When the whole village is drunk

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Our survey has begun, and last week we scheduled some community meetings to start spreading the word--preparing villagers for the sight of our city-kid research assistants cycling lost and confused around their communities, doing their best to dress and speak like locals. On Wednesday we had a meeting set for a village in Chilola, but when we rolled in around 4 pm we found the whole village drunk. The old men swarmed, greeting all of us with slurred words and wobbly stances--one man shook my hand so hard I jolted from the force. He then proceeded to introduce himself to two of my colleagues and me, thoroughly butchering each of our names (mine became "Maybe," Victoria became "Dora;" she corrected him three times until she gave up: "Fine, yes. Dora."). Of course it doesn't do much good to try to talk to a drunk village about the logistics of a survey on family planning and HIV, so we rescheduled.

Unfortunately it somehow escaped everyone's attention that rescheduling a meeting for Friday afternoon wasn't exactly a brilliant plan, as Fridays are the usual day for drinking. So if this village deemed it fit to be drunk on a Wednesday afternoon, we should have guessed that they would be far gone by Friday afternoon.

Sure enough when we drove into the middle of the village at 5 on Friday we found the village drunk yet again. A group of men was seated in the sun, circled protectively around a green bucket. As we pulled in (skirting a drunk man on a bicycle), the village headman spotted us and stood up from the group of men, grabbing the bucket of green village alcohol. Unsure of where to put it but determined to hide the evidence he turned in circles and tried to hand it off to the other drunk men, until a slightly less inebriated woman rescued him from his confusion and took the bucket.

Wary of having to shake hands again with slobbery men who smelled of pure alcohol, Victoria and I stayed in the car while Brian rescheduled for a third meeting. In the meantime a group of kids had gathered by the car to stare and giggle at us; one kid had such an unbelievably hilarious shrieking laugh that I rolled down my window to take a video (first video). As soon as the window was down a drunk man came tottering over, grinning like an absurd fool at Victoria and I. He shook our hands through the window and proceeded to just stand as close as he could to us with a dumb smile on his face. In an attempt to ignore him Victoria and I got the kids to sing us a song (second video). Watch for the drunk man on the right side of the screen trying to direct the children and inserting his large drunk head into the frame. It was all Victoria and I could do to keep from cracking up.

The third video has nothing to do with drunk villagers, but I though if I was going to attach videos I might include a slightly more pleasant one of some singing women at a children's growth monitoring meeting.

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Comments

[preetpaul]

LoL
great way to start the day by watching (drunk?) children (try to) sing!

[Teri]

Your story is hilarious
Loved the singing women - countryfied Lady Smith Black Mombazzo!!!

[Teri]

Your story is hilarious
Loved the singing women - countryfied Lady Smith Black Mombazzo!!!

[Ann Barkley]

Drunk in Namibia
Loved this email and videos. I drank some very nasty beer in a Namibian camp. It came in a red and blue container that looked just like a milk carton and had "shake hard" instructions printed on the outside. I advise you to avoid it at all costs.

[mom]

excellent
story and videos. I think I like the singing women best!!!