I was walking home with Mark today. He’s generally a hoot to be around.
For example, earlier in the day, he told us of some woman giving birth to triplets in a nearby village. He expressed his relief that she wasn’t in America, because that kind of thing would be illegal. Illegal?(This is the same guy who is convinced all Americans are trained as soldiers starting at age 5, so…) I told him I didn’t know of any US law prohibiting multiple-baby births, and that sometimes women even had six at a time. He was amazed. I told him about China, though, where they can only have one child. (Which, I dunno, is that a myth?) He was irate, and decided to build an orphanage for all those Chinese babies, here in LH. Imagine, people shipping Chinese babies to South Sudan…
Anyway, we’re walking along. And he keeps randomly crouching down suddenly, to sharpen his machete on any nice-looking rocks, smiling like a fool.
But then he stops mid-sentence and perks his ears like a dear.
And he begins whistling.
Someone whistles back.
More whistling.
And next thing I know, I’m standing there between the two men, flabbergasted because they’re having a whole conversation made entirely out of whistles.
Who knew?
Or, well, I guess we did know. I’ve just never seen it done before.
Confirms Kim’s thinking that this is a tonal language, though. So… good deal.
But, still, a little weird. Right?
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