The reason for this – the official reason – was that Internet is generally slow in their countries. So instead of improving Internet speed in their countries, their very smart solution was to travel to a country with faster Internet speed.
The angel of idiocy must be proud of her children. The Queen seemed to have lived forever in a rare show of longevity. Her life seemed to go on and on under the protection of a guardian angel that somehow never seemed to sleep.
The national anthem also implores God to save the Queen and God has somewhat obliged. She outlived Nelson Mandela. She outlived Robert Mugabe. She outlived Michael Jackson. She also outlived the oldest man in my street. Because the Queen seemed like she was going to live forever, most of those that attended her funeral were actually there to confirm if the Queen was really, really dead. So the Thomases queued for kilometres as long as the distance from Artesia to Gaborone to view the body.
Many were left disappointed because after a few days of queuing they had gone only as far as Rasesa. Some died in the queue due to fatigue. Some died due to sorrow. Some died due to old age.
The Director of Ceremonies then instructed the uncle to close the casket and the mission to confirm if indeed the Queen was dead went up in the proverbial smoke. Well, I cannot vouch for the veracity of the previous statement but I know that is how funerals work so I assume that is what happened. There was also a special bus for African presidents to ride to the funeral.
Though this whipped up fury here in Africa, to me it made perfect sense. The motorcades of African presidents on average involve 30 cars and 15 motorbikes or thereabout. There are 54 countries in Africa and so that means more than 1,500 vehicles for African presidents alone. So you can imagine the mayhem that would have ensued if on top of that huge number of vehicles there were vehicles from Europe, Asia, Oceania and the Americas. It is only that in Africa the bus system is so bad and so sad that riding in a bus is equated to a status-demeaning choice.
However, from the pictures that were shared our presidents seemed reasonably happy and the buses looked luxurious enough. I am sure they used the opportunity to also share best practices like how to stash $4 million in a sofa. Only the president from the land of Uncle Sam, Joe Biden was allowed to bring his motorcade. This is because there’s an international belief that hotheads are fond of shooting at American presidents. You could be as unspectacular and as intelligence-shorn as Trumpy-head and the hotheads will still want to shoot at you.
All you had to do was ascend to the presidential suite. So the decision to have other presidents riding in a bus might well have saved their lives. There could have been a gun-totting trigger-happy assassin lurking somewhere in the shadows with gun cocked to assassinate the American president. Now that the Queen is nicely buried, we can expect a semblance of normalcy in our lives.
The world had seemingly come to a standstill and most of us in the past two weeks have had to deal with issues like, ‘The person who signs cheques has gone to the Queen’s funeral’ Note: This office is closed because staff has gone to the Queen’s funeral. Normal operations will resume after intense mourning. Notice: due to the passing of the Queen, we will offer limited services as listed below. Yes, the Queen’s funeral was a huge spectacle, which most of us had never seen in our lives. We sort of expected people to mourn the Queen but we did not think it would stretch to such extremes. We still expected people to retain a modicum of sanity.
But then again, expecting sanity when the Queen is gone is the highest level of insanity. (For comments, feedback and insults email [email protected]) Thulaganyo Jankey is a training consultant who runs his own training consultancy that provides training in BQA- accredited courses. His other services include registering consultancies with BQA and developing training courses. Contact him on 74447920 or email [email protected].
