Jack MacRoary's Fairtrade Adventure
Episode Six
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: None.
Description: March 5th – Working for peanuts? Time to evolve.
Swearwords: None.
Description: March 5th – Working for peanuts? Time to evolve.
You’ll remember yesterday I was telling you about how DrumTumshie Academy became FairAware – and we got the award to show for it. That made the headmaster happy for once. He said we were ‘good representatives’ of the school. But told us not to rest on our laurels. Like we would. It was time to stop doing audits and collecting data and DO SOMETHING.
Brian agreed with me. He likes doing things. And the others on the committee agreed with me, too. They said I had to be the chairman of the Committee because it was my idea in the beginning. I didn’t really want to be – it’s a bit like being Captain or Team Leader and I prefer just playing in the team – but as mum says ‘some have greatness thrust upon them.’ And besides, I’ve had some books published and had blogs online and everything, so everyone thought I would be the best ‘spokesman’ for the group.
You have to complete a few more tasks (‘jump more hoops,’ dad said) to get the FairActive award. We had the group so that was the first thing ticked off and then we had to make an action plan and hold an assembly.
‘More writing,’ Brian said. ‘When can we just DO something.’
‘Since you’re so keen on doing something, you can head the Assembly,’ said Miss Direction.
‘Is that a good idea, Miss?’ asked Jimmy Wong
‘Why not?’ said Miss Direction.
‘Well… It’s Brian…’ said Jimmy Wong.
I didn’t like the sound of that. I mean, Jimmy’s a nice enough boy but he’s never been that friendly to Brian. I think he doesn’t ‘get’ Brian. Which is quite easy, by the way. Brian, as my mum says, is an acquired taste. I’m lucky. I ‘acquired’ Brian when I was in primary school, but Jimmy Wong didn’t go to TattyBogle Primary, his family didn’t move into DrumTumshie until a couple of years ago. I hope you don’t think this sounds like racial stereotyping, but his family run the local Chinese Takeaway. I can’t help that. It’s just a fact. Anyway, I don’t like anyone being mean to Brian, so I made sure Jimmy Wong knew it.
‘And your problem is?’ I said, sounding firm. ‘Let’s vote on it.’
So we voted on it and everyone agreed that Brian should head the Assembly. Apart from Jimmy Wong and Mr Smith. But that still means we have a majority, just not that we are unanimous. But the way people have such different opinions on all sorts of things it would amaze me if we ever could be unanimous. It shows that we needed to watch out for Jimmy Wong though. You’ll see why later on.
‘Giving Brian responsibility will be good for him,’ Miss Direction said when Mr Smith suggested that ‘it’ll be a fiasco.’
‘And even if it is a fiasco, Sir,’ I said, ‘it will be a Fairtrade fiasco.’
I was kind of wishing we didn’t have to have Mr Smith on our group because he seemed to me to have a negative sort of energy which was rubbing off on some of the others. Especially Jimmy Wong. And when someone starts being negative you have to work even harder to get things done. In my experience.
‘Over to you then Brian,’ I said. ‘What’s your idea for a Fairtrade Assembly?’
And then Brian came out with this incredible idea. It was called ‘Stop Monkeying around and go bananas for Fairtrade.’ It was going to be a classic. Or as Miss Direction said ‘an epic.’
‘Well, you tell us we can achieve anything,’ I said.
We did agree with her that perhaps we couldn’t have live monkeys on stage, though. It’s a shame. I’ve never seen a live monkey up close and I’d love to see one in the School Assembly Hall. That would pull in the crowds.
So apart from the live monkeys, Brian’s plan for an assembly was more or less adopted. And this was it:
We started with a song. De-oh… The Banana Boat Song, you know it? We found it on YouTube when we went looking for songs about Bananas. Brian sang out the first line and we all came in with the response. That got the kids laughing. Then we told them about bananas. About how banana workers on large plantations have to live on less than a dollar a day and how they can’t afford to feed their families or send their children to school. (I will admit someone cheered from the audience at that point but we ignored them. It was Timmy Thomson. Don’t think I’ve forgotten that, Timmy.)
Then we did another song. The Banana Splits theme tune -one banana, two banana, three banana four… and got everyone singing along to the chorus.
Then we explained that for the banana growers who sold Fairtrade they have a much better life because they are paid enough for their bananas and they don’t have their crops sprayed with poisonous stuff, and we told them about Foncho who is a banana farmer in Columbia. If you want to find out more about him, his story is here.
And we told everyone to tell their parents to buy Fairtrade Bananas. Even if they cost a wee bit more, they are worth it. The supermarkets all stock them and they will stop stocking the other ones if no one buys them. That’s the power of the consumer. It’s up to us.
Someone shouted out ‘I don’t like bananas.’
And Odoyo Ashebe came right back to him and said, ‘We don’t like you, but we still put up with you.’
