The cross-dressing drunk

One thing that I really love about the work that I do is that I get to meet many different kinds of colourful characters. Recently, in Africa I met a very interesting cross-dressing drunk.

Now, of course, in some parts of the world such a sight might seem a bit more common, but in the rural villages of Africa it seemed very surreal. A crowd had gathered to hear us share the message of God's love for the village, and while I waited to go up and speak a series of local choirs were singing. As they were singing, at one point a very exuberant drunk man joined one of the choirs and started dancing. The people obviously knew him and simply laughed good-naturedly.

After doing a bit of a dance, he came up to all of the team members and shook our hands with a great big smile on his face. Then he dance a bit more and left. "Where'd he go?" somebody asked. We guessed that he must have gone away and that we probably would see no more of him that day.

However, 15 minutes later he showed up again. Only now, he had changed into an elaborate African dress. He had a handbag under his arm and was holding a large parasol over his head. He walked right through the crowd, came to us and shook our hands. As he shook our hands this time, he curtsied in exactly the way Tanzanian women always curtsy. Then he sat down with the women and listened quietly throughout the sermon.

I would have loved to have found out his story. He was very different from anybody else I'd ever met in the heart of Africa.