What do you mean they released the prisoners??

At one point while staying in Iringa, Chris and I came to the realization that we didn’t really have any friends. We definitely didn’t really see this as a problem, or even a negative thing, because we thoroughly enjoy each other’s company and we spent four months on Zanzibar unable to escape acquaintances. Over the past several days, however, we have realized that we do know quite a lot of people here in Iringa, and that perhaps we know too many people. It has really been kind of a snowball effect of beginning to know too many people throughout East Africa, starting with too many people in Stone Town, then too many in Zanzibar, then the whole archipelago, then along the coast, all the way to Arusha (near the Kenya border), Iringa, and now even when we travelled to Malawi we inevitably ran into people that we knew. When we are walking down the street, people frequently stop us, ask us if we remember them (95% of the time we don’t), and then quiz us on where we first met them. Chris especially is very unique looking—a black, dreadlocked, but still clearly westerner rather than rastafarian, man. Just two days ago, someone recognized Chris from our stay on Pemba Island about 3 months ago and approached us- he remembered his name, where they met, etc.... Chris had absolutely no memory of ever meeting him. As we were sitting in a bar in Malawi, a group of 3 British people walked in that had been sitting next to us in a restaurant across the street from our office in Iringa ealier that week. Our safari driver from our trip to Saadani National Park in March recognized us on the bus from Dar Es Salaam to Iringa (at least an 8 hour journey and 2 months later).... and as we crossed on foot into Malawi we were greeted, by name, by several men who claimed to be our friends. I get mysterious phone calls and text messages all the time, usually with odd requests such as dating proposals or asking for money, but I have no idea who sent them or how they got my number. It’s true that in a culture that you’re not used to people kind of look the same—people tell me all the time that I look like every other white woman—but I never expected to have absolutely no memory of meeting people who clearly cherished our 5 minute conversation enough to remember it 4 or even 5 months later. Crazy.

Today as we were walking down the street we were recognized by someone I did remember. “Midget” (nickname), a young British girl who helped us close down the Wildlife Conservation Society campsite about 2 weeks ago screamed “Mr. JIGGY!!!!!!” (a nickname that she gave to Chris) from a passing land rover. When we caught up with the car, she told us (among many other things) that some of the friends that we had made a few weeks earlier were robbed in their home. Apparently a crew of men, armed with AK-47s and pistols, came to their house, held their security guards and entire family at gunpoint while they stole all their money, computers and phones. Luckily no one was seriously injured. The father of the household was off on a backpacking trip with our other two housemates (they run a campsite and do trips like that- he’s basically a guide), so these guys who apparently knew the family came and stole all of their valuables. Unbelievable.....

While this was shocking to us, it came in a serious of really scary news stories. A couple nights ago, Chris and I decided to accompany a German girl that Chris met to a birthday party. When we told them we were going to walk home, a bunch of people at the party started freaking out and telling us that we couldn’t leave. Our house was very close (definitely less than ¼ mile), it wasn’t particularly late, and Iringa is usually very safe, so you can imagine how surprised we were by this seemingly irrational reaction of paranoia. That’s when they told us that “they” had “recently released the prisoners”. This statement confused us, mostly because there seemed to be no way a bunch prisoners would just be “released” without any sort of reason. So we started asking questions... What do you mean they released the prisoners? Why did they release the prisoners? Where did they release the prisoners? How many prisoners did they reslease? Logistical questions, like true Americans... As it turns out, the prison just decided that they didn’t want to have so many prisoners, so they decided to release a bunch. ???? There have been several rapes and murders since their decision, and now this robbery.... This place is absolutely ridiculous sometimes. Needless to say, we are being extra careful when going out, now that we know of the dangers of the released prisoners and the large guns that some of them have come to possess.