I should point out, in case you haven’t worked it out, Odoyo is a black boy. You might say coloured. But he’s happy to say black. His family come from Somalia originally, but he comes from Birmingham. He gets a bit bullied at school by some kids. They call him ‘token’ which is nasty. But despite that, he’s always smiling and happy. When we were just going to primary school Odoyo was being a refugee and five is very young to be a refugee and not very nice. So he knows how lucky he is to live in DrumTumshie. Especially after Birmingham. Not that there’s anything wrong with Birmingham, but Odoyo lived in the country in Somalia and he likes living in the countryside. Even if it is a lot colder here.
Back to the story. To deal with the hecklers, I pointed out that whether you like bananas or not isn’t the point. If you don’t eat bananas then you’re not buying non Fairtrade ones for a start. But the point is that when you eat or drink something that could be Fairtrade you ought to – because otherwise its partly your fault that people are living in poverty, starving and that it’s not fair that they have those lives and we have ours. ‘No one chooses that life,’ I said. ‘They are born into it. Like I’m born into a farming family.’
And then Brian came back to the front of the group and said – ‘Stop Monkeying around – Go Bananas for Fairtrade’ and he threw out free Fairtrade bananas to everyone who acted like a monkey. Then he said, ‘But really, it’s the people who don’t buy Fairtrade bananas who are the monkeys. Time to EVOLVE folks.’
And that got everyone laughing and saying it was a really fun assembly and they would make sure they only ate Fairtrade bananas from now on.
You might wonder where Brian got the Fairtrade bananas from. I was wondering that, too. It turns out that his mum did a deal with the manager of the local co-op and bought a hundred bananas cost price so that he could do that. She did that because she was so proud that Brian was running an assembly. Because sometimes Brian isn’t always included in things and, you know, some people like Mr Smith don’t have much faith in him. And Brian’s mum said ‘she’d show that Mr Smith a thing or two.’
So that was great. Free bananas all round and Brian got to headline at DrumTumshie Academy. But we realised that in future we couldn’t afford to keep giving out free Fairtrade stuff. We had to agree with Miss Direction and Mr Smith that we would do a fundraiser as part of our next activity.
Brian agreed with me. He likes doing things. And the others on the committee agreed with me, too. They said I had to be the chairman of the Committee because it was my idea in the beginning. I didn’t really want to be – it’s a bit like being Captain or Team Leader and I prefer just playing in the team – but as mum says ‘some have greatness thrust upon them.’ And besides, I’ve had some books published and had blogs online and everything, so everyone thought I would be the best ‘spokesman’ for the group.
You have to complete a few more tasks (‘jump more hoops,’ dad said) to get the FairActive award. We had the group so that was the first thing ticked off and then we had to make an action plan and hold an assembly.
‘More writing,’ Brian said. ‘When can we just DO something.’
‘Since you’re so keen on doing something, you can head the Assembly,’ said Miss Direction.
‘Is that a good idea, Miss?’ asked Jimmy Wong
‘Why not?’ said Miss Direction.
‘Well… It’s Brian…’ said Jimmy Wong.
I didn’t like the sound of that. I mean, Jimmy’s a nice enough boy but he’s never been that friendly to Brian. I think he doesn’t ‘get’ Brian. Which is quite easy, by the way. Brian, as my mum says, is an acquired taste. I’m lucky. I ‘acquired’ Brian when I was in primary school, but Jimmy Wong didn’t go to TattyBogle Primary, his family didn’t move into DrumTumshie until a couple of years ago. I hope you don’t think this sounds like racial stereotyping, but his family run the local Chinese Takeaway. I can’t help that. It’s just a fact. Anyway, I don’t like anyone being mean to Brian, so I made sure Jimmy Wong knew it.
‘And your problem is?’ I said, sounding firm. ‘Let’s vote on it.’
So we voted on it and everyone agreed that Brian should head the Assembly. Apart from Jimmy Wong and Mr Smith. But that still means we have a majority, just not that we are unanimous. But the way people have such different opinions on all sorts of things it would amaze me if we ever could be unanimous. It shows that we needed to watch out for Jimmy Wong though. You’ll see why later on.
‘Giving Brian responsibility will be good for him,’ Miss Direction said when Mr Smith suggested that ‘it’ll be a fiasco.’
‘And even if it is a fiasco, Sir,’ I said, ‘it will be a Fairtrade fiasco.’
I was kind of wishing we didn’t have to have Mr Smith on our group because he seemed to me to have a negative sort of energy which was rubbing off on some of the others. Especially Jimmy Wong. And when someone starts being negative you have to work even harder to get things done. In my experience.
‘Over to you then Brian,’ I said. ‘What’s your idea for a Fairtrade Assembly?’
And then Brian came out with this incredible idea. It was called ‘Stop Monkeying around and go bananas for Fairtrade.’ It was going to be a classic. Or as Miss Direction said ‘an epic.’
