Only in lakemba...

So, i am totally not racist, i actually enjoy the little woggy things that surround me in my hood. I grew up in that atmosphere, and i am indeed a wog. But i swear, there are just those things that, no matter how immune you become, you still say, oh my gosh did that just happen??!

For example, only in lakemba would you see a fully grown man, come out of a supermarket, run over to his car (which is parked right outside), throw the bags in the car, bar one. In that bag is a milk bottle, which he takes out and starts drinking straight from the bottle, now i know this is not that unusual, but come on!

Only in lakemba can you walk through the arcade and find random mirrors hanging from shop doors and windows. So on my way to work i walk up to the old, less- than- friendly looking arab man to ask him why he does this. His response, "People like to look at zemselves, s'good forrr business", complete with thick accent and a touch to his greasy moustache.

Only in lakemba would you see a man wave another over to a car shiftily, opening his car boot to reveal many cheap looking silver watches. Yes thats right folks he was trying to sell the man from a shop, not just any shop- a chicken shop, watches right out of his car boot. As if that wasn't weird enough, the next day i walk past the chicken shop only to discover a table out the front with all of the suss- looking watches displayed, with matching bracelets and earings...

Only in lakemba would you find a shop's boundaries half way out of the side walk so that you have to shuffle past single file on a normally 6- man wide footpath.

Only in lakemba would you find a lebanese pizza shop as small as a toilet cubicle, that has business, with customers lining up around the corner... (how sanitary could that possible be?)

Only in lakemba would you get whistled at by a group of 5 old arab men sitting at a cafe, every 200 metres you walk...

Only in lakemba would you find a bus shelter that was smashed held together by masking tape and an old garbage bag...

Only in lakemba, would the arrival of aldi be the best news of the year.

I grew up going to school in lakemba, its the way i roll, its the hood i nest in. I couldn't see myself without all those fully sick habibs, all those greek food-loving crazies, all those asian shops which sold me coke for a buck and migorengs for 15 cents, all those indian shops, which lay abandoned, too smelly to walk past; and yet they still kept rearing their ugly heads.

The only clothes shop in lakemba was a great meeting point, the local lebo pizza shop was our hang, and going for a walk down the road involved seeing your whole neighbourhood. You never felt unsafe, cuz you were local. You knew you wouldn't get rolled cuz you were local. You may have had to face a fist or two cuz you were local. But you always got the "are you lebanese/greek/viet? let's be friends" cuz you were local.

As much as i pay it out, it's made me cultured, accepting of different ways of life and as loving as a wog family can get.

Thanksch Lakemba, you're hectic! :D