Twelve blind dates

This evening, all the volunteers have been on a blind date. The system worked like this: the boys met at 6 and were sent to various restaurants in the area. The girls met at 6.15 and were instructed to attend the appropriate locations (we had one main matchmaker orchestrating the whole thing). We would have to chat to our date for 1 hour before reuniting in 1 central bar. Everyone had made a bit of an effort and dressed up smart. The girls were even in make up for once.


When I arrived at the café I recognised my Kenyan friend, Charles, waiting for me. I've always thought he was quite nice, a bit of a cheeky chap but underneath it quite clever and sensitive. This assessment remains unchanged by the obligation to talk to him for an hour. Indeed we actually stretched in out to 2 hours. That's a long time to nurse a cup of tea for! One thing that really made me laugh as we chatted was the discovery that Kenyan school children are in the habit of setting fire to their dormitories when they want to protest about something such as poor exam results. Charles himself had done so twice. This reminded me very much of stories of my own dad setting off fireworks in the corridor at his school (not that I managed to say so, as I found the concept of fireworks a bit difficult to explain). At the end he gave me a bar of chocolate wrapped in brown paper, which was sweet, and asked if we could go on a date again.


When we got to the bar where the rest of the gang were (or at least 75% of them, as plenty were yet to return) it was lovely to hear the reports everyone had had a good time, even people who had been sent on dates with someone they didn't expect to like. It gradually became evident that some people had consumed rather a lot of alcohol on their dates, which I found extremely funny. Some couples were completely plastered!! It was lovely that they had done this in pairs, so no one had overdone it alone and people were able to fall over in good company.  This scenario was made more funny still by the fact that they'd have to slip subtly into religious households that mostly didn't allow alcohol on the premises. We've all been there!