A Letter

I am writing you from the small village somewhere in Africa. As I have heard, after devastating fire that almost destroy famous Notre-Dame cathedral a lot of money has been collected. Enough to build several more churches. We here feel that some of that huge sum should be converted to construct us here copy of Notre-Dame. Our hunger, thirst and unprecedented poverty could be endured much much easier if such cultural monument would stand in front of us all. Not to mention the shade that can provide. There we can grow some plants to avoid torrid sun. Also no need for our countrymen to drift away to Europe to see with their own eyes this fantastic building. Many had left our village, but only few have managed to visit it. The erection of this fine cathedral here should both save them trouble of that journey and you of receiving, nourishing and feeding them.

The copy of Notre-Dame shouldn`t cost much. We will be thankful for cheap material, prone to collapse so that fallen structure would put us all out of our misery. Empty bellies are less difficult to last in close vicinity of man-made praise both to God and humanity. Gazing at its lovely carvings and looking across its fabulous facade and apse, together with central spire will make sickness and fear in eyes of our children to go away and our trouble small and insignificant.

Sincerely yours,

Bramqundacko Mbamavanko

Poor African village.

I`m sorry for delay of mine letter. Nearest Post Office is in Cairo, miles away. So I had to wait for postman, which comes by every three months. I paid him with our last goat. This poor creature should be consider first martyr of Africa`s Notre-Dame. In the same rank as St. Dannie or St. Genevieve (sorry about bad spelling, our teacher was beaten by the snake, then one limb eaten by hyena and on the rest of his poor body feasted by lions and vultures). He has watched wildlife on BBC. On TV no harm are done to any white European by local predators, so he was sure that nothing bad would happen to his sorry figure. Well, he ought to stay back home and enjoy African nature via television, not viewing it up-close and personal.

Before that we killed our dog to provide writing material out of its poor body. There aren`t any shops around here and subsequently we haven`t got any store credit. The Lidl are in negotiations with our village elderly, so we anxiously await any good news. If you choose to erect copy of Notre-Dame here, that will provoke (again sorry of unadequent English) and instigate them to put our village on their world map. One large construction site and only their store in any vicinity is the dream come through for such capitalist.

P.S. Because UK is leaving EU we would like to trade with any of them. There is no EU here, this is EU free-zone just the way they enjoy it. We could offer them poor diet, so if any of them want to lose some weight this is ideal for such activities.