Short Story: COFFEE FOR THE ROAD

Grade 10-KATARUNGAN                                                                                 July 18, 2016

i.                     TITLE OF THE STORY

Coffee for the Road

ii.                   NAME OF THE AUTHOR

Alex La Guma was a South African novelist, leader of the South African Coloured People’s Organisation (SACPO) and a defendant in the Treason Trial, whose works helped characterize the movement against the apartheid era in South Africa. La Guma was awarded the 1969 Lotus Prize for Literature.

iii.                  SETTING

A.      PLACE

According to Alex de Guma’s Biography the setting is from Johannesburg to Cape Town, South Africa. The family is riding in an automobile, roughly one thousand miles a three-day journey.

B.      TIME

This true story was written in 1964 (Reference: Alex de Guma’s Biography) narrated by an East Indian South African woman. Occurred in South Africa during apartheid system of government where Black people are publicly discriminated.

iv.                 MAIN CHARACTERS

The mother of two who is fed up of racism that forced her to go inside the Coffee Shop  which people with colored skin are not allowed to enter, and harms the white attendant there by hurling her flask hitting the forehead because of cursing, and eventually faces the circumstance of her action.

v.                   SUMMARY

This is the story of a mother of two kids who happens to live in South Africa during the Apartheid Regime which has the law to maintain white domination while extending racial separation.

This East Indian South African woman who travels with her two kids by driving her family car from Johannesburg to Cape Town to see her husband who is working there happens to drop by at the Coffee Shop which is along the way for a little refreshment.  But this woman has a lot of hatred being done by these whites which she keeps only to herself, burst in due time.

She knows that she is not allowed to enter the place having a colored skin but she did not hesitate to go inside and buy a coffee. When the attendant curses her for no permit zone she bravely hurls her thermos flask hitting the attendant in the forehead. She is fed up of racism and lost her patience. Eventually she faces the responsibility of her action without regret.

vi.                 LESSON LEARNED

I learned that sometimes being too kind is subject for abuses. We should stand our ground if the situation permits. Let our voice be heard if we happen to know that anyone is already steeping over our dignity.  

vii.                PERSONAL REACTIONS

It annoys me that this kind of government existed until 1994. Thanks for the contribution of the first Back President of South Africa named Nelson Mandela. I can’t imagine if how these White leaders of South Africa who happen to be a foreigner in that land have the guts to make this kind of law. This is why confusion and lack of order is prevalent all throughout the world because of these self serving politicians. Even in the Philippines we have a lot of these scalawags that ruin the very fiber of democracy.