Igno­ring cele­bri­ties is the Swiss way

On this crisp Wednesday after­noon, I decided to take a walk from Central to Bahn­hofstrasse. I wanted to feel what people who took walks normally felt – because for me, I just did not get it. Having to walk from one place to the other was a sign of poverty where I come from. I did not under­stand why people here would ignore ground­brea­king inven­tions like buses and trams, and then decide to walk? It feels the same as igno­ring an elevator to take the stairs, WHY? Why waste a scien­tific inven­tion that had involved sweat, tears and toil? Albert Einstein would not be happy, in my opinion!

Just as I was about to cross the bridge on the river, I noticed someone who did not appear to be Swiss take a picture of me from the other side of the road. I stopped in my tracks. Is that even allowed for you to take a picture of someone without their consent? I started to rumi­nate through all the legal dramas I had watched on Netflix to get a legal prece­dent that I could use to sue for this inva­sion of privacy. All this while, the guy taking the photo­graphs had not stopped snap­ping away. In fact, he was moving the camera slowly in the oppo­site direc­tion of where I was walking towards, slowly in motion but still pres­sing his shutter buttons.

I turned my head back to see the other people he was taking pictures of without their consent, already assuming the poten­tia­lity of this lawsuit beco­ming a class action. There was only one person behind me now, and he had just walked past me. He was tall and wore a brown light­weight jacket and white shorts. He had his hands in the pockets of his shorts and was wearing white snea­kers. His ruffled curly hair was short, tamed. As he walked further away from me, the guy with the camera kept walking on the other side of the road, but in the same direc­tion as the guy in the brown jacket, and he was taking even more pictures. 

As if on cue, the object of camera atten­tion stopped, turned his head back to look in my direc­tion, thought about crossing the road to the other side, changed his mind, and continued to walk on. The world stood still in my eyes. In the split of a second, I was amazed, embar­rassed, surprised, perplexed, confused, and then confused a bit more. 

Because the guy who had been walking on the same side of the street as I, the guy who just walked past me in a simple white shirt tucked behind the brown jacket, the guy who was the actual object of camera atten­tion was no other than Roger, the tennis legend, Federer. I tried to breathe, then realized just again that for a whisker of a second, Roger Federer and I had brea­thed in the same air simul­ta­neously. The atmo­spheric condi­tions had crystal­lized our oxygen and carbon dioxide at the exact, same time. He had walked past me! I may have smelt his perfume! Hei God! No, I could not breathe. Breathing was not the prio­rity now.

Slowly, I regained control of my motor and sensory organs. Things slowly came back to perspec­tive. I leaned closer to the bridge, held on to the rails, and looked back in the direc­tion where I was coming from. Roger was still walking on. Like a normal person. Like he was not the most popular Swiss person on earth. Like he was not the biggest Swiss cele­brity ever. Wait, is that a Nike sneaker he has on? Roger Federer wears the same shoe brand as me?

And is walking alone on the streets of Zurich? A Swiss national trea­sure is trud­ging the streets of Zurich alone with no body­guard in sight? God oh!!!!!

I tried to recount the Nige­rian cele­bri­ties I had encoun­tered in my life and the images that came to my mind were over­sized gold chains on their neck and wrists; 47 Karat diamond-blinged, gold-plated rings on all 10 fingers; a retinue of people walking around them, preven­ting the ‘ordi­nary people’ from touching them, talking to them, or asking them: “Anything for the boys?” They never dressed to blend in. The plan is to show the social, economic, and class dispa­ri­ties that exist between you, the ordi­nary citizen, and them, the celebrities.

My thoughts and gaze return to Roger Federer, and one more thing strikes me about the present situa­tion. Apart from the unas­suming nature of this Swiss cele­brity, people were not also rushing to him for auto­graphs, or to take pictures. This was because Swiss etiquettes respects privacy of person publicly and priva­tely. It would be considered highly ‘unswiss’ to ‘fan-girl’ poor Mr. Federer. 

To ogle him publicly could earn you the famous Swiss stare (long, hard, unab­ashed). To hassle him just because he is a cele­brity would defi­ni­tely not be expres­sing any tenets of the Swiss in you. Thus, from a distance, you smile, you admire Roger’s dainty white T‑shirt, you act very poli­tely calm in the face of the cele­brity buzz going on around you, and then you walk away, coolly, a little bit unin­te­re­sted, like a true Swiss.

I have decided that I will be taking more walks in this country (inven­tions be damned!) just as I continue to live this Swiss life the Naija way.