Finding a Friend

In the late spring of 2003, I had been in Switzerland for two years. My private life had been a time of discovery, learning all about the Europe that I had for a lifetime so longed to see. My work life, however, had been a steadily growing source of discontent and misery. My past history had seen me in positions vastly different to where I now found myself and despite vague promises of a good future for me, my boss was showing no inclination to allow me to haul myself beyond the status of lowly labourer. I was a person at the beck and call of all manner of foreigners, themselves prisoners of poor education and lack of language skills in the Swiss workplace.

I had spent my time eagerly trying to engage people in conversation, querying oft-used words and phrases, experimenting with the strange-sounding dialects that accompanied my daily life, and trying to come to terms with the absolute incomprehension my fellow workers displayed about anything not directly related to the article currently in front of their faces. I had never seen white people who were unable to do the most basic arithmetic, or read more than two or three words at a time. Any attempts to find common ground for a conversation via subjects such as history, geography, art, music, philosophy or similar topics were met with blank looks and turned backs. Finding this total lack of general knowledge completely baffling, I took to looking up particular subjects of conversation and making a point of finding out exactly how to communicate my meaning in German and the particular language of my proposed conversational partner. I was convinced that the fault lay with me.

It didn't. The only success I ever had in engaging a work colleague in interesting and stimulating conversation was when I heard that a co-worker was Macedonian and asked him if he had ever heard of Alexander the Great. The value of true interaction with another human being is borne out to this day by the fact that, despite the vastly diverging paths in life that we have taken since then, this fellow remains a good friend even now.

I had sunk so low by the time spring of 2003 came around that I was seriously considering giving up on Switzerland and going back home to South Africa. My days were a drudgery of slogging about the construction site, mixing and carrying buckets full of plaster to men who could barely read, yet were my masters due to their long years of experience in the game. My language skills had improved dramatically, so much so that I was able to cringe in embarrassment when I listened to my masters loudly discussing the issues of their jobs with the architects and engineers that frequent the construction sites. It is a fact of life that, the worse one's language skills are, the more unintelligent and poorly-educated one appears, even if this is not the case. I would feel so embarrassed for my colleagues as I listened to their bumbling attempts to explain their points of view in broken, badly-accented German. It was enough to read the body language of the Swiss they were talking to, but it was worse to overhear the Swiss discussing the shortcomings of the labour force at hand in a dialect they thought was at an unintelligable level for all within earshot.

To be at the beck and call of such "artisans" as these, and to know that one could do far better than them if given the chance, was devastating to my self-esteem, and each day spent shovelling concrete, sweeping basement floors or removing nails from old shuttering boards drove me further into despair.

Imagine my delight when the company suddenly found itself with an excess of work and I was detailed to help a young foreman (seven years my junior) with one other labourer. We were to build a family home. The plan was for us to do the basics with freelance artisans hired in for the brickwork and concreting. We went through a number of these temporary workers, never finding anyone who was up to scratch, and because our own artisans were all busy on other sites, the young foreman (to his everlasting credit) started me off bricklaying. It's hard to believe that at such a late stage in my life my one and only goal had become to be allowed to lay bricks, but that's how low I had sunk.

Soon I was bricklaying reasonably competently and had taken over some of the artisan work from the foreman. Temporary workers would come and go and as the building progressed it became accepted that I was no longer just a labourer. A temp would be assigned to me and we would shutter a staircase, or reinforce a slab. The kind of work that required a bit of a brain and was so infinitely better than loading bricks onto scaffolding for someone else to lay.

After a few months had passed and the house was well into the second story, a temporary worker arrived that left me with vague feelings of anxiety. A Swiss man of roughly my own age, he was a qualified builder and spoke perfect Swiss-German, just like the foreman. He knew his way around a building site and could confidently discuss almost anything under the sun with his compatriot, the foreman. I sensed impending doom. If this chap was going to stay on the scene, I realised, I would soon be relegated back to plucking scraps of polystyrene insulation from the mud around the site and cleaning dried concrete from used shuttering.

The shroud of Swissness that excludes all foreigners when two Swiss converse among themselves in their own language would fall over the foreman and the newcomer as they tested the waters with one another, and I found myself falling back on quiet, disjointed conversations with my Yugoslavian friend...the one of Macedonian stock who had an awareness of his own cultural background. It's necessary to point out at this point in the story that I have a propensity for languages, tending to pick them up very quickly including all the gestures, intonations and accents. This is, however, not always a good thing, for I was working with Yugoslavs and Italians and had developed a way of speaking Swiss-German in whatever accent suited the moment.

