We Need New Names by Noviolet Bulawayo

Author:Noviolet Bulawayo
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Adult, Historical, Contemporary
ISBN: 9780316230834
Publisher: Reagan Arthur Books
Published: 2013-05-21T07:00:00+00:00

With all this snow, with the sun not there, with the cold and dreariness, this place doesn’t look like my America, doesn’t even look real. It’s like we are in a terrible story, like we’re in the crazy parts of the Bible, there where God is busy punishing people for their sins and is making them miserable with all the weather. The sky, for example, has stayed white all this time I have been here, which tells you that something is not right. Even the stones know that a sky is supposed to be blue, like our sky back home, which is blue, so blue you can spray Clorox on it and wipe it with a paper towel and it wouldn’t even come off.

And another thing: you won’t see them from where I am standing but there are tokoloshes too in that snow. At night I dream they come out of it and they say, Hey, do you want to make a snowman? How are you doing? Where are you from? Then they say, Do you like High School Musical or That’s So Raven? They say, Do you want McDonald’s or Burger King? They say, Do you like Justin Bieber? I shout at the tokoloshes to go away.

Uncle Kojo looks at Aunt Fostalina walking in one place and folds his arms across his chest and says, You know, me, I actually don’t understand why you are doing all this. What are you doing to yourself, Fostalina, really-exactly-what? Kick. And punch. And kick. And punch. Look at you, bones bones bones. All bones. And for what? They are not even African, those women you are doing like, shouldn’t that actually tell you something? Three-four-five-six, and kick. And punch. That there is actually nothing African about a woman with no thighs, no hips, no belly, no behind. Squat. Bend your knees. Squat. Bend your knees. Squat.

He says, Uncle Kojo, he says, And last time I sent family pictures to my mother, she actually cried, Ah ah ah, my son, oh, please please please feed your wife and don’t nah bring her here looking like this, you will embarrass us. That’s what she said, my mother. Squat, bend your knees. Squat. Bend your knees. Squat. Bend your knees. Move to the left now, two jabs. And uppercut. One more time.

When Uncle Kojo comes from work all he does is sit in front of the TV. Aunt Fostalina says, When are you going to do something with the kids, Kojo? You are never home, and when you are, you just park in front of that damn TV and watch that damn football. Can’t you take them to the movies or the mall or something? But I think she is only saying it just so she can have the TV to herself so she can watch her walking women. Uncle Kojo doesn’t seem to bother about listening to her; he only says, Touchdown! And then speaks in his language that nobody understands. He is not from our country, that’s why we don’t understand his language or he ours; he is from Ghana.

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