Thank you, thank you very much, thank you Hello! Hello everyone, or as we say in South Africa, hello! It's really wonderful to be here, this is my first time working with Comic Relief when they asked me to join they said Trevor we'd really love you to join Comic Relief and I said I'd love to do it, do I have to come to the UK but then I found out that they're actually projects in South
Africa that I got to take part in which is really wonderful for me for two reasons one because obviously
it's close to my heart I grew up in a township a but more importantly I didn't have to fly
which is really great because flying has been particularly
stressful for me in the recent months mostly because of
the ebola crisis as a South African traveller flying
anywhere in the world has been extremely stressful because it has been extra stringent
measures that have been placed on us you know flying to America particularly
has been the worst you go through different lines, there's extra checks you know especially if you
come from what they consider a high-risk ebola region which is
apparently the whole continent cause we're all coughing on each other in one big hut I don't really blame them cause look, the
truth is most Americans don't know much about South Africa so I well they don't
know much about Africa as a whole, well most of them don't know much about anything, but still like it's just weird because you
would land America and the questions they would ask you at the border control
would be so interesting, like you'd get there a man would look at me and as soon as he'd see I was from South Africa he'd be like, Sir South Africa, have you been in contact with ebola? like my answer would be yes, next stop Disney World! Would I really still be traveling I've been in contact with one of the most deadly diseases on the planet is that what type of person do you - ahh I paid for that trip I'm going even if it kills everybody, like why would I
do something like that And the way they would ask it as well me made it sound like ebola was a distant relative of mine like a cousin, have you been in contact with ebola? Yeah, I spoke to him last week! he's doing well, thanks for asking Such a strange world was, was
honestly one of the worst trips I ever took because what happened is we flew in, so I was flying to Los Angeles and because of that we have to stop over in Atlanta and change planes and when we got off our plane went off and
we got into another plane and when we did they made an
announcement as we got onto the plane they told other passengers that we were
from a South African plane and so they were going to be spraying the cabin for their safety. But they said this as we
walked on the air hostess came on and she was like ladies and gentlemen please note we've got some passengers joining us from a South African flight and due to the ebola crisis right now we're just gonna spray the cabin shouldn't be too harmful, you can
cover your eyes and a nose if you think it'll harm you but it should be okay
and we'll be on our way shortly thank you very much. We walked on to that, that's our introduction. As we're walking on, hello hello, was like a
scene from Forrest Gump, everyone was like, can't sit here! can't sit here! It wa shonestly one of the worst flights I've ever taken in my life I've like, it was so tense I coughed once The plane shook, there was this one guy who couldn't even hold it, I couldn't hold it any longer and he couldn't hold it, it was like...and he was like ebola!! Ebola! I was like calm down, calm down It's just AIDs, calm down, you're safe for now The stress! Everybody. We landed finally in Los Angeles but still we weren't allowed to disembark The air hostess came back on to make another announcement she said Ladies and gentlemen plsease stay in your seats before we can disembark the plane we're
just gonna have a quick safety procedure checking, health and safety officials
coming on board to make sure everything is up to standard and we should be on
our way shortly thank you very much. So we have to sit
there while the health and safety official came on board the plane and his job was using a list of African
passengers he was gonna go around and then scan each passenger and make sure they were healthy and what he had, he had a laser thermometer and he'd go to each African point it at our heads and then basically the
way it worked on the thermometer is if you're very hot then you've got ebola, I think that's how it works So walk down, scan the people, walk down, scan the people, and I know why he did this, he came down to my row walked all the way to me, to me scanned the people around me, looked at me and then just shook his head and walked
away, like almost like I wasn't African enough or
something... I mean he scanned the people around me and he moved on so because of this a few rows later he
was short one name on the list which was mine and so he calls the
air hostess over and he's like I got a name I don't know, and she's like are you sure, did you check, and he's like yeah I don't know who it is ... And this commotion and it's growing and
it's growing and now I think they're talking about me I'm pretty certain but I'm not gonna be
the guy was like excuse me I think I'm I'm the ebola threat! Yeah I'm not gonna say that So I'm just listening while this is, and the commotions growing, keeps growing So the whole plane starts listening everyone gets involved and then at its height, at its height
there was a man three rows behind us of Middle Eastern descent, he had a big beard, very traditional regalia on and I'll never forget this, he leaned
into the middle of their conversation with no hint of irony whatsoever just leaned in and was like
excuse me, pardon me ah, you probably want to check the
gentleman over there something suspicious about him I notice, might want to check in there that guy was coughing I was like really? Et tu Ahmed How the wheel has turned my friend you forget there was a time when muslims
were the black people of the skies now you have turned on me, I thought he would be on my side I thought he would relate, I thought he would be like don't worry I know how it feels, I got you Instead he was like, enjoy being under the bus! It was a stressful time. Coming into the UK has been a bit nicer you know, I guess people are a bit more informed - not that it's easy don't get me wrong flying to the UK is a lot of stress you have one of the most stressful border
controls I have ever come into in my life, like they ask you so many questions, question upon question upon question I've got the right paperwork, I've got the
visa Comic Relief, the guy looks at me he's like so you're a comedian, I said yeah, he's like you don't look funny I just woke up and what what what does
that even mean? And he kept asking me questions and at one point I stopped I said look man look man, I've given you the paperwork, I've told you why I'm here, why don't you believe me? He said, well look the truth is we can't just believe everybody that comes into the UK, we can't just believe that you gonna do what you say you here
to do that doesn't make sense you might do something totally different I was like, yeah fair enough, that makes
sense I just wish as Africans we'd thought of that when the British arrived would've served us well What is that flag for? Oh, just going to wave it in your country Ahh, come on in! You guys have been fantastic, thanks so much for having me Have a great night
