Monty Python Ladies

Here’s one for ya – a story told to me by a great friend of mine in this place. She was travelling from our town to the capital by road with a load full of colleagues and two of their female relatives. These women were matriarchs, the oldest women in their families; mother, grandmothers. Such women get away with not wearing the full covering here and wear instead a very large all-covering black cloak-cum-headscarf, and these two were both wearers of thick pebbled glasses. As is the custom, these two big ladies and my friend were seated on the back seat of the vehicle. Remember that women from here really don’t get out much, their lives, as earlier missives have told, really don’t stretch outside their house compounds very often, let alone all the way up to the capital city, and so the dialogue of these two women on their journey from the city to the capital was a constant stream of comments (think the voice of Brian’s mother in ‘The Life of Brian’ by Monty Python’), along the lines of: “Oh my Betty, look over there at that sheep…oooooh, Martha see them gypsies and that camel…blimey this is that village that thingy told us about…look at that field, sad innit, we just ain’t had enough rain this year…I hear you can get good material from this market…Well I never did, Betty, will you look at the colour that woman is wearing, who does she think she is, Ashwarya Rai?’. This constant commentary is quite funny enough, but picture this: at the inevitable bathroom stop, out hop the men and disappear off to relieve themselves and the two ladies get out and hunker down by the wheel of the vehicle and…light up!! They started smoking. Pull back that big black covering and light yourself a Pine Light! Hilarious, women just don’t do that here. Imagine it – it just reminds me of some French and Saunders sketch of a school trip and having a cheeky fag out the back of the bus, but this is here, these are old ladies, ladies of The Book, covered in all decorum and modesty and out they slide and light up a fag, huddled down against the dust storms, blinking against the grit through their pebbled glasses.

And the return journey was equally as enthralling for them, I can just imagine exactly the same comments but this time its: “Oh Betty that camel does look different from this side…that sheep looks much thinner from this way…Oh, I’m sure that mountain wasn’t there on the way up…Martha, I’m really not sure about that material from this angle.”

Please someone who is funnier than me and comedically gifted at writing come here and write funny sketches about this life and these brilliant people and what they pull out of the hat to keep you laughing. I’m thinking either ‘Smack the Pony’ sketches or even a ‘What’s up Tiger Lily’ filming with dubbing would work…Hilarious, I love it.