NEWS FLASH: Human road kill: India, UK & TZ.

There is a famous Bollywood actor, Salman Khan, who by rights should be banged up. Life is liberating, isn't it, when you have Loadsamoney!? as Alexei Sayle would've hollered in the 1980s. Yes, loads of filthy lucre.

Salman Khan, such an ego, no doubt with so much to lose, ran over some people in India somewhere. Unsure how many people were killed? Maybe one? A passing British  journalist and writer called Constance told me this. We were both resident at the same hotel in Cannon Shed Road, Ernakulum for a few days. You know, the one where the hordes of cockroaches in my bathroom door posts would whine incessantly at night. Until I kicked the door, Jackie Chan-style - hard, like. Well 'ard.

Constance was there with her mousy husband who I barely noticed. He probably would've been eaten alive by the rat I saw on the 3rd floor where I spent my last two nights at SAAS Tower. She was interesting as she spends half of her life living in India and the other half being a nomadic writer elsewhere. To be perfectly honest, whether she has her husband in tow or not, I suspect that even she barely notices the difference between having him around or not ... Constance told me that she didn't spend that much time in her northern hometown. I don't blame her with a hubby like that. Dread to think what the in-laws are like. Forgive me if I have the details wrong, Constance. I know you would, as you have far bigger things on your mind, and fat ugly issues to expose. Like how Indian politicians and multi-nationals alike are looting the hell out of the small people here. Plundering the natural resources and funnelling the proceeds into Swiss bank accounts. Dirty feckers. Just like the hordes of cockroaches in Room 230. And don't get me started on the Swiss.

Happens in the UK all the time too. Someone I once knew, a working class Jewish boy whose family had worked hard in the East End had run over an old boy while walking his dog at night. I asked how on earth he had killed him. I simply didn't see him it was so dark, came the reply. How did you avoid gaol. He made that filthy lucre sign with his hands. Great lawyer. Unbelievable. I was shocked. He had only been a young lad. Dead straight. Really into working out, training, and treating his body like a temple. A bit of a Jack the 'Schmutter' Lad. Quite literally, 'schmatte rag' in Yiddish means cloth, clothing - and the family riches did come from the East End rag trade. 

This was definitely not a case of drink driving. Awful. Could happen to anyone. But someone like me would be sent straight to Holloway. Do not pass Go. Do not pick up a Get Out of Jail Free card either. And quite rightly so. Or, what? I think in my case, I would be paying in guilt tokens till the next karmic revolution. So, on second thoughts - perhaps Holloway Prison would be a tad harsh ... Though if this imaginary road accident victim had remaining family and friends - wouldn't they feel they'd been cheated if I was let off scot -free? Gaol it is then, Mo. Deal with it.

I'm sure you, dear reader, can think of many examples in the British press - or your own country's press, where there have been injustices. The rich, powerful and greedy get away with murder, quite literally. I'm still on the subject of road accidents, mind you. Don't get carried away like I just did, thinking immediately about the crooked UK politicians, brown-nosing with the Murdochs. James. You are a dirty fecker. I watched you lie live on TV.

So what's new? I mean, what's new about the greedy, powerful and downright evil getting away with murder or manslaughter? Nothing. There is nothing new under this sun. That applies to everything. Surely, the Big People have been filleting and shafting the small people since organised religion and so-called civilisation began?

Third but by no means least, ex-pats and other privileged Tanzanians run over blacks and don't bother stopping, all day long, every day. Human road kill? So common in Africa. Perpetrators included Warwick Bailey, Headteacher, Braeburn Arusha.

