Soirée africaine

Several of us had booked in for an "African evening" in aid of a small charity that supports young people in prison (or just out of it) in Sierra Leone -- a country where you can apparently be imprisoned for 3-5 years for falling in love with the wrong girl.

The smallness of the association includes the personnel -- there were 120 people for dinner and only four people cooking and serving it. We arrived just after seven, and it was 9 pm by the time the first course was served. In the interim we were entertained by an African band that got a lot of people onto the dance floor for some bum-waggling action, encouraged by the female singer: "It's good for your arthritis!"

A few people pitched in to help the two people doing the serving, and the main course (chicken in peanut sauce) arrived around 10 pm. S was seriously flagging by then. Although four of us went from our village, I was glad I'd decreed that we would go in two cars, so that I could drive S home early if necessary. So, both of us sober, home well before 11 (dodging a wild boar on the way), and S went straight to bed.