Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! We bought fabric that has a cool green design on it and last night I cut the fabric into bandannas (the only thing all of of us would agree to wear!) and tonight the 8 of us are going to go out to a local bar/restaurant sporting our team bandannas! We are very excited ( and obviously huge nerds!) :) I am sure I'll get some good pictures!

So one thing that I have been meaning to write about is what goes on on the streets here after dark. The only real house rule here is that we cannot walk around outside after dark. There is a restaurant down the street that we can walk to as a group after dark, but that is the only exception, and even then the guard gets nervous when we walk there in the dark. The odd thing is that this is not just Terrie's rule. At the hospital one day one of the locals told me I should not stay too late because it was important that I not be out on the street after dark. When the 6 of came back from the safari and we were waiting for our ride to pick us up from the bus station we had no more minutes left on our cellphone. We asked one of the locals how far it was to the nearest place to top up the phone, and she said oh no, just use my phone, and had her ride wait while we used her phone. Then she left but the guard for the bus station (a man whose job it is to walk around the station all night) told us that he would stay with us until our ride came and that is was really not a good idea for us to walk anywhere in the dark. It seemed extra spooky coming from him seeing that his job means that he is out after dark. It certainly made us all nervous and the 6 of us more or less huddled together under the one spotlight outside the locked, isolated bus station waiting for our ride. What was strange was that the streets around us were abandoned. Not a car or person was in sight, and yet the guard made it crystal clear not to leave. There are no street lights anywhere, so away from the station it would have been pitch black. Scary to think what must go on to make everyone so concerned about the dark. We talked to Terrie last night about her thoughts on why going out at night is so bad, and she said that she is not positive, but one theory is the what she called the "mob mentality". What this means is that during the day there are generally people everywhere so if someone steals something from the market all of the people around will start chasing the thief. She told us that one time she was at work and she saw someone that she didn't know putting a lap top in his bag. She tried to confront him, but he started to run. She was feeling daring at the time so she started chasing the man shouting "thief" in Chichewa. People started joining her and soon she had a whole group of locals were helping her chase down the perpetrator. The man took the laptop out of his bag and threw it in a nearby field. Terrie followed the laptop, and the crowd followed the thief. Later the group caught the man and dragged him back to Terrie shouting "kerosene" in Chichewa! Terrie couldn't believe them! Rather than pour kerosene over him, she compromised with the crowd and called the police and had the man arrested. Terrie said that the prison's are pretty terrible too, so I'm not sure how much of a compromise it was to send him to jail!
I think Terrie is right about the mob mentality idea. I also think there is a good deal of corruption in the legal system so if you were alone and got robbed you would have to pull some strings to get help. I asked a local if there was a short cut home from the market. He said that there was, but he didn't recommend me taking it because it is through an isolated field. He said that he knew a white guy that took the short cut once and got mugged. I think I'll stick to the long route!

Well, I have to head in to the hospital!
Have a good day!