Whew. City Day in my town. Wow. Last night, Phillip, Nimi and I painted the town red. Charles, Annie, Dinho, Blake, Albertina all joined us going down to the stadium to see the "spectacle". Well, we were eight of about 2000 people with the same idea.
Admission, unexpectedly, was 5 state-subsidized condoms. All you had to do was present the condoms...but you had to have the condoms. So they were selling boxes upon boxes in the ticket booth. Surrounding the window was a very drunken crowd of about 100 men, pushing and shoving to buy condoms. Phillip and I joined the fray.
We shoved our way halfway through, then realized we were stuck. I lifted Phillip as high as I could, about three feet off the ground. Getting help from others who wanted to assist the white people, he threw money at the condom seller and received a box (about 50 condoms). We pulled him down and immediately, Phillip and I ran for cover, being held and pushed by very condom-hungry Mozambicans.
Phillip kneeled down on the ground in order to get the box into his jacket so we could get out of the mob and I fended everyone off by throwing fake punches and pretending to go crazy, yelling in Changana/English and swinging my arms and legs wildly. He got up and ran for the entrance, meeting up with everyone else. The security guards first let Phillip and I in, then little by little, yanked the others into the stadium while police on the other side whipped the ground to control the crowd.
Once in, we calmed down a little, but that was quickly offset by the excitement of being at a real concert for the first time in town. Full sound system, lights and instrumentation.
The people sitting in the bleachers were pretty calm and sad-looking, so we decided to try and cheer them up. Well, I decided to. So I bargained with a vendor close to the bleachers to stand on his freezer to dance for the crowd. As I did, standing on top of a large refrigerator unit, the song ended.
It was VERY funny.
Peace
John
