ABSTRACT
There we met the bright young mayor who gave us portentiously bitter water to drink and continued on to the wedding house, where we ate soup. I then recorded some songs and was just tasting a home-made cherry wine when the party was interrupted by an intense quietly-spoken man. He explained that a 23-year-old man had been swept away while bathing nearby in the shallow, but fast-flowing Andi-Koisu river. We rushed to the jeep and everyone who could drove the five kilometres down the river, where it broadened into three main streams. Led by the mayor, the men undressed and fanned across the river, swimming an upright crawl to keep their heads above water, when it was too deep to walk. An old man in a golden karakul fleece hat came searching on foot with a group of women.
