The sound of an angry mob

How do you get to know the sound of an angry mob? Sadly, I think it’s just by experiencing it. I guess the reason I was so sure the sound I heard last week d was indeed a sign of trouble was because less than two weeks before that, I’d heard another crazed group of people. Life is never dull here.

We were heading to Malawi with our team mates a few weeks ago on a Saturday morning. We’d passed through the Mozambican and had stopped on the Malawi side to sort out a bunch of paperwork. We all had our jobs to do – Cam, Scott and our wonderful visitor Jo were off getting passports stamped and vehicle documents done, Bek was busy buying car insurance and I was getting some money changed over to pay for it all.

The border on the Malawi side is chaotic at the best of times – there are people coming and going, guys everywhere wanting to change money, people selling all sorts of things and to make it extra special this time – long lost friends returning from America. In the midst of it all and trying not to get ripped off – Bek and I were trying to keep an eye on five little kids.

All of a sudden a police car rocked up at the boom gate, it was promptly opened and the driver came through to do (what I found out later was essentially) a victory lap. The story was that the police had caught a man responsible for killing an albino person to sell the body parts for use witchcraft. The crowd went wild – yelling, laughing, chasing the car, trying to get a look or do goodness knows what with the criminal in the back of the ute.

The kids were intrigued at first, trying to see what all of the action was about but as the car came back to go back out past the boom gate – I started to get a bit worried. Those sorts of crowds are just so unpredictable and then they got even more excited when a policeman fell. He was trying to readjust himself on the back of the ute when the driver took off suddenly. He fell hard on his hip and dropped his gun in amongst the crowd. The driver didn’t even realise – he just kept going. Another ridiculous example of complete chaos instigated by the police.

Thankfully it settled soon after they left and no one else was hurt.

Three albino people have been killed already this year in Malawi – you can read more by clicking this link: http://www.nyasatimes.com/2015/03/03/albinos-in-malawi-hunted-like-animals-for-body-parts/