Julia my Kenyan friend invited me the day before to an east African gathering in the park and Walt called to remind me of his 30th school reunion he wanted me to attend with him.
A huge car show with free food and free everything in exchange for an African outing and a school reunion because of a magnet. Did I mention the magnet already? What a trade off. Don't laugh this is real but now I am glad the magnet got stuck but Gary Buddnarrk I'm not so sure. Who's that? I'll get to him.
This is the email Julia sent me:
| Please join The Ohio Association of East Africans (TOAFEA) for a fully charged afternoon of fun events and tantalizing food at North Chagrin Reservation. We will be at the Strawberry picnic area. Let's get together to celebrate with refreshments, great food, good friends and a goat barbeque. Pass the message along to all your friends from the East African Community. |
I told my friends where I was going and said I will just tell them I am the white sheep of the family. I'm glad I went it turned out to be a fantastic time. It gave me a glimpse of what it is like for foreigners to come here and some of the hardships they face in settling and getting acclimated. The organizer of the event gave a short speech what the group was all about. The one thing that stood out was when he said we are here for many things and if you need to be bailed out of jail we are even here for that. He went on to explain when someone asked him what exactly he meant. This is for if you have a bad day and run a red light or something like that but not for criminal activity. I wondered if all foreigners face this or just Africans or people of color? OK maybe that observation was to political for this story.
The food they had was wonderful. I won't even try to tell you what I ate because I don't know. All I remember was the goat, some kind of beef and spinach. Delicious. There are only so many foods. Most nationalities eat the same thing but its how the food is prepared and what seasonings used. I really enjoyed what I ate and had a fun time conversing and learning new things.
I asked the lady at our table what part of Africa she was from. She looked at me kind of strange and said I AM AN AMERICAN do I look like an African? Uh - how do you answer that? So I quickly thought and said sometimes I assume the wrong thing. NEXT.
As I was leaving I told Julia I brought the GoGo Bus wanna a ride? We walked to the parking lot and I asked see if you can find the purple bus. She replied I think I can see it. I hope so. Julia and her friend climbed in and I drove them around the duck pond and back. Instead of leaving them at the parking lot I drove right up to where everyone was gathered. Before I could even open the door there was a rush.
What is this thing? One kid asked do you sell ice cream? Another kid wow this is a house on wheels. So it was another trip around metro and the count was I think 7 on board.
I had an ideal spot in mind to show them - Squires Castle. Everyone thought I was just joking, they didn't think there was an actual castle. Well - surprise surprise surprise when they saw it and it was just perfect timing when we arrived. The castle sits atop a hill, it was a little after dusk, just enough light and circling over the castle were... bats. Serious! We had a great time walking around the castle and just acting silly there and driving back to the picnic.
I dropped them off but felt bad because another group wanted a ride. Oh well had to leave, it was time to meet Walt.
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