When You Read You Begin With A-B-C

Let's start at the very beginning,
a very good place to start.
(that's for you, Bess!)

As I mentioned in my last post, the hostel cooks a free dinner on Sunday night.  For the non-vegetarians (since that is all that is relevant to this story), there was lots of rice, some veggies, and some chunky meat thing.
We all ate dinner...it was nice...social, whatever.  There was no live music, and people were all pretty tired after a long day in the sun, so I was hopeful that it was going to be a mellow night.
Finished dinner...had some tea (my new addiction since being in this country. damn tea with sugar.)...plucked my eyebrows...flossed my teeth...read my book...Typical Cori things, right? Right.

I met some new guys who were staying in the same dorm room.  They seemed pretty young, but pretty chill.  There were some others who were clearly going to be drinking into the night, and I have no idea what other sort of drugs the one guy was on, but he was pretty out of it.  Either way, he seemed fairly harmless...maybe just a bit annoying.  So much for an early, quiet night, I was starting to realize! 
Then the trance music starts at the hostel across the road. (across the very, very small road....i.e. in my right eardrum, while sitting on my bed in the humid, mosquito filled smelly room)
The oh-so-lovely music stopped around 2am, so I was thinking that maybe I could actually get to sleep.  And then one of the roommates comes back....

I hear him burp...like, a wet burp...like, I had a feeling that he was going to puke, kind of burp.
And then the fountain of rice and meat and alcohol began pouring and splatting onto the floor from the top bunk bed.  I looked over at him, and he was totally passed out in the position that he puked.  Head hanging off of bed.  Puke all over himself, all over bottom bunk bed, all over floor.  Room now smelled like shit.  Actually, not so much like shit.  More like red bull, meat, rice, and alcohol blended up and then stored in a moldy room for a few days.  Yup, that's about how the room smelled.  The room with no fan or circulation of air at all.

At this point I realized that I was not going to sleep (yet again), and there was no way that I was staying in that room.  So, I went outside to the courtyard area.  There were still a few people lingering around, but I decided that I would try to sleep in the hammock out there.  I went back into the room to grab my sleeping bag (the guy was now awake...clueless...I gave him a good "fuck you" and then walked out.  very friendly, i know.) and attempted to get comfortable in the sleeping bag in the hammock, while covering myself to avoid mosquito bites and fluorescent light right above my head, but still hoping to be able to breathe.  This was not possible.  So, I just sort of laid there and went back and forth between being too hot and swatting away bugs.

While laying there, two of the people from my room came outside.  They were a couple who I met earlier in the night.  They didn't know that I was there, and they proceeded to sit there and break up.  Yup, like right out of a movie sort of break up. "It's not you, it's me." sort of shit.  YES, she was right, it WAS her.  She was clearly gay!  She clearly had a crush on this other girl who she had been hanging out with!  I so badly wanted to jump out of the hammock and inform the dude of this, but I didn't...I just tried to stay still and hide in my sleeping bag.  Once the break up was over, I had a few minutes of quiet.

Then I heard some animals running my way, and I was pretty sure that I was going to be eaten.  Turns out that they were just two dogs, but they still scared the shit out of me.
Laid there for a bit longer.  It was now just past 4 in the morning.

Suddenly, I heard this horrible scream.  I was pretty sure that it was a scream of somebody in trouble, but it was hard to tell if people were just drunk and messing around or if somebody really needed help.  I was trying to listen if I could make out any words (in particular: HELP!!), but I couldn't.  It was the middle of the night and I was alone, so I wasn't going to wander the streets to find this person (even though everybody in this town told me how safe it was and how i could hike alone, blah blah blah).  I was a bit disturbed, but wasn't really sure what to do...About 3 minutes later, I hear somebody running into the courtyard of the hostel from outside.  Like, charging.  This is the second moment of the night when I was pretty sure that I was going to die.  He comes running through, screaming:  "Help! Somebody help!  We need a medic! HELP!  My friend has just been stabbed!"  At this point, I look at him and realize that he definitely needs help...I jump out of my hammock, not really sure what I can do for him.  I have a phone, but I don't know who to call....He wakes up his friend who is sleeping in the tent area and continues screaming.  Somebody else comes out of her tent and says that there is a doctor staying in one of the dorms.  In the meantime, I figure that though I am no doctor, I do have some medical training, and perhaps more common sense than a bunch of drunk people.  He (understandably) was totally frantic and all over the place.  I asked his friend to show me where the girl was, and he took my hand and ran me across the road.  By the time that we got there, there were a few guys helping her and they seemed to have it under control.  There were people everywhere, crying and screaming.  There was one girl who had been with the girl who got stabbed, and literally walked away for a minute...and that's when it happened.  She was really losing it, so I sat her down before she had a total panic attack or passed out.  Then she realized that she didn't know where the third girl was who was staying with them.  More chaos.

