I Guess I Didn't Take a Russian Children's Poem's Advice on Traveling in Africa

A common rendering of Barmaley

I studied Russian for three years in high school, yet except for a small amount of vocabulary and some grammar rules, my knowledge of the language has mostly dissipated. I guess that's what happens when you take several other languages in the intervening years...the brain only has room for so many. Well, there's one major exception to my dwindling Russian knowledge, and that's a common children's poem called Barmaley. I vividly remember senior year (so, that'd be about 8 years ago now) memorizing the first stanza of the poem, and not only can I recite it back to this day--weird, I know--I still remember what all the words in it mean. This, effectively, is 90% of my limited Russian vocabulary.
 

The poem Barmaley starts off as a warning to kids not to go traveling around Africa. Oops. It was only today that it finally hit me. I wasn't really into Africa during high school; I was much more fascinated by Southeast Asia at the time (that fascination hasn't gone away, it's just been surpassed by sub-Saharan Africa). So today, as my eyes glazed over temporarily at work, out of the blue the words to Barmaley popped into my head. The poem goes like this:

 

Маленькие дети! Ни за что на свете

Не ходите в Африку, в Африку гулять!

В Африке акулы, в Африке гориллы,

В Африке большие, злые крокодилы

Будут вас кусать, бить и обижать,

Не ходите, дети, в Африку гулять.

 

For those who don't read/understand Russian, the poem, as transliterated by me (with a little assistance from Google Translate, but I've re-Englishized it to make it sound normal and poetic still):

 

Little children! Under no circumstances in the world

Don't go to Africa, in Africa for a walk

In Africa there are sharks, in Africa there are gorillas

In Africa there are big, evil crocodiles

They will bite you, beat and hurt you

Don't go, children, in Africa for a walk

 

Yeah, I guess I didn't take that advice. Not only have I traipsed around the continent, but I've also gotten up close and personal with gorillas in Rwanda. I haven't done a walking safari yet--some day, perhaps--but I would still say that I've completely violated the author of Barmaley's advice.

 

Anyway, that was the whole point of this post. I find it strange that I remember this poem so well, and how it is somewhat relevant to my life nowadays. At least for now I've avoided the main reason the author tells children to avoid Africa, because Barmaley is an evil pirate who eats children.

 

В Африке разбойник, в Африке злодей,

(In Africa there's a robber, in Africa there's a villain)

В Африке ужасный Бар-ма-лей!

(In Africa there's the terrible Bar-ma-ley!)

Он бегает по Африке и кушает детей

(He runs about Africa and eats children)

Гадкий, нехороший, жадный Бармалей!

(Nasty, vicious, greedy Barmaley!)

 

And to conclude, I love this video and finally am remembering to connect it to a post on this blog as a video of something that makes me happy: