Radio West

Yesterday morning we woke up to a thumpTHUMP, thumpTHUMP, coming from somewhere outside. It sounded like the back beat of rock music. It grew louder and louder and didn’t stop. By 10 AM I had a headache from it. I went outside to hang some laundry on the line and Boaz came over to talk. Turns out it was a local radio station – Radio West – celebrating their 11th anniversary. They had set up a big stage with lots of speakers in a field about 3/4 of a mile away. Other vendors had come up as well and were selling food and drinks, including liquor.

Sometimes there would be talking, sometimes music, sometimes we could hear the crowd that was growing. By evening they had started playing what sounded like reggae and sounded like the same song over and over again, only with different words. Yes, by this time we could hear the words, too. People were screaming and cheering. About 9PM they put off fireworks. It was quite the display! We could see most of it over the hill that we live on.

The music continued into the night. We live in a cement block house and we could hear the music and the words with the windows closed and the doors closed! It finally got quieter over all (though at times it would get loud and wake us up) around 2AM. Then it completely stopped around 6AM. Blessed silence! We drove by the field this morning and it was literally covered over with litter – plastic bags, cups, bottles, papers and many other things. They were taking down the tents but people were working hard to clean up the mess. Probably in a couple days there won’t even be a sign that this all happened. James pointed out that at least the clean-up provided a job for someone. How’s that for optimism?

At church this morning I learned two interesting cultural things. First of all, if people drop trash at a funeral, other people won’t clean or pick it up for fear of having bad luck. Second, they say that if a pregnant woman eats sugar cane her baby will come out striped!

Gaelin is running a little fever today and is quite cranky. Guess it’s an early bedtime for him for sure! I think they are all tired from last night. They colored pictures for us to mail back to people in the states. Now to just figure out how to mail something. James has before and will be able to show me. The post office isn’t far from here and I know where it is. As far as I know we haven’t gotten anything from the states yet as we haven’t been here long enough.