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Gap Yah Africaah..

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I am shamelessly lifting content here  - but found this today and found it so funny.  Dont't be offended.  To the uninitiated, Orlando is the spoof of a British, ex public school, gap year student - Tim Nice but Dim. 

I have it from the horse's mouth that 6th form British public school kids in England 'literally' don't find this very funny - owch!

Loved the original gap year sketch on Youtube (link below) but this one on Africa makes me smile.  It's very 'Prince William' - who on his Tusk Trust website interview proclaims to have a "deep love for Africaah".  As you can imagine, love the reference to the thorny issue of aid to Africa too.

P.s.  British children, or their parents, do pay up to a hefty 4,000 pounds to 'gap year' specialists in UK who arrange their trips to Africa to include helping out at local schools etc.


The Gap Yah Plannah: Africa


Orlando, the YouTube phenomenon, gets busy sorting out 'Africah's isssues'.

Gap Yah Orlando Charmon - 'what's so funny?'

"It was just like, hello, sense of achievement"

By Orlando Charmon

So, obviously a lot of my trip so far has been pretty, like, whimsical, but Africah is when things became raally serious. Forty-one per cent of Africans consider their living standards to be subsaharan, and there are also isssues. My trip to Africah hopefully was able to provide a wesstern presssence for the resolvation of those isssues. I came to Mombasah on a mission, and it was a mission I had found on the internet and paid £3,000 for.

I was working with an organisation called PovWatch Africah and I was going to be part of the final solution to poverty. We all met up in a hotel conference suite in Nairahbi and it was pretty exciting to meet everyone – like the first day at school. And also because a lot of people were from my school thah. Spent the morning in classes devoted to telling us about techniques and treatments for dealing with a worms infestation so we could teach this to people in villages.

A whole morning learning about deworming. Raaaaancid. At lunch, everyone was talking about isssues and like about how colonialism was just literally raally bad except for when it stopped people from genital mutilation. Some guy had read a book that said that giving aid to Africans was actually a bad thing and the girl opposite me was like, "why are you doing it then?" and the guy suddenly got all like, "well, it's just an opinion…" and didn't raally say anything else. Chump.

The week of finding out about isssues followed by beers (lash 'n' learn) went by pretty quickly, then we were sent off to live with some random rural tribe.

The village we were sent to (can't remember the name of it – something African) was quite nice. It turned out that we weren't actually educating them about deworming though, we were there to build an orphanage or something. I even asked around the village to see if anyone wanted to be educated about deworming and they didn't, so I got stuck into the building works. The work was pretty difficult, but I quite enjoyed it. We didn't get that much done as the Africans kept taking the tools from the girls and doing their jobs for them, which led to a kind of merry-go-round of work with everyone swapping just when they were starting to get the hang of it.

It was actually raally worthwhile working out thah, and quite satisfying at the end when we had a big ceremony for finishing the building when the chief thanked us for "labouring so hard in the construction of my new house. All of my people thank you for your contribution to more efficient-making government of this country."

It actually raally meant a lot to make a contribution to the lives of these people who have nothing compared to us. But before we came, they didn't have this big house, and now they have a big house, and it was just like, hello, sense of achievement.

For the whole six weeks I was out in that village, I hardly used my phone – they didn't have coverage, except on the top of a nearby hill where people would go to send texts – it was just like I couldn't be bothered, cos I was too busy helping the tribe. Everyone should have to come here, just so they realise. It's like the land speaks to you. I realised the beauty of Africa was not what we could do for it, but what it does to us.

Pretty phenomenal. I wanted to stay forever and live alongside these noble people, but I had a luxury safari booked.

• This extract is from The Gap Yah Plannah by Orlando (Fourth Estate). The book is available from Telegraph Books (£9.99 plus 99p p & p). Order on 0844 871 1515; books.telegraph.co.uk. Out on September 29. Also available as ebook and audio edition



 
 

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