One day my cell phone rang. Fearing that there was a problem at home (my wife worked and my young son was at times alone) I answered immediately. It was my wife, and as we conversed in English I noticed the newcomer giving me an intensely curious look. Some time later, as we were battling to shift some heavy gear, he asked me in German: "How come you can speak such good English?" I gave him a blank stare, thinking what an idiot he was, and replied, "It's my mother tongue."

He looked at me as if I was mad and said, "But you're a Yugoslav!" For a moment I was baffled, until I realised that he had only ever heard me speaking in my broken, Yugoslav-accented Swiss-German. I burst out laughing and replied in English, "No, I'm a South African". I could see the surprise and disbelief on his face, which I expected by now. Most Europeans seem to have no idea of the history of the African colonies, though they readily believe that Americans, Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders should be white and European in their appearance, with the odd exception of an occasional red, brown or black skin.

Once he had recovered, he surprised me by saying in perfectly accented American English, "I can speak English too". You must know that I had been starved of all English for two whole years, never able to hold a decent conversation or explain myself clearly. I was absolutely startled. The look of shock on my face must have mirrored that on his, for we both burst out laughing. The rest of the afternoon was spent in a luxurious state of delight as we hungrily traded conversation for the last four hours of the day. He wanted to know all about me and all I wanted to do was talk and talk and talk and talk in my beloved English.

The next few weeks as we finished the building were spent in a delirium of laughter and delight as we discovered more and more in common with one another. We both loved old rock and roll. We both sang Elvis songs. We both played a musical instrument. We were fascinated by other languages and loved mimicry and making people laugh. We shared a love of stimulating, interesting conversation and had similar interests in history and day-to-day life. Books that I had read in English, he had read in German.

My everlasting memory of that construction site took place one fine, sunny morning just after sunrise. We were standing on scaffolding laying bricks. He at one end of the new wall and I at the other. The sun was just starting to burn the last of the early-morning mist off the land and its rays shone directly onto us, like a spotlight on a stage. He must have felt the same as I did, for he suddenly raised his trowel to his lips like a microphone and started doing a fine rendition of Elvis Presley's "Rock-a-hula-rock". My laughter must have encouraged him to take his performance to the next level. Leaping up onto a small three-step ladder on the scaffolding next to him, he proceeded to swing his hips and wave his arm about in true Elvis style as he sang passionately into his trowel. I glanced over the wall we were bricklaying. Directly opposite us was the facade of the neighbours house. With the glare of the morning sun in our eyes, we hadn't noticed the window opposite us in the shadowy facade being opened.

An elderly Swiss lady leaned out the window, a duvet clutched in her hands ready to be shaken out. Her mouth hung open in surprise at the sight of the wildly gyrating and loudly singing bricklayer just five metres in front of her face. I burst out in fresh gales of laughter, and he immediately hopped down off his podium and resumed bricklaying. In the time it took for him to carefully set a brick in place, his astounded audience-of-one remained frozen to the spot, her mouth still gaping. Removing the excess mortar delicately from the joints, he glanced up at her ever so casually and chirped brightly, "good morning!". The shutters banged closed as that genteel lady recovered herself and made her escape from these early-morning lunatics. We turned to one another and burst out laughing, convulsing in glee til the tears ran.

That is how I met Garry for the first time, and it has been a wonderful eight years of fun-filled friendship with one of the kindest and gentlemanly men I've ever come across.

I know how well Garry can sing and what a gifted entertainer he is. His intelligence and humour never fail to entrance me, and he has become like my own brother. I am sure he is destined for great things and will continue to staunchly support him in his bid for stardom. I hope that whoever is able will do the same.

Well, I promised my readers more on my current diversion in the last post and this is it. After this we'll get back to some more regular tales.

I bid you adieu,
...

New Project

Hello people. I'm really sorry to have been gone for so long again. I'm very involved in a project that lies close to my heart at the moment and time just doesn't stretch quite as far as it should...

My best friend here in Switzerland has landed an appearance in Switzerland's latest TV show, "The Greatest Talent in Switzerland" (actually it's in plural form, but that doesn't sound so good in English). I started a Facebook group to gather support for him and it's growing exponentially, so there's just been no time for writing down any stories for you all. I hope you will forgive me. As that classic moron once said (and this one often does...), "I'll be back!"

In the meantime, here's a link to Garry's first appearance:

http://www.videoportal.sf.tv/video?id=a37714d0-1c40-4a85-a134-441fbbfbcb18

This is a man with talent and a voice to die for. He just needs a little help from his friends (and some professional backing...)

Time permitting, I shall return with a decent run-down on Garry, just so you know what's keeping me so occupied.

For those of you on Facebook who might be interested in seeing what it's all about, simply click on the title of this post.

Until later.