Human Rights Now! Concert: Harare 1988 - Part 8
My story of travelling to the 1988 Amnesty International Human Rights Now! concert in Harare, Zimbabwe, had reached the point (Part 7) when the concert was finally over. Now all that was left was to get home, slake the thirst and flop into bed. Or was it?
Darkness on the Edge of Town
As the last strains of Get Up, Stand Up faded away and the lights came on, we noticed that the others in our party were not as keen to hang around as were the three of us - me, my friend Bruce and my partner Janet. They were nowhere to be seen. "No problem", said Bruce, "I ran to the stadium and back this morning, so I know a short way".
That was a relief. We were physically and mentally exhausted. It was well after 1 am and still hot. We needed something to drink urgently, and the thought of a few dozen cold beers waiting for us back at the house was all the motivation we needed to make it a quick walk on our aching feet.
Bruce led the way, first joining the throng leaving the stadium and then turning onto the dark streets of suburban Harare. At this point, Bruce assured us it wouldn't be more than about another 20 minutes. But after the 20 minutes were up, Bruce didn't look as confident as I would have liked. Ten minutes later and we knew we were lost. I guess the landmarks Bruce was relying on weren't that visible at night.
On and on we trudged for more than an hour until, finally, Bruce recognised the street. As we walked in broken and bedraggled we noticed piles of empty beer bottles and dirty plates on the table. Most of our fellow concert-goers had gone to bed.
There was no beer left. There was no food left. We were not happy. At all. But I guess there was water to drink and wash with and there was a place to sleep.
The Morning After
Or rather, it was afternoon when we got up. Later, one of the team suggested a restaurant to have some dinner. So we piled into a few cars and met outside the place. I guess someone must have called ahead because we were a big group of 22. When we walked in, the man told us we couldn't come in because we had jeans on. Can you believe it? We were there to celebrate with piles of food and plenty to drink. But no. Their hatred of jeans was clearly greater than their love of money.
Don't Forget To Dance
So we grabbed something to eat elsewhere and then headed out to a party somewhere in the outskirts of Harare. It was a big house on a large piece of land and our group pretty much doubled the number of people there.
But they were strange people. One young woman was particularly strange: she kept on making nasty comments and giving withering looks. Another guy had just come out of prison after 5 years for some drug offence and was making big eyes at this woman. And so on. But what they had was great music on a great sound system. So it turned out to be a very enjoyable and memorable evening.
Here's one of the songs played at this party - that for some reason has stuck with me all these years and has become one of my all-time favourites:
So that was Harare. After a very good night's sleep, it was time to start heading home. More about that in Part 9.