I repeat: the overall Head of Braeburn Arusha - the executive principal, if you like, has allegedly run over two blacks. The school also owes me at least one month's salary, and other benefits which had been deducted from my meagre salary at source. This, of course, has been officially smudged to look bona fide on paper. The missing month's salary and non-payment of benefits are just 2 small facts of how I felt "shafted" by Braeburn. Bailey was the Head. Therefore he was responsible, as my ultimate Line Manager, to do the dirty work of the Board of Governors. Both he and Alison Rogers, the Head of Secondary, are desperate people. Remote school in the middle of nowhere, 14km from Arusha city centre, require desperate measures to recruit well-qualified teachers. They made my life, and SG's lives hell, by reneging on the car loan that was stipulated our contracts. Bailey's propaganda was that the school had run out of money. We would have to wait. One day, I'll explain exactly why such a successful school as Braeburn might have, inconveniently, "run of money" at that juncture. Great euphemism that. You have to understand that Braeburn was essentially a hard-nosed business. Profit is paramount. They just happened to be in the business of education. From my perspective as a newly-arrived UK teacher, they couldn't really give a damn about real education. They were in it for the money.

Braeburn, like any East African corporate business, are also consummate professionals in smudging over inconvenient truths. Or smudging the books especially for my eyes to demonstrate that actually, the school owed me nothing ... At least when it comes to corruption - Africans are honest about it. Whereas in the UK, it would appear that you have to dig a lot more. Corruption exists for sure, though it exists in a more insidious form. Perhaps the Africans among my pals in London might leave a comment and correct me if I'm wrong? For instance, it was funny how Arusha, the capital of East Africa, had only two tarmacked roads. The rest of the thoroughfares were dusty, pot-holed affairs. I'm talking potholes that were almost crater-like, maybe a foot deep and 3 feet wide.

Back to Human Roadkill Tz-stylee. Back to Warwick Bailey.

I discovered about a week before I have to leave Tanzania in a hurry, that Warwick had inadvertently killed two blacks in his Landrover. He didn't stop. Hit and run. Allegedly a well-known fact in Arusha. Officially covered up by the then School Office Manager - who looked like a black juju witch to me - if there ever was one. At least, that's what I was told by a trustworthy source. A Tanzanian parent of one of the pupils I taught.

Go on. Google Braeburn Arusha and have a butcher's at the face of Warwick Bailey. You won't find mention of the School Manager, nor her little team, as she has been sadly demoted to a smaller Arusha concern in central Arusha now. A place for smaller children - and smaller people in general. It would appear that even her ill-founded loyalties didn't save her sorry ass. Corporate life is a fickle thing indeed. Having known the dirty tricks that Warwick played on me, I feel I am allowed to call him the 'warped walking dead'. He looks so normal and smiley, doesn't he? But you need to look into his eyes. Without his glasses on. I never got the chance to really look into his eyes with his specs off thankfully. His wife gets that pleasure. I didn't want to, nor needed look into his wishy-washy nondescript irises. I was having to suffer the dirty dealings at first hand from him and his like at the time. January - May 2010.

There are a few I would say that are part of the Christian fraternity at Braeburn Arusha who have been away from the UK for too long. Or maybe they were born like that? No matter, it would appear they had lost their marbles, bearings, moral compasses - that's if they had any such thing in the first place. Who knows, maybe they have changed now? Seen the light hopefully? 

I had unwittingly walked into a vipers' nest of corruption. And, a sad bunch of ill-qualified or unqualified teachers when I was there. Judging them by the strict standards set by the British state school system - some of these teachers wouldn't even be allowed to teach.

One such example was the art teacher who, in my opinion, can't even draw for toffee. Her portrait of Francis - drawn in his memory after he had been tragically shot dead in a local bar in Arusha - was just embarrassing. I have seen work by Year 10 students at St Ursula's Convent School, Greenwich that were technically more accomplished than the work of this teacher's. I was partly galled by the drawing because,

it looked nothing like Francis;
it in no way represented any essence of the exemplary human being and teacher that he was. Not even in an abstract way.

I'm not just being bitchy. I know for sure I wasn't the only teacher that felt that way ... 

