You'd rather have Jesus? You're welcome to him.
We'd crossed the border between Tanzania and Kenya three times in the past week or so, as we travelled from Moshi to Nairobi, then back to Moshi, then back to Nairobi.

Few specific memories of any of the journeys remain. I can remember the Masai encampment where we spent the night - but I can't remember what country that was in. I have a clear mental image of the young Masai men we passed on the road, whom we could tell from their black robes to have been recently circumcised. I will not forget the worrying and possibly drunk Australian pointing a bow and arrow out of the window of the truck in which he was travelling at the customs point, and firing so ineptly that the arrow simply fell limply onto the earth. Other than that: almost nothing.

Almost, but not quite. The one other memory that remains is one I would dearly love to lose.

The third of these journeys was aboard an uncomfortable white minibus. There was little legroom, little stuffing in the seats, and no air-conditioning; but there was a stereo, through which the driver of the bus played one cassette again and again. For six hours, we endured it. Six hours of Jim Reeves singing Christian songs, the general theme of which was that the world is a terrible place, and it's probably better for good Christians to be dead and so with Jesus. Twelve years later, this song still haunts me; there were only ten or so songs on the cassette, and I think that this one might have been duplicated. I lost count of the number of times it came around during the course of the journey. I hated it the first time; by the seventh repetition, it was making serious inroads into my sanity. Twelve years later, it sometimes appears unbidden from the depths of my unconscious to torture me with its message of mournful salvation.

Yet the song served an evangelistic purpose. I subsequently feared hell slightly more, for I had had some experience of it.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 19 Jul 2011, 10:17, 2 replies)

Tune
Someone should remix it.
( rofl harris, Tue 19 Jul 2011, 10:46, closed)

As an Australian, I am proud that we rank lower than Reeves on your torture scale.
But I think it would be a close call at times.
(boozehound is drinking your bar dry, Tue 19 Jul 2011, 12:56, closed)