Story In a Box

     Was still armed with my paraphernalia of my trade, which is, schooling that included my bag where I carried my school books and a ruler. We set out for our visit to tour a small artwork shop conveniently located on a small island in a lake. To connect to the shop we bordered a small wooden boat whose captain was an American of African origin. The man engaged us in a friendly conversation concerning the nature of his work and how he finds it interesting to meet with people of different origin.

     As we approached the island, the captain demanded his considerations for the voyage. We all went back to our pockets, drew our wallets and gave him several coins each to cover the interesting voyage. At this point, the jovial man thanked us and gave us a few chestnuts, arguing that they help him kill boredom and strike conversations with passengers who opt to remain silent all through the journey. He was however quick to add that for us, it was due to the mere fact that we were young and interesting people and thus he felt obliged to reciprocate our corporation.

     I noted something unique with our good captain, instead of putting the money in the wallet or his pockets, he simply tied them neatly in a piece of cloth and noted that his distant cousins in rural Africa are still using this wallet that makes it hard for robbers to deduce where the money is kept. We all found this hilarious and interesting.

     On reaching the island, there were several interesting things awaiting us. From outside we could see a sculpture with a head carved of wood. We could however not see its body from this position. Outside the entrance stood a man with a drum, who was dancing himself, lame to the tunes of the drum he was playing. Beside him, there was a small plate where people could make a contribution towards the man’s effort. After some moments of looking at him and his work, we parted with some more coins, deposited them in the small plate and proceeded inside.

     Inside the small museums there were all sorts of inventory. There were curves of various ancient birds, various animals’ pictures and a brief history plus some ancient tools. We noticed that the statue whose head we had seen before was an African statue of a man looking after a herd of sheep and goats. Beside the man there was a jar of earthen ware that looked as a porous jar.

     There were some funny currencies in form of notes and coins and we were made to understand that the currency was from Singapore. It was left there by a visitor from the country who believed that the items would promote tourism in his country. Finally we were shown a stone stamp that marks each person’s visit to the museum. We were informed that the stone stamp was collected from a small house from Spain. Finally it was our time to leave and we waited for our captain to take us to the dry land across the lake.