area?
SEPO
: About 600,000.
KARL
: 600,000!
SEPO
: Yes. Statistics will tell you we have 300,000, but we have proven that it is not 300,000. We did a walk about. We did some research.
It’s more than that. And it only has two clinics.
It would be a nightmare to try and do a proper count of all the shacks. Everything is crammed in so tightly and there’s no proper numbering system. Sepo told me that once they think
they’ve finished counting one area more people have moved in, so it’s an impossible task.
Sepo said the first stop would be at a school where I would get to teach some local kids. The thought of it terrified me. I didn’t know what I could offer them. I haven’t really got
a specialist subject. I was rubbish at school. I think I learned more from the questions I heard on
Bullseye
every Sunday night than I learned all week at school. Learning needs to be done
in an interesting way for me to take it in. I think kids learn too much these days, and the basic things like maths and spelling get left behind. Basic arithmetic is something I never learned, as
they were too keen trying to teach us algebra and Venn diagrams, and how to ask for a fish in French – never going to be useful as I’m not keen on eating fish.
Again, I did more arithmetic adding up the scores from the players on
Bullseye
. If it hadn’t been for
Bullseye
I don’t know where I’d be. It wasn’t that
I didn’t try in school, my brain just couldn’t take it in, and so I couldn’t enjoy learning and then I got left behind. Most lessons were spent correcting all my mistakes with
bottles of Tipp-Ex. I found one of my schoolbooks years after I’d left and the pages were as stiff and brittle as a poppadom ’cos of all the Tipp-Ex. The teachers didn’t always
know how bad I was at things, as a lot of the marking was done by handing your book to some other kid to scan over as the teacher read out the answers. Thinking about it, it was treated more like a
pub quiz.
We passed a couple of BMX bikes on the way into the school, so I said I could teach them a few tricks I used to do on mine – a type of PE lesson is what I was thinking – but Sepo
said I had more to offer than that. I knew I didn’t. Ben, a director working with Luke, suggested that I tell them what I had learned from my travels around the world. But most of these kids
would never leave this area. They needed useful skills. Turning up and telling them that in China they don’t have doors on their public toilets would hardly shock them. Some of these kids
didn’t have front doors on their homes.
Sepo said the kids had already picked a topic for me and wanted to hear me speak to them about Risk. I didn’t know where to start. I didn’t have a clue about the risks kids in this
area would have to watch out for. I doubt the Green Cross Code would be that important here.
I doubt the Green Cross Code would be that important here.
I entered the classroom. There were around ten kids waiting for my arrival, which didn’t seem like many to me. My school classroom was packed. I think I went to the only school where the
classrooms had standing room only.
I went in hard at the beginning so the kids wouldn’t be cheeky to me.
KARL
: Alright. Stop messing about at the back. Right, will someone shut the door, please? Because that’s very risky, leaving the door open.
Right. Good. So, you want to know about risk. Does anyone here have any risks in their life?
CHILD
: Can I try?
KARL
: Yeah. Course you can.
CHILD
: Some teenagers fall pregnant. That’s a risk.
KARL
: How old are you to be worrying about that?
CHILD
: Thirteen.
KARL
: Thirteen! I didn’t worry about having kids when I was thirteen! Honestly, I thought I was coming in to talk about Humpty Dumpty. Do
they honestly want to know about risk?
SEPO
: Yes.
KARL
: In sex? Do you understand that? That’s what we’re talking about here.
CHILDREN
: Yes.
I tried to remember what I was taught in school about sex education, but I could only remember the whole class sat around a small portable telly as a worn-out VHS played footage of some really
hairy nude people having it away. It didn’t really cover any risks as such.
KARL
: Right, let’s see. Does everybody in here want kids when they’re older?
CHILDREN
: Yes.
KARL
: Errmm, I haven’t got kids, just so you know. I’m 38 now, haven’t got any kids.
CHILD
: So why do you not have kids when you are old?
KARL
: I’m not that old! But I haven’t had kids because they’re trouble. I was a kid once. And I was hard work. You can’t
just say, ‘Oh, I’m gonna have a kid.’ It’s not like a dog that you can sort of kick out when you’ve had enough. You’ve got to look after that kid for
years.
CHILD
: It means you don’t have a wife!
KARL
: No, I have. I’ve got a girlfriend, not a wife. Girlfriend, for 17 years.
CHILDREN
:
(gasps)
CHILD
: That’s too young.
KARL
: No, no, she’s not 17. I’ve been with her for 17 years.
CHILDREN
: Oooh.
(laughter)
KARL
: Right. I sort of said to her, if you want kids, I’ll let you have a kid, but I don’t want the hassle of it. Because someone in
the relationship has to look after that child, don’t they? Either the dad or the mum. And I’m busy, working.
CHILD
: With what?
KARL
: Well, look at me. I’m in Africa. If I had a kid at home living in London, who’s gonna look after it? A kid needs feeding, shoes
on its feet. So, I’ve got work. This is my job.
CHILD
: You have a wife that’s going to sit with him at home.
KARL
: No, honestly, you don’t know what she’s like. At the beginning she’d say she’d be happy to look after it, but a year
in, she’d say, ‘I want you to do it. I’m sick of it.’ That’s what she’s like.
CHILD
: She can beat you.
KARL
: She can beat me?
CHILD
: Yeah, because of when you tell her that she must stay with the baby.
KARL
: She won’t listen. It’s all very well sat there. You don’t know what she’s like. She’d go, ‘No, you made
this, as well. I’m going out with my friends. You stay and look after it.’ And I’d be there with a baby that I didn’t want. It’s not good, is it? So, that’s
what I’m saying. Don’t rush into having kids. It can be a tough thing to take on, you know? It’s one of the toughest things in life, having a baby. People say moving house is
tough. It’s nowt compared to having a kid. So, think about it. Do you all have brothers and sisters?
CHILDREN
: Yes.
KARL
: Most people do. See, it’s normal here to have big families. At home it’s very expensive. If you need a two-bedroom house in
London it costs, like, half a million.
CHILD
: You can stay in the small house.
KARL
: I don’t want to. I’ve worked hard. I don’t see why I have to live in a small house to have a kid.
CHILD
: Live in a shack. You can stay in there. Many people can stay in the shack.
KARL
: I know, but don’t you want more than that? Are you happy just to grow up and stay in a shack in Diepsloot?
CHILD
: No, but you can make a house after you have your child.
KARL
: It’s all the wrong way round, though. Get a job first. Do you all have an idea what you wanna do when you’re older?
CHILDREN
: Yes.
KARL
: You all have a rough idea? Concentrate on that. Focus on getting a job. Get that job, meet a woman, meet a man. Have a good time for a bit .
. . but be careful. Wear a condom. And then once you’ve got the house together, and you’ve been with them for a while and you know they’re the one for you, maybe leave the
condom off. Have a little kid. Don’t rush into it, though. Right, we’ve covered that. What else do you wanna know? What else can I tell you about? Tell you another thing: before you
have a kid, learn to drive. That’s useful.
CHILD
: We will have a kid before we will learn to drive.
KARL
: No! Why are you in a rush to have a kid? Are you not listening to me? What’s wrong with you? How old are you?
CHILD
: Thirteen.
KARL
: If you’re thirteen, you don’t wanna have a kid until you’re 21, 22. No rush, just slow down!
CHILD
: Who cut your hair? You?
KARL
: No, it’s not cut. This isn’t a style. I’m bald!