Other than the news of the released prisoners, the birthday party that we attended was really fun, though not at all what we expected. We left our house, hearing very loud music in the distance. I made a joke about how that was probably the birthday party, but we laughed it off. As we got closer and closer to the party, though, the music got louder and louder. It wasn’t until we were in the driveway that we realized that this bumpin’ dance party was, in fact, the birthday party where we had been told there “wasn’t much going on”. We sat around a bonfire, listened to very hilarious choices of mostly American music, and finally made a lot of young friends in Iringa! As the party was coming to a close before everyone migrated to the nearby disco, someone made a request that we stand in a circle, hold hands, and give speeches. The circle started off with a short rendition of “Oh, Happy Day”, and quickly progressed to speeches about how this party had reminded people of being boyscouts out in the mountains of the Kilimanjaro area, and how people were finishing college and would miss this place so much. As much as the circle and the circumstance made me laugh, it was actually really sweet. I was very impressed that Chris held it together, as I would have expected him to burst into fits of laughter at how awkward we felt.

My favorite moments at the party, however, were interacting with individuals. Other than the girl who had invited us (Sophia- from Germany who is volunteering for a year at an orphanage here), the first person that we met at the party’s name was Miriam, a self-proclaimed Shakira look-alike. Now, I am not an expert on celebrity impersonators, but I am a Shakira fan, and while this woman (who was a black Nigerian woman) did look vaguely hispanic, she looked absolutely nothing like Shakira. We agreed to friend her on facebook, and were told that she would be the one with the Shakira picture instead of her face. We later met a middle-aged Swedish man, who seemed just a bit too old for the whole scene, and wouldn’t stop making suggestive comments directed at every woman. He introduced himself by staring me down, accusing me of stealing his Konyagi (the cheapest liquor in Tanzania that you purchase in packets for like 50 cents), and then saying, “Hi, I don’t think we’ve met, my name is Marcus....” There was a drunken brawl going on outside the entire time we were there, with fists flying and people stumbling through the bonfire. And there was a mute man attempting to communicate his anger at the fact that he had drunkenly misplaced his shoes.

I’m not sure why there has been such a culmination of mute men entering our lives here lately, but it has definitely been a recent trend. It completely freaks Chris out, which makes the whole interaction seem just hilariously unfortunate to me.... The man at the birthday party was around our age, unable to communicate with words, but was able to understand us and communicate with other sounds. He would let out very aggressive bellowing sounds, while at the same time thrusting his upper body in your direction. My chosen form of communication with him was the thumbs up, for which we definitely had a mutual understanding. At one point, the man approached me, let out a howl-like sound and pointed at his bare feet. The shoes that he had just been wearing seemed to have vanished in the brawl he had been a part of. I looked at him, gave him the thumbs down, and he returned a thumbs down, and belted out a sound. The foot-pointing and bellowing continued on and off for at least the next half an hour, but I expect he eventually just got on with the evening. This event was preceded by an encounter with a mute man on the Malawi-Tanzania border who made loud, violent, heaving sounds as a way to encourage us to hire him as the driver of a bicycle taxi. We were already surrounded by at least 10 men trying to get us to hire their bicycle taxis or change currency, and then this man approached and started bellowing at us and making angry faces and sounds.... I have never seen Chris so eager to escape a situation. And on my walk to work I met another man who couldn’t really speak. I just had no idea that so many encounters could be possible in the time span of one week...

Well, I am shocked that it is July, that I am coming home in about 2-3 weeks, and that our time here is over in 2 days!!! (We are leaving on Friday for Kenya) It’s strange because I’m so excited to come home and see everyone, eat summer sweet corn, swim in the lake, see the fall colors, go back to OBERLIN!, and to hear all about how everyone has spent the last 6 months, but I am also so sad to have only two more days here... And the trips to Kenya, Zanzibar, and New York City in between those two things are just entirely overwhelming to me. Well, it feels like time is speeding up, so I guess I’ll just wait and see what happens. Maybe it will make the 4 plane rides seem faster, too.  I love and miss you all. See you SO soon.