Q: Once you were accepted into the village, did anyone make you feel unwelcome at all?

Olly: No, no one. But at first things were difficult. We didn’t speak the language, we weren’t used to the conditions of living (work, food and sleep) and most importantly they didn’t know us from Adam (Adam was there before and they didn’t like him much).

The first few days we were a curiosity and our ways were an amusement to our hosts – but sadly puns don’t translate that well and my shocking jokes and slapstick will only go so far in building or destroying cultural bridges. At times it was a little tricky to know which way it was going…

To gain acceptance into their world, Mark and I had to live and work exactly like the Mek – and only by doing that could we rightly deserve their respect and a genuine welcome into their world. They were the gatekