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Willy226

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The rainbow nation The narrator is having a conversation with a friend, Mr Sheridan, and Thabo, a colleague from the Education Department. « But things have changed a lot, haven’t they? » « Not really, » Sheridan says. «The whites still have everything and the blacks still have nothing. » « That isn’t true, » I say. « Look at you. You couldn’t even attend university when you were young, and here you’re a Director General with a master’s degree. » « In spite of the changes, not because of them! » « But what are you comparing things to? Ten years ago, your children would have had to go to school here in the township, you would have had to go all the way to Vista to study. No white principal would have given Thabo the time of day. Now he can put pressure on them. » « None of the principals listen to me, anyway. But that is not the point. The changes you see are in places where they don’t make a difference. On television black men are suddenly drinking whisky, black women are doing their own laundry. In Kroonstad, a black man wears the mayor’s chain, there are black children in the white schools. But these things don’t matter. As soon as black people take control of something, that thing loses its power. Sjoep! Suddenly the power is gone, and you look around and see that the whites have twisted things here and there, and taken the power with them. It is somewhere else again. » « Oh, please. Where does the power lie in Kroonstad? The state gives millions to municipality-which is run by blacks! - To look after the poor. But instead of doing that, they pay themselves big salaries and employ double the number of officials. Whose fault is that? Where have whites taken the power? As I see it, the whites are the only ones paying their rates and taxes. »(…) He pours the tea that his wife has brought in. He is angry. I regret my words, but also realize that our good relationship is bound to have its tensions. Our lives have diverged over the years. Thabo is shaking snuff from a small tin. Then he takes another container from his pocket, filled with sugar-free tablets, and puts three in his tea. « Something else may be missing here, » says Thabo. « Before 1990, we all had distorted images of each other. Whites are like this and blacks are like that. From 1990 to 1994, we realized with growing astonishment how many things we actually do have in common. How much is shared between Afrikaner and African. How little Ubuntu Communism and Boere Socialism differ from one another, how much of an old-fashioned Christian ethic underscores all our comings and goings. This is why the elections were such a success. Because of what bound us together and what future we envisioned. » « And what was that? » « I would say: in spite of our different colours and languages and incomes, we accepted that we are actually of each other, we care for one another, we will stand in queues together and vote, because we grant each other a future in this country. »
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POURRIEZ-VOUS M'AIDE S'IL VOUS PLAIT C'EST TRES URGENT!!!!!!!!!!!! As they opened the door marked COLORED ONLY, they saw a white conductor coming toward them. It was a chilly day but a light skim of sweat glistened on the woman's face as she and the little girl struggled to hold the door open, hang 5 on to their luggage and enter all at once. The conductor let his eyes travel over the pale yellow woman and then stuck his little finger into his ear, jiggling it free of wax. "What you think you doin', gal?" Helene looked up at him. 10 So soon. So soon. She hadn't even begun the trip back. Back to her grandmother's house in the city where the red shutters glowed, and already she had been called "gal." All the old vulnerabilities, all the old fears of being somehow flawed gathered in her stomach and made her hands trem 15 ble.(…). Thinking he wanted her tickets, she quickly dropped both the cowhide suitcase and the straw one in order to search for them in her purse. An eagerness to please and an apology for living met in her voice. "I have them. Right 20 here somewhere, sir... " The conductor looked at the bit of wax his fingernail had retrieved. "What was you doin' back in there? What was you doin' in that coach yonder?" Helene licked her lips. "Oh... I... " Her glance moved beyond 25 the white man's face to the passengers seated behind him. Four or five black faces were watching, two belonging to soldiers still in their shit-colored uniforms and peaked caps. She saw their closed faces, their locked eyes, and turned for compassion to the gray eyes of the conductor. 30 "We made a mistake, sir. You see, there wasn't no sign. We just got in the wrong car, that's all. Sir." "We don't 'low no mistakes on this train. Now git your butt on in there." He stood there staring at her until she realized that 35 he wanted her to move aside. Pulling Nel by the arm, she pressed herself and her daughter into the foot space in front of a wooden seat. Then, for no earthly reason, at least no reason that anybody could understand, certainly no reason that Nel understood then or later, she smiled. Like a street 40 pup that wags its tail at the very doorjamb of the butcher shop he has been kicked away from only moments before, Helene smiled. Smiled dazzlingly and coquettishly at the salmon-colored face of the conductor. Nel looked away from the flash of pretty teeth to the 45 other passengers. The two black soldiers, who had been watching the scene with what appeared to be indiffe- rence, now looked stricken. Behind Nel was the bright and blazing light of her mother's smile; before her the midnight eyes of the soldiers. She saw the muscles of their 50 faces tighten, a movement under the skin from blood to marble. No change in the expression of the eyes, but a hard wetness that veiled them as they looked at the stretch of her mother's foolish smile. It was on that train, shuffling toward Cincinnati, that 55 she resolved to be on guard--always. She wanted to make certain that no man ever looked at her that way. That no midnight eyes or marbled flesh would ever accost her and turn her into jelly. 