Somebody came and picked up the girl.  She was doing OK.  Still alert...she was able to stand up and walk to the car.  She definitely lost a lot of blood though.  Not really sure where they took her, as we were pretty far from anything resembling a hospital.

Then, all of a sudden, there is running and screaming going on in the hostel.  They found the guy!
When the girl was screaming, these two guys who have a house nearby heard her and came outside to help.  They started chasing down the guy who attacked her, and as he ran across the river, they pretty much stoned him.  They threw rocks at him until he fell to the ground, and then they tied up his hands and dragged him back to the hostel.  When they got him back there, people were pounding on him....on their way to killing him.  Somebody yelled to them to think about what they were doing...Yes, this guy just did a horrible thing, but were any of these people really wanting to kill somebody?!
So, after they beat the shit out of him, they stopped.  Probably just short of killing him.

Still in shock, I stood for a minute.  I asked the two guys if they could walk me back to my hostel, cause there was now no way in hell that I was going alone.
They kindly walked me back.  We stayed and talked for a bit, and I got the story of what had happened. 
Evidently the three girls were staying in a tent on one side of the hostel, where they were the only tent.  Not wanting to be alone over there, they decided they they were going to crash with their friends in a dorm.  So, when the girl was attacked, she was just going to her tent to get her sleeping bag.  It sounded like the guy tried to rape her and then ended up stabbing her after she was screaming.  Evidently he also raped a 5 year old a few years ago.  Somebody from the town recognized him.

Needless to say, I definitely didn't go to bed after this.  I tried to read my book, drink some tea, pace back and forth outside...Wasn't really sure what to do with myself, but between the smell of vomit that was stuck in my nose and the whole thing that just happened, I was pretty sick to my stomach.  THANKFULLY, at about 6:30, I saw some people packing up their car and asked where they were headed.  I wasn't actually asking for a ride, I was just making friendly conversation.  It turned out that they were driving right past the town that I was heading to.  (My bus was supposed to leave at noon....back up the terrible road....back to the main town....to catch another 7-8 hour bus.)  They kindly offered me a ride, and I couldn't have jumped on that offer any quicker.  I threw my stuff into my bag and got out of there as soon as possible.  They were super friendly...a young couple from Austria...they had arrived the same day as me...the perfect people to spend the day with.

Miraculously, I made it to Port Elizabeth without puking, though I was afraid that I was going to puke for the first 3 hours.
I guess I have heard stories of people being attacked, but I have never been in the middle of it like this.  It scared me, but more than that, just made me sad.  Sad because people are so fucked up and do things like that.  And sad because this girls life is forever changed.  And sad because she is just one of so many people who encounter situations like this.  It made me think about the fact that most of the girls at camp had been raped, and a few of the counselors had scars from being stabbed, and I just can't imagine trying to go on with life without being afraid of everyone/everything.  There was a part of me that wanted to get on a plane and fly home.  Though I realize that I need to be cautious, I also need to remind myself that most people are good people and I can't leave this country walking around thinking that everybody is going to do something bad.

So, that was my night/morning!
I am in Port Elizabeth now, and I took my own room at the hostel.  Definitely in need of a night of sleep.  It is a quiet place in a mellow area...a welcome change. 
I was supposed to travel with two others today who are probably wondering what on earth happened to me...how I disappeared from the hostel in a super remote town!  They are booked at the same place as me, so I will hopefully see them when they arrive tonight.

Off to get some food for dinner, and then back to my hostel to relax with normal people and try to clear my head...

For the rest of my trip, I am in surf towns..staying in good places.  So, please don't worry about me too much now that I have shared this story.
I promise that I don't wander around at night alone, even in the surf towns! (which is why i need to end this blog...cause it will be getting dark soon!)

love,
cori