Anyway, the artless art teacher has a huge gash on her arm. (She still works at Braeburn so is easy to look up on the Secondary school website.) I was horrified by the extent of the scarring and couldn't bring myself to say anything for some time. Eventually, I plucked up the courage to ask her: what happened there?

She said that she had been in a car crash. After some gently probing, she explained that she had been drinking, and lost control of her car. Horrendous. Lucky to be alive, by the sound of it. Miss G was present during that conversation, I seem to recall. Drinking and driving is a national pastime for many of the ex-pat community in Tanzania - and I gather from the Du P's that Tanzania is by no means the only place. Lovely Miss G was naively oblivious to the fact - even years later - that drinking and driving is a criminal offence. Of course, at the time I didn't say anything. I was genuinely compassionate and shocked that a woman as young as the baby-blonde art teacher had suffered a life-threatening car accident - self-induced or not. I really didn't wish to know if anyone else had been involved ...

Post-Braeburn, back in the UK, I asked happened to ask Miss G: Why do you think C is teaching in Tanzania in the first place? You do realise she'd never be able to work again in the UK, don't you? No, came the reply. Oh, crumbs, I thought. Young Miss G didn't even realise that?

If my memory serves me correctly on this little anecdote of the art teacher's drinking and driving back in the UK, it makes me wonder what she declared on her application form about criminal offences ... Still, anything goes in Africa, and she's small fry anyway.
A teacher with a criminal record who will have undoubtedly been denied her right to teach in the UK for good. But she's small fry, so let's forget about it. I'm sure she makes some pupils there very happy there ... and fair play to her.

Back to the Board of Governors, Braeburn and the Headteacher Warwick "Walking Dead" Bailey.

Money and power talk, don't they? Let's wheel out that lovely Catherine Tate Gran character out again to finish up today's news bulletin:

WHAT A FECKIN' LIBERTY.

All together now: What a liberty indeed.

Addendum
I am by no means implying that Warwick Bailey, the overall Head of the Braeburn School was driving under the influence. Far from it. He is a clean-living Christian from what I could gather. I'm sure he has his reasons for behaving the way he did towards me. I guess he was just a corporate puppet. If you think his behaviour was weird, his wife is even weirder. I didn't much trust her. She had her husband right under her thumb from what I could see. I have a feeling she wears the trousers, so to speak. Cold fish she was ... It's not difficult to look her up either. She is one of the primary school teachers. I taught both their sons. Nice boys. I especially liked the eldest because he had cute freckles, and was a good egg.

Anyway, fair play to 'em all.

Believe you me, Fate will deal them a blow they couldn't ever have imagined ... Pole sana.

Njema safari, Braeburn.

In walks a stroppy half-Tanzanian Catherine Tate teenage schoolgirl character: Uso, bovvered?

All together now, children: USO, BOVVERED?


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Dramalogue

What: "Mad dogs and Englishmen all out in the midday sun"

When: "Fin de siecle - the one before last. (Not the present one, silly).

Where: Kenya

How: British Empire.

Carrington Menzies-Featherstonehough: That's just not quite cricket, eh what, Hoggers? Shot any natives today?

Montagu-Hogg: Yes, as it happens, ol' chap, I had some Great Game. Four lions, a rhino or three, can't quite remember, and two hippopotamuses. Oh, nearly forgot. I picked off about 2000, or was it 5 thousand, Massai last week. What fun, eh? Beats being back in Charleston and pretending to work for a living in the City. G & T, ol' chap?
Cause for a snifter, before luncheon, don't you think?

Carrington Minging-Fannyshaw: Raather! Any news of Hetty and the children?

Montagu-Hogg: No, thank God. She's developed this dreadful habit of whining on about the domestics. Besides, she's rather gone South after the fourth sprog, Fansy-shaw. Ha. I'd much rather bugger a Massai these days. They're such good sports. Lots of rhythm, and all that. Good for a poke, and all that, what what.