Skip to main content

The Night from Hell

So as for the title, it is very much deserved.
 In fact, it was dubbed the Night from Hell by Drew, our professor's son.

I know this blog post won't do the whole story justice but bear with me. When I get back to normal life, and normal wifi use, then I can really give you the good details.

It starts with everyone sitting around the camp as it begins getting dark. Seriously out of nowhere, Boone shows up with a fat black goat on his shoulders and all sweaty with a crazy look in his eyes. He stumbles into light and drops the goat on the ground and says "well should we kill it right here?"
UMMMM. We had no idea O Davido was buying a goat and that we would be slaughtering it so imagine our surprise. We were kind of freaking out about the possibility of a blood bath ensuing.

Well that got resolved and everyone was informed about this goat that we now owned named Stanley. (Turns out Stanley was a girl). Little did we know, the guy who sold us the goat would reappear that night as a witch doctor and I believe this night from hell to be because of the bad juju that the Himba believes come from black goats. We unknowingly asked for this curse!!

After the goat was tied up at somebody's home nearby, we resumed our evening. We began preparing for rain that we could see approaching which was NOT expected and especially not wanted. Camping in tents in the mud is not fun. One of our classmates, Celina, was on the brink of death with dehydration and got a lot of nosebleeds in a 72 hour timeframe. She came into camp looking like death and was covered in her own blood. It begins to pour rain. And now torrential wind storm is coming through camp. We freaked a little about that and she announces that a witch doctor is coming with a hot coal to do something...

As we run around trying to duct tape holes in the tent, dodge falling poles from our shade cloth, throw everything in dry places, fix our collapsing tent, and tend to bloody Celina, a pole falls and lands on Shallae nailing her right in the head. She begins screaming out in pain and falls to the ground amidst all this chaos. Well when she recovers enough to stand, the witch doctor shows up and begins his procedure. I'm sitting there with my headlamp lighting up the bloody mess while he keeps speaking in Ochi Herrero and everything is getting soaked. He puts the blood on his forehead and on the coal then on her finger and on her forehead and it was all sorts of confusing. He was a hoax but it still made for a great story! Celina was basically passed out for the whole thing.

After that episode, I camer into the tent sopping wet and we get everyone else settled. Then the rain fly flew off and began soaking one half of the tent so i ran back out into the night and rain and secured it.

The night was calming down and it seemed we would make it through the rain storm. When it went quiet, a bird began squawking so incredibly loud that we all just busted out laughing. As the running quote from our good doctor Crandall, I yelled out "Shut up you Moron!"

After those laughs died down, the night began to replay in my head and I broke the silence and busted out laughing. What a great story to add to my book of life.

:)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Going Native

As tradition follows for the BYU Namibia Field Study, all of the girls are invited over to a homestead of some women and allowed to dress up in traditional garb. For the Himba, this encompasses the red okre butter that they apply to their skin called “otjize” as well as goat skin skirts and skin head dresses. Then there are the woven belts, necklaces, and bracelets. We purchased some of the otjize rocks in Opuwo and brought them to start grinding. Marahoraguapi helped me grind it into a fine red powder. This stuff stains EVERYTHING and we wanted to get to be as close to a real native woman so we wore our bras and shorts. I was the first to get covered in the red paste and those women put it on thick—especially on my face. Not gonna lie, I looked really scary with my bright green eyes and white teeth against a shocking deep red skin. Our translators came along with us and Nicki in particular said that she couldn’t even look at me for a while because I was so freaky looking!...

Gilman Scholarship

Due to the amazing Gilman Scholarship offered to students from low-income families, I am able to participate in Brigham Young University's Namibia Field Study this April. (In 70 days actually, but who's counting!?) The culmination of events leading up to this experience has been crazy-- in the very best kind of way! Last September, I knew I wanted to take advantage of BYU's study abroad program and get some in-country experience in a developing nation. It seems like everyone here has lived overseas and the fact that I had never lived in a developing country was something I know I needed for the future. Afterall, I want to permanently work in these poor nations and with so many African study abroads, I knew it would have to happen! I worked long and hard on two essays with Brenda from the Kennedy Center and I created something that I was proud of. When I submit the essays, I don't know if I even believed I had a shot. It's a NATIONAL scholarship competition. The ...

Funerals & Witches

So, witch craft is the driving force in this village among the Himba and Hakawona and the longer we stick around to observe these people, the more juicy the witch craft stories get. They call it "omiti". Our second week here, a Himba woman died and so we attended the week+ long festivities at their homestead. We missed the burial for that one because nobody knows how to relay details or plans because most people don't even know what day, month, or time it is. Basically there are three hours of the day: Sun rise, sun in middle of sky, and sunset. No such thing as "plans" here! Well, our third week had a Hakawona woman die. As we had learned previously, nobody just dies of natural causes here. It is always because of a curse that somebody else had put on them. Then begins the fun of finding out who the jealous witch is that killed them! (I find myself incredibly frustrated over here because innocent people are blamed and beaten over a belief that omiti is real...