No Parrots?

By Ayanda Mhlanga

The green building stood before me, ready to be conquered ‘Rat and Parrot’ it read and in a smaller font ‘Pub and Restaurant’ above the door; a building I had passed many times before. Numerous students had gone before, but I had always found it daunting and, well, green looking.

I’d always thought there was a lot of smoking and drinking that went on in there and that I would be identified as an outcast as soon as I walked through the door with a sea of stern looking faces staring at me, it was a pub after all, are people in pubs friendly?

I opened the door as naturally as I could, as if I walked into the Rat everyday, I hoped I pulled it off. I was greeted by a smiling waitress; I had not expected a smiling waitress, why was she smiling anyway? I saw one of my tutorial peers who directed me upstairs to the rest of the ‘tutlings’, and there they were, spread over two tables looking as comfortable as can be, all happy to be out of the AMM. I slotted myself in one of the benches and started chatting away… about Journalism of course. It turns out there was a lot of smoking going on, and plenty of drinking, but they did have coffee and juice too. I had something called ‘Paradise’, a fruit mix of sorts. I spotted neither parrots nor rats, aside from the Rhodes Students that is.