1- read the whole text and identify the different characters. 2- say where exactly the scene take place. Justify your answers with several quotes from the text. Find the destination of main characters are heading to. 3- scan the text for words used to describe the characters' eyes and skin. Say what you notice. 4- describe and comment on the attitude of the conductor. Justify with quotes. 5- read the line 7 to line 43 and describe the woman's reaction to the conductor's attitude. 6- explain the reaction of the other passengers, 7- read the last two paragraph and say how the experience affected the girl
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CECI EST TRES URGENT JE DOIT L'ENVOYER D'ICI DEMAIN MATIN, SVP AIDEZ MOI!!! J'AI PAS BIEN PIGER LES LE TEXTE Still, I can’t like Tyler Moldenhauer. A jock? Mom would flip out. Just to get my mind off this whole ridiculous thing, I click over to my Facebook page and see that I have one friend 5) request. Before I check who it is my heart bumps. Tyler? Already? Tyler Moldenhauer wants to be my friend? (...) I click on the “Friend Requests” icon, and see a name that I don’t recognize: Alex Well, which means that “Alex Well” is some clever business that targets teens through 10) social media. No doubt “Alex Well” has some unlimited texting offer for me, since, of course, all teen girls just live for unlimited texting. And lip gloss. Earn Lip Gloss Using Our Unlimited Texting Plan! I don’t confirm the request, but, just to see what kind 15) of scam Facebook thinks I should be targeted for, I click on the bogus name. Expecting to be taken to a page hec- tic with offers and great news about a great product and giveaways if I confirm the friend request, I am surprised to end up looking at a page with nothing on it except for the 20) dippy white cutout of a person with that curlicue hairdo against Facebook’s blue-gray background. Alex Well has no friends. Not one. Nothing is filled in. Birthday, Hometown, Current City, Relationship Status, they’ve all been left blank. In his Info section there is no contact information, 25) no groups he is a member of, no pages he follows. They are all blank. The only information on his wall is a status update next to the curlicued photo that says: 11:56 A.M.AUGUST 12,2009. “Hello, Aubrey. Thank you more than I can say for 30) coming this far. I used a fake name because I didn’t know how you would respond to seeing my real name. More than anything in the world, I would like to know you. Even if it is just this. Just messages on Facebook. I can think of a thousand reasons why you wouldn’t confirm 35) this. But I hope you will. This is Martin, your dad.” I can’t say how long I sit on my bed staring at those three letters. D-A-D. The way, when you are stan- ding on a skyscraper and you think you might—just accidentally—jump off, I start feeling like I might—just acci- 40) dentally—hit the little “Respond to Friend Request” button. So I step away from the edge and slam the laptop shut. I lift my gaze to the teddy bears that Mom and Dad (D-A-D!) stenciled along the top of the walls before I was evenborn. I love thinking of them doing that together. Me 45) still inside Mom, listening to them laughing. Maybe Dad painted a dot on Mom’s nose like in those old movies when husbands thought their wives were just so cute. So much is exploding inside of me. Too much has hap- pened all at once. I stagnated for years with nothing hap- 50) pening, and now, all in one day, too much is happening. I open the laptop, go back to Facebook, back to “Alex Well’s” page. I stare at the little box next to a faceless car- toon that is now a faceless cartoon of my father, and read and reread “Respond to Friend Request” roughly a million 55) times. Then, like she always does, Pretzels—who can’t hear anything, but somehow manages to hear the refrigerator opening and the garage door going up, grumbles—and starts struggling to her feet. This is my signal that Mom is home. I quickly sign out 60) of Facebook. She can’t know about the message. Thinking about my dad makes her so sad. And me going away to college next year is stressing her. I can tell by the way she stares at me so much more now that she’s imagining being here without me. If she knew about this? Dad contacting 65) me? It would upset her so much. A few seconds later, she rattles the knob of my door, yells when she can’t open it, “Why is this door locked?” “Why do you never knock?” “Open the door!” 70) “I’m taking a nap!” “I need my laptop to see how many I’ve got registered for my class tomorrow!” I crack the door a few inches, just enough to hand the laptop out. “I don’t see why I can’t have my own lap- 75) top. They’re not that expensive.” “That is a discretionary item." This is her way of saying that I have to use the money I made working as a counselor at Lark Hill. “I would except that I don’t want to go to school naked, and, P.S., most 80) mothers don’t count clothes as ‘discretionary’ items. For your information, Parkhaven is not clothing-optional.” She gives me Hurt Look Number 85. I hate Number 85, which translates to I am trying not to cry because I got totally screwed in the divorce and don’t make enough to buy us all 85) the stuff we need. I am suddenly so sick of knowing what every twitch of her face means that I want to scream. I try to close the door, but she has her foot wedged into it.
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