„We wish you a ‚Schengen Abend“ - Doing an act with Kongi While on our way from Munich Airport to town Wole tells me his latest experience with the German immigration officials. Upon arrival at Frankfurt Airport he is – as usual – the first passenger at the IN gate, since for many years he has been travelling with a smallish trolley as his only luggage. A trolley which holds all his belongings, including his scripts and books. So: only ‘hand luggage’.
And then Kongi’s interrogation starts. This time Wole presents – for a test? – not one of his diplomatic passports but rather his ‘normal’ Nigerian (!) passport. The first question by the man in the glass cubicle is: „What is your profession?“ Almost like in Peter Ustinov’s famous scene, in which the late actor and satirist played out his crossing of the land border between Nigeria and the then Dahomey, Wole answers: „I am a smuggler of words.“
The immigration official frowns, upon which Wole volunteers: “I am a writer.”
Another official frown and Wole volunteers: “I write books.”
The official’s return question: “YOU write books?”
Wole: “Yes, I do. In fact, I have been doing this all my life.“
Next question: „And how long do you intend to stay in Germany?“
Wole: „I don’t know yet.“
The official: “So-so, you don’t know yet, ähem! Then let’s have a look into your passport. But what is this ?“
The man looks at Wole’s passport: THE passport is three Nigerian passports hammered together with a stapler! The official is a bit surprised, leafs through the three passports, and realizes that all all full with visa to dozens of countries. Then he gives up:
„You seem to travel a lot. Have a nice stay in Germany!”
Before our performance in the Villa Stuck in Munich I ask Wole whether we could play out that scene before the reading proper, with a scene which I call “A Schengen Abend.” (1) Wole okays the idea, and we play-act.
I greet the audience with a “Schengen Abend to you you all!” In the scene Wole has to stand in front me, seated in my cubicle, and he has to answer my questions about his intentions. I must say that Wole seems to have enjoyed that scene.
But not so the gentlemen from the Nigerian Diaspora in Munich, all of them well-established bourgeois with German passports, all of them most probably NOT having read a single line by the ‘famous shon of the shoil’…, only interested in having their picture and that of their families taken with the famous…
They didn’t like that scene at all-o! and started complaining: „You don’t do that to our famous brother!“ Reason for which they immediately declared that next day they would call a ‚crisis meeting’ in our hotel. Only topic: „Mr. Meuer’s impossible beahviour.“
Wole: Gerd, you are in trouble. Those guys will hit you proper!“
Next day the head of the ‚Nigerian-German friendship society’, one Mr. O. had rented a room in our hotel, and then he embarked on a longish praise song for the ‘famous…’, which evidently bored Kongi very much, until he cut it all short, to enquire „What is all this really about?“
Whereupon Mr. O. complained: „We can only reach you, Sir, by way of Mr. Meuer.“
Which is somehow correct, since Kongi and seff have had a long-standing arrangement by which I do NOT give away his e-mail address and even less his phone numbers… to the dozens of people who want to have Kongi for a reading, a conference, a seminar, most often at very short notice, offering a honorarium which is an insult! Also, those e-mails= SPAM would simply kill the
„ My dear compatriots, during the Abacha years, and when I was fighting to save Ken Saro-Wiwa, whenever I needed a contact in political or other circles in Germany, a phone or fax numer, an e-mail address, I knew whom to contact: that was Gerd, whether he was resident in Munich, Addis Ababa, Houston/Texas or Cologne/Germany. I cannot remember having heard from you.”
Said it and after his usual polite words he ended that meeting. After which we enjoyed an early afternoon Italian ROSSO.
X a ‘Schengen Abend’ is a word pun, in which the German greeting of ‘Einen SCHÖNEN Abend’ (have a NICE evening) is replaced by SCHENGEN. Schengen is a small town in Luxemburg, where the EU member states many years ago signed an agreement, according to which a Visum for one of the member states of the EU is also valid for all the other countries – which is a must, since – unlike in Africa – we do NOT have border controls again between the noew 27 member states: borders have simply disappeared. You could call this PAN-EUROPEANISM… |