‘Well, you tell us we can achieve anything,’ I said.
We did agree with her that perhaps we couldn’t have live monkeys on stage, though. It’s a shame. I’ve never seen a live monkey up close and I’d love to see one in the School Assembly Hall. That would pull in the crowds.
So apart from the live monkeys, Brian’s plan for an assembly was more or less adopted. And this was it:
We started with a song. De-oh… The Banana Boat Song, you know it? We found it on YouTube when we went looking for songs about Bananas. Brian sang out the first line and we all came in with the response. That got the kids laughing. Then we told them about bananas. About how banana workers on large plantations have to live on less than a dollar a day and how they can’t afford to feed their families or send their children to school. (I will admit someone cheered from the audience at that point but we ignored them. It was Timmy Thomson. Don’t think I’ve forgotten that, Timmy.)
Then we did another song. The Banana Splits theme tune -one banana, two banana, three banana four… and got everyone singing along to the chorus.
Then we explained that for the banana growers who sold Fairtrade they have a much better life because they are paid enough for their bananas and they don’t have their crops sprayed with poisonous stuff, and we told them about Foncho who is a banana farmer in Columbia. If you want to find out more about him, his story is here.
And we told everyone to tell their parents to buy Fairtrade Bananas. Even if they cost a wee bit more, they are worth it. The supermarkets all stock them and they will stop stocking the other ones if no one buys them. That’s the power of the consumer. It’s up to us.
Someone shouted out ‘I don’t like bananas.’
And Odoyo Ashebe came right back to him and said, ‘We don’t like you, but we still put up with you.’
I should point out, in case you haven’t worked it out, Odoyo is a black boy. You might say coloured. But he’s happy to say black. His family come from Somalia originally, but he comes from Birmingham. He gets a bit bullied at school by some kids. They call him ‘token’ which is nasty. But despite that, he’s always smiling and happy. When we were just going to primary school Odoyo was being a refugee and five is very young to be a refugee and not very nice. So he knows how lucky he is to live in DrumTumshie. Especially after Birmingham. Not that there’s anything wrong with Birmingham, but Odoyo lived in the country in Somalia and he likes living in the countryside. Even if it is a lot colder here.
Back to the story. To deal with the hecklers, I pointed out that whether you like bananas or not isn’t the point. If you don’t eat bananas then you’re not buying non Fairtrade ones for a start. But the point is that when you eat or drink something that could be Fairtrade you ought to – because otherwise its partly your fault that people are living in poverty, starving and that it’s not fair that they have those lives and we have ours. ‘No one chooses that life,’ I said. ‘They are born into it. Like I’m born into a farming family.’
And then Brian came back to the front of the group and said – ‘Stop Monkeying around – Go Bananas for Fairtrade’ and he threw out free Fairtrade bananas to everyone who acted like a monkey. Then he said, ‘But really, it’s the people who don’t buy Fairtrade bananas who are the monkeys. Time to EVOLVE folks.’
And that got everyone laughing and saying it was a really fun assembly and they would make sure they only ate Fairtrade bananas from now on.
You might wonder where Brian got the Fairtrade bananas from. I was wondering that, too. It turns out that his mum did a deal with the manager of the local co-op and bought a hundred bananas cost price so that he could do that. She did that because she was so proud that Brian was running an assembly. Because sometimes Brian isn’t always included in things and, you know, some people like Mr Smith don’t have much faith in him. And Brian’s mum said ‘she’d show that Mr Smith a thing or two.’
So that was great. Free bananas all round and Brian got to headline at DrumTumshie Academy. But we realised that in future we couldn’t afford to keep giving out free Fairtrade stuff. We had to agree with Miss Direction and Mr Smith that we would do a fundraiser as part of our next activity.
About the Author
Jack MacRoary, also known locally as the Bard of DrumTumshie, comes from the small farming community of TattyBogle, which he has singlehandedly put on the map through his fame. After bursting onto the Scottish literary cultural scene in August 2012, when he appeared at the inaugural Edinburgh eBook Festival, Jack now attends DrumTumshie Academy.
During his brief but eventful literary career so far, Jack has been a blogger, providing an insightful commentary on rural life and Scots culture; a short story writer; and most recently a political commentator through his McSerial contributions to the McStorytellers website.
The Complete TattyBogle, Jack's first “real book” published by McStorytellers in 2015, brings together in a handy compendium all of his musings, commentaries and stories to date.
During his brief but eventful literary career so far, Jack has been a blogger, providing an insightful commentary on rural life and Scots culture; a short story writer; and most recently a political commentator through his McSerial contributions to the McStorytellers website.
The Complete TattyBogle, Jack's first “real book” published by McStorytellers in 2015, brings together in a handy compendium all of his musings, commentaries and stories to date.