Tuesday 15 May 2012

The Twilight Zone


I tend to be behind the times when it comes to music. I’d like to say that is the result of me being off in the bush in Africa most of time, but really it’s true even when I’m at home. Typically I’ll come back to the US on R&R and hear a few new tunes on the radio that I like which inevitably make it onto the workout playlist on my iPod. This past April that song was “Somebody I Used to Know” by Gotye. I love it and it makes me burst into song, especially when I'm out running, as my nephew can attest to since I ran a 5k race with him a couple weeks ago and purposely started singing it just to embarrass him.

Anyway, in April my best friend and I went to Seattle with her 4 year old daughter to attend her little brother’s wedding. We spent a good few hours in the car each day, driving around the city, out to Snoqualmie falls and back and forth between downtown and the wedding venue in Tacoma. While listening to Seattle radio, I swear we heard that song play a million times…Each station seemed to play it multiple times each hour. One time the station went to commercial or some such and I said something to the effect of “let’s see if our song is on” and I hit the button and low and behold it was playing. Now, when I hear that song, I always think of my friend and the amazing trip we had. When I was laying over in Brussels on my way to Liberia, the video came on in the café I was walking past in the airport and I felt compelled to stop and watch it and I immediately Facebooked my friend about it. 

So, what does this have to do with anything you ask? Well, as I mentioned in my last post, we go to the UN Pakistani Battalion every night for dinner. We usually show up around 20 past 8, go straight to the buffet line, get our food and try to be out by 8:45, before the Battalion Commander and the rest of the Officers show up to eat. Once they arrive, it is polite to remain until they are done, which can drag dinner out until 9:30 or later.

Tonight we show up around 8:30 and find that they are preparing for an outdoor banquet as they are hosting the commander from the Pakistani Battalion in another County. There are tables outside and some barbecues and a big buffet table and a  movie screen set up at the side (we later find out they intend to show a movie after dinner). We aren’t quite sure what to do because this is obviously a more formal affair and it’s not clear if we can join in the dinner or not. Thankfully my colleague is Pakistani and he finds out we are able to join them.

We wait around and more and more officers come into the courtyard, and then the Commanders show up. As we are all shaking hands and being introduced to the Commanders, they start to play music. And…guess what they play…that’s right “Somebody I Used to Know” by Gotye. But, they don’t just play it…they project the words up on the big movie screen and hit repeat. It played while we stood around and chatted, it played while we took our seats for the first course and it played while we ate the soup. After it played maybe 15 times in a row, the Commander whispered to someone and they changed the music to some traditional Pakistani folk music which then morphed into some English language, but clearly foreign, techno dance music.

Maybe this is my own stereotypes coming into play, or maybe I am just not plugged into the fact that this is obviously a seriously popular song internationally, but I have to say that I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone when I was standing in rural Liberia, in the courtyard of a UN military compound, the only female surrounded by Pakistani military officers, many in their traditional Pakistani clothing, listening to Gotye on repeat, thinking of my best friend and wishing more than anything that I had an iPhone in my pocket so I could capture it all on video.

Here is a link to the song on YouTube in case there exist any people out there in the world who have not heard this song yet. Clearly you are not as hip on popular music as the Lofa County PakBatt.

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