Peppa Spray

I should probably preface this post by explaining the significance of the end of the month in Namibia. The end of the month is when everyone gets paid, so people get buckwild that weekend - like people tend to do anywhere in the world when they get paid. With that being said, I saw a dude get tased and experienced pepper spray for the first time.

I'm really lucky to have my roomie, who has been in town for a year and has made some pretty interesting/crazy/fun friends. We went out to a club in town last night. As a group of us were walking from the bar area to the dance floor, we got split up by a crowd at the door. I saw two guys arguing pretty loudly. Then, all of the sudden, one guy just started wailing on the other. Everyone started backing up as one guy was on top of the other, beating the crap out of him. One of the them broke a bottle and was about to use it when I heard the "zzz zzz" of a taser. A police officer was making his way through the crowd, and people started running away when they heard it. I couldn't see everything, but apparently the two guys were still brawling while they were being tased. As the guys were leaving the bar, they were still fighting. One of the them ending up kicking a glass pane out of the door on his way out.  At this point, it was chaotic. The all-out pandemonium came next.

A few moments after the tasing situation, people started running from the dance floor to the bar where I'm standing. My friend came up to me, doubled over coughing with tears in her eyes. As I looked around I saw everyone was doing the same thing. Then...it wafted towards me. First my throat felt really dry and irritated. Then my eyes started to burn a little. Then a little more. Then it hurt to open them. I'm not sure if the officer pepper sprayed the crowd to control them, or if we were just in the line of fire. But dozens of people were either running outside, or running in the bathroom.

It was at this point that same friend grabbed me and said, "Those assholes started fighting when Blurred Lines was playing! Let's dance. I came here to fucking dance." I was still kind of worried about that whole pepper spray/bar brawl situation when she said one of the most hilarious things I've ever heard - "Don't worry, all you have to do is put your hand over your mouth and nose, let's dance!" Part of me was like "this girl is crazy", but the other part of me was like "Yes. Let's do it." So, I took her at her word and we went to the dance floor. It was pretty empty - pepper spray does that - but a few other people had our same idea. So there we were, dancing with one hand in the air, and the other hand covering our noses and mouths. After the club a bunch of us went back to the house, and I went to bed when the sun came up.

According to a volunteer who has been here for two years, I've seen more in one night than he did his entire first year. Calling that one a win.