If this post seems fragmented, it's because its gone through about three different rewrites as the situation develops. Its kind of like how Star Wars started as “Lets rip off Flash Gordon” and morphed to, “Umm, we actually need to put at least a little thought into this to keep making movies” and then, “Lets change everything about the movies by making prequels. And Jar Jar Binks. Lets add lots of Jar Jar Binks.”
But unlike Star Wars, that is the last time I will ever mention Jarjar Binks. And unlike George Lucas, I won't try to destroy your childhood by re-editing and drastically changing the Star Wars special edition blu-ray re-release.
Think of the millions to be made marketing sweet, tasty carbonite candy bars.
Here's how the story started. about 10 days ago on Friday night our neighbors decided to destroy the neighborhood. But really, the only damage being done was psychological. There was no attempt at physical destruction (yet), As happens from time to time, people tend to make generally not smart decisions and damage their future all for a quick thrill. This is how some of you were conceived. But we're getting off track.
Our neighbors had purchased a big, shiny, brand new set of speakers. These were not just any old speakers mind you, not even a big radio. This was a state-of-the-art, hi-fidelity hut entertainment system. And since Friday nights are generally party and drink like there's no tomorrow they decided to pump the music so loud that, to paraphrase the rapper Nate Dogg, the rhythm became the bass and the bass became the treble.
And these aren't some neighbors so far down the block that we could hear rumblings. These were our proper neighbors. The speakers were blasting all of 20 yards from Victor and Christina's house and 30 yards from my house. It's close enough I can throw a rock and hit them. I thought about trying, but decided not to. The music started just around dinner on Friday night, and kept going, and kept going, and kept going. The music. Never. Stopped.
Until 7am. Seven o'clock the next morning. The music didn't even stop in the middle of the night after the neighbors were presumably passed out on the floor with bleeding eardrums. They must have sprung for the 6-disc CD changer and bought as many bootlegged mixtapes as they could. And as I've mentioned before, buying bootlegged CD's here is kind of a mixed bag. You can try (as I have) to buy a CD labeled and packaged as traditional Congolese gospel music but when you put the CD in you end up with a mish-mash of gangster-rap.
Some highlights of the first night included lots of techno, Mozambican artists, a few dozen reggae hits thrown in, and every once in a while a smash hit from the likes of Eurythmics, Bryan Adams, and Shania Twain. I was also amazed that I never once heard a song repeat. I know this because I didn't get any sleep that night. Neither did anybody else in the orphanage.
Still that same Saturday, day 2 of Speakergate (or The Ampocalypse) we knew something was afoot when we started seeing hundreds of people descend upon our neighbor's house in the the middle of the afternoon. Then, the music started again. We were not super worried about security or safety, because our wall has been finished, and it's about 10ft high where it borders the neieghbors. But that noise. It just never stopped. If you saw my facebook page that weekend it was a conversation with Victor and Christina over just what the heck was happening. We tried talking in person but we just couldn't hear anything.
What was weirder is that now there were two sets of speakers going. I still don't know if there were two different parties or they just doubled down for the night. The mix of songs was also very weird. Not only do you have ridiculously loud music, you now have close to two hundred drunken adults (and teens, and I'm sure a kid or two) singing along to church songs, catholic songs, graduation songs, birthday songs, animism songs, and whatever they think the words are to the other songs on the radio. We thought we might be spared when the city lost power for about an hour, but that just made them sing louder.
It was like living next door to the Deltas in Animal House, except instead of Pinto and Flounder partying along while Otis Day plays “Shout” in the basement it was hundreds of watts of the most popular Mozambican DJ's, Bob Marley techno remixes, and techno remixes to every song you've ever heard and even one's you haven't.
A little bit softer now. A little bit softer now. A little bit softer now. And stop. Right there. Don't get a little bit louder, now or ever.
The highlight of night two was hearing Bjork's “All is full of Love” come on at about 1:30am). I'm sure the mix tapes were all probably intended to be sold in Europe where, as Christina so profoundly said, “It's like [Europeans] don't know that normal versions of songs exist. They only have ever heard the techno version.”
Another night of next door partying and drunkenness and totally annoying techno music until the sun came up. For some of you, that might mean you can still salvage three or four hours of sleep. But our day starts with the sun here in Mozambique. There was nothing salvageable.
This brings us to Sunday, day 3 of The Ampocalypse. Throughout the day, the general consensus was that our neighbor had just rented for the weekend these thousands of watts of speakers for whatever massive birthday/graduation/baptism/animism-ceremony/drunken hulabaloo he was planning for him and two hundred of his closest friends. Friday was obviously a trial and Saturday was the real deal. Surely he would be returning the speakers to Rent-A-Nuisance-R-Us or whatever store he got them from.
But then just before dinner on Sunday night, it started again. The music. That horrible, grating, sleep-depriving music. At this point, we decided that this would not stand. Something needed to be done. Somebody needed to stop this menace.
But what are you supposed to do when the guy playing all the music is the village chief?!?!
(That's called a cliffhanger.)
I need part 2.....now!!
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