A sweet woman I know who owns a shop once tried to get me to buy the sachet water she was selling. Toffee-nosed as I am I had asked for a small bottle of water but she had none in stock. Pointing to one of the variety of sachet water brands she had, she said; “fa wei. Eye de papa”. What she meant by this terrible transcription of the Twi language was this; “take this one. It’s very sweet”, alternatively “it tastes good”. That particular brand of water was very nice according to her and she carried on telling me just how sweet and different it was from the others. Just like comparing Fufu from bush canteen and Fufu from some other eating place.
The whole concept of “sweet” or good tasting water was, well a teeny weensy bit bizarre in my view but I hastily overlooked the comment as a marketing ploy and rather than get into a debate with her about what my primary school teacher taught me, I declared I was not thirsty anymore.
When my teacher said that water is colourless (transparent), tasteless and has no smell I felt no need to verify that teaching because at the time, there was no need. It simply had no taste and that was precisely the reason why I did not like to take my medication with water and pleaded for “caca cola” instead! But it may be better not to take the characteristics of water for granted. Turns out there is some logic to water being labelled “pure water” on the streets and the invitation to treat says it all.
akuyaafriyie@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment