Excuse me, are you Allah?

I had one of the most bizarre and surreal experiences today when I got on the poda-poda, on my way home. You see it’s a little more difficult to get a poda going to Aberdeen from Fort Street after work, because a larger percentage of the podas that come past the Circular road stop seem to go to Lumley (another part of town). So Freya and I were happy when we finally heard the ‘apprentice (poda conductor)’ shouting ‘abadaba-daba-daba’ – this means Aberdeen in apprentice.

So anyway, we got unto the poda quickly – glad to be out of the looming clouds and impending rain – into an unusually empty poda, and we sit down. As we sit, another man boards and takes a seat on the row behind us. The poda starts to move when the man in the row behind taps me on my shoulder and asks,

‘Excuse me, are you Allah?’

Obviously, I’m reasonably perplexed by this question and I turn round to face him, repeating bemusedly, ‘Am I Allah?’ Here sits a well dressed man with a red jacket over an olive green shirt and a smart umbrella, tucked in his hand, with spectacles on (and as Freya rightly noted, looking slightly out of place in the poda), asking me possibly the most ludicrous question ever!

The man looks a little frustrated and repeats, ‘Are you Anna, Anna?’, and it all suddenly clicks into place; he’s asking me if I’m Anna!

We have a bit of a giggle and I assure him that no, I am not Anna, to which he exclaims ‘oh, I thought you were Anna’,  turns to the apprentice and says, ‘Apprentice, I’m getting off, she’s not Anna’, and then the poda stops – after having driven to the end of Circular road – and Mr Red Jacket hops off and simply walks away.

Freya and I looked at each other and burst into laughter. What on earth? He had been so determined; one would assume this Anna was some long lost love, but again as Freya rightly pointed out, he couldn’t have known Anna that well, if he was asking the question ‘Are you Anna?’! Maybe he’d seen a picture on  facebook and I happened to fit a vague description of this ‘Anna’ character… who knows!

At least I don’t have to worry that people are asking if I am the Muslim deity!

So if there are any Freetowners reading this post and were curious as to why those two English girls were laughing their heads off at the back of the poda, now you know.

Till my next Tale!

Banke xx