Blomba Part 3

My hands are getting fatigued from the typing. I hope you people appreciate this, now, because you’ll no doubt be overwhelming me with floods of sympathy after this. Or not...

Like I said before, myself and 2 colleagues were heading to a gig later on the Friday night in Blantyre. It was a reggae gig, with Rita Dominic there. It was very heavily advertised in Blantyre while we were there, and since we weren’t heading back to Lilongwe until the Saturday morning anyway, we said we might as well go! So I went with the driver, and my colleague who was hoping to be a doctor, “N”. I hate using these bloody code names, N sounds like a character from an older Bond film, but sure I never get to ask people if I can use their real names on the internet so code is only fair.

Anyway.

Well, what a bloody fiasco. The doors were meant to open at 8pm. Clearly what they should have written on the tickets, though, was “8pm, African time”. The two are very different things altogether. I thought the Irish were bad for punctuality, and then I came to Malawi, LOL! :-) I’m getting used to that though, so it wasn’t too bad. We arrived on time for 8pm anyway, and took our place in the queue to wait.

No-one else seemed keen on the idea of queuing though, unfortunately. The amount of people skipping the queue was a joke – they just sort of accumulated around the door then, so it was less of a line and more of a blob... Again, though, I could have managed that in itself. But they seemed to be in no rush to open to the single tiny door they were allowing people through, into the venue. I’m sure we didn’t get in until about 9.30, and we were by no means the last in the door, as I will relate to you. We weren’t the last in, but I would have far preferred to be the last in, than to have gotten in the way we did.

Basically, when they eventually did open the tiny door, it was like the crack that broke the dam. It was absolute bedlam – people were shoving their way in, trying to get past the police and security without tickets, trying to barge in, etc etc. And there was me the whole time thinking to myself, “why can’t they all just bloody well queue?” We would have gotten in about 20 times faster if there had been some semblance of order, I’m quite sure of it. They kept opening and closing the doors, alternately letting a few in and then trying to keep them out. So it took bloody forever.

As I approached the top, though, some fookin genius thought it would be a good idea to try and force our way in as a group. Pardon the French, but I don’t know whose inspired thinking this was. I was smack plonk in the middle of the blob around the doors I described to you, so of course; when the group decided to move forward I didn’t have a whole lot of choice. No more choice, I would say, than a leaf has, in what direction the river it lands on decides to go in.

N had to hang on to me around the waist to stop me from getting trampled, because I was probably the smallest person there. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t move, and some gobdaw in stilettos was standing on my foot. Great. Fantastic start to any evening.

Then, they decided to move to try and shove their way in. I cannot adequately describe to you the discomfort there was associated with this – sort of like being stuck in the midst of a herd of buffalo, I’d imagine, and the buffalo are being chased by something. I actually thought I was going to fall and get trampled. A mosquito couldn’t have fit between people here.

I lost one of my shoes in the fray, and of course I couldn’t retrieve it because I could no more move than fly. Then – surprise, surprise – one of the policemen ended up going mental with the baton to beat people away from the door and restore some semblance of organisation and order. I mean, I don’t know what people expected. I really don’t.

Grrrr.

Long story short, I ended up getting a clatter across the back with the baton myself, and hobbling around the venue with one shoe, trying to avoid the broken glass scattered around the floor. I was insistent on retrieving the lost shoe at any cost, but when I told the venue staff I’d lost it, they asked me to wait until later to get it back. Ha. Fat bloody chance, mate.

I am standing, due to your own lack of organisation and other peoples’ stupidity, in your venue wearing one shoe surrounded by broken glass and a fresh pool of someone else’s blood. Wait for the shoe? Eh, no. I don’t fancy HIV much myself, so waiting is not an option. Get me my bloody shoe. I made quite the pitiable sight, I assure you – standing there barefoot, muddy and sobbing. I wasn’t hurt really, more shocked.

The whole thing was just so farcical – and it was a shame, because I think I would really have enjoyed the music itself if the evening hadn’t got off on such a hairy foot (pardon the pun). I was distracted and downcast for the rest of the night, and to tell the honest truth I was just dying to go home the whole time. I’m able to laugh about it a bit more now though – like I said, I wasn’t actually hurt, and now that I’m over the shock it’s a good story for the grandchildren, as they say at home... :-) I’m still vaguely annoyed, as you may have guessed, about the series of stupid events that precipitated it, but I’ll get over that too.

I’m heading to a place called Mua early tomorrow morning to undergo a cultural training course with another group of the White Fathers – the priests’ order I’m currently staying with – for the next few days. It’s meant to be very good, and I’ve already met a lot of the priests in question from there, so I’m really looking forward to it. Onwards and upwards! I’ll have a good few days, and I certainly won’t let Friday’s fiasco hold me back. There’s even an Irish priest in Mua! I met him a few days ago and surprised myself at how excited I was to hear another Irish accent, LOL!!! They’re all lovely so I’ll be well taken care of, and with any luck come back more able to deal with situation like the one I outlined above! :-D