First Seen

First sighting It was an early summer morning when my best friend Edwin threw pebbles on my window to wake me up I like morning slumber, waking up at six, looking at the alarm the clock on the bedstand and think of two hours more sleep. Ewin said there was a big ship at the dock fully laden with copra; five minutes later, I joined him as we ran to the harbour to collect the broken nuts. When unloading, bits of copra fell down; we had pockets full of it, and the white flesh was still soft and chewable. Look, said Edwin, and there, on the gangway, stood the first black person we had ever seen; he had a bag in his hands that turned out to have booze and cigarettes. We took him home to our street to show him to my mother She was working, but my aunt, living on the first floor took him in; we were milling about till she threw us out. Two days are gone, a tall -in our eyes- old man, the captain who came looking for his cook. He is from Sudan, the captain said, which, meant little or us and he is black, oh, him, he is in my aunt's flat. Half an hour later, the captain and his cook walked to the ship, we followed at a respectful distance to think a captain! On the gangway, the Sudanese waved to us he looked Happy smiling, broadly; it was a day everybody was happy the crew waited to be fed, my aunt sat in a chair in her flat smoking ready-made cigarettes.