Be. Terryfied.

Right. Ok. How to even begin this story.
Let's start with setting the scene- its around 1am on a Saturday night in Lusaka. Its a lovely warm evening- I even decided to wear a skirt and heels... and we met our friends at the club, Lounge. Our friends are locals but will refered to as A and S for reasons to which I won't bother going into at this point- and the club we were at was in a local part of town and generally "muzungus" (white people/foreigners) are not seen here. In fact, Heida, Bryony and I were the only muzungus there. However, the scene at lounge was fading and we decided to head off to another club with more flavor- Chez Temba. Unfortunately- we never got there.

Heida, Bryony, and I all piled into Heida's car- which i was driving- and pulled out behind A and S who were in their own lovely Audi (A's pride and joy) We turned the corner and started crawling our way through the crowds streaming out from other clubs- until we came to a stop. At this point the crowds streaming out the club started to stream directly into A's car! Comicly, we started to laugh at how many people were being crammed into A's car but then realized that one was now walking back to our car to get in. (At this moment, i'm sure all the readers of this entry will start to imagine themselves in this story and probably start thinking, "so a total stranger, who you know nothing about, who you don't even know if he is related to A, is now going to get into a car with three white girls....no. I don't think I would be ok with that." That was my feeling too at the time. You shouldnt' ignore those feelings.

Now we're on the road- and by road, I mean the main "highway" of lusaka called the great east road, just going along- enjoying ourselves and doing the introductions with our new passenger who's name is Terry. Terry is now telling us how he can supply us with whatever substance we need. I ignore this and choose to focus on A's car... which has now come to a complete stop in the middle of the road!

Upon a closer look, I see that there is another car in front of A and I start to think that there has been an accident- but how had i missed that? I think back.. there was another car and it did cut over in front of A...

By this point I am upon the cars and decide to go around A so I can roll down the window and find out the situation. I am going about 2 miles per hour as I take in the scene:

A is being pulled from the car. The others are piling out of the car in protest. Another man gets out of a rusty, banged up blue sedan that is parked at an angle- clearly they had driven in front of A and made him stop. Then I see them- the guns. They both have huge semi-automatic rifles.

My skin turns prickly, I'm just staring at the guns- then my foot is down on the accelerator, I'm attempting to shift Heida's automatic car (since my own car is a manual) , and then everyone is yelling at once. I just keep repeating, "shit, they have guns. Guns! did you see that- they had guns!" and Heida is yelling, "we have to go back. A is back there, we have to go back." Bryony is yelling, "what the hell is going on? What was happening back there?' and our new friend Terry is repeating, "its the police. just go. don't stop. just go. its just the police." Of all the confusion at that moment, the one thing i did know was that was NOT the police.

I turn at the next street to make a U-turn. My thinking is slow, I keep trying to shift- i say, "lets just park here until whatever shit is going down back there finishes. I really don't want to get invloved with those fucking guns." But Heida is having none of it. A is back there. And to her credit, I understand what she was feeling. I would have been there in a minute had it not been for the guns. So Heida demands me to let her drive her car... if only to keep me from shifting between park and neutral. Terry is still repeating that we should just keep going and that we can't park here.

We're now back on the road, heading back towards the scene. Heida slows up beside the two cars on the opposite side of the meidan. She rolls down her window. And the three muzungu girls stare out the window- everything is in slow motion: A is being punched multiple times, S is backed up against the median. A's shirt is torn and those fucking guns are still being waved around. We hear lots of yelling from everyone. One of the men is slashing A's tires with a bayonnet on the end of the rifle.

We're making another U-turn. I am pleading with Heida not to stop, not to get involved- to just park and wait. But the car is still making progress towards A. Then the other car leaves as soon as it appeared. Everyone piles back into A's car and the car slowly limps forward.

But its not over. Not in our minds. The three white girls in the car are scared silly- emotions running high- yelling questions at the car in front. Trying to calm our racing hearts. So we continue to follow A. He's inching along in his maimed vehicle trying to find a place to stop. We eventually find ourselves on the abandoned railway flats in downtown Lusaka. Now, downtown Lusaka is sketchy at 12noon- so who knows what will occur at 2am! We were forced to stop here, on our search for a garage because smoke was now pouring from the car.

As soon as the cars came to a stand still, the 7 people in the other car pour out of it and directly over to our us- they are coming at the windows with angry fingers pointing. But not pointing at us. Nope, pointing at Terry.

"It was you they were looking for!" They yelled. Terry just laughed. No wonder he kept telling us to keep on driving. I hissed at him to stop laughing in Nyanja and for once I was greeted not with laughing but stunned silence. He says to us, "Are you afraid of me?" and Heida laughs back, "Ha! Afraid of you? No. Angry with you more like it. And you need to leave."

Every car that drove by was under suspicion. Every noise made you wonder if the men with the guns had followed us. Terry insisted that all he did was kick someone at the club. None of us believed that for a second. A changed his shirt and called a tow truck. The other zambians called a cab and left. Bryony flirted and I started to laugh about the situation- and thought about how to doument my first run in with semi-automatic weapons. Eventually we started to relax.

I called a cab for Terry. S paid the fare and both him and A decided to reconsider their friendship with Terry.
The towtruck came and out of the cab, literally, rolled two stinking drunk (kukolewa) zambians who somehow managed to get A's car secured to their rusty recovery truck.. by hauling the front up 6 feet into the air so that his tail pipe and bumper scraped along the ground.

We spent two more hours waiting for them to fix A's car, which never happened, then drove into the safety of kabulonga and my house. Sleep blissfully came around half 4 and my adventure was thankfully over.... until the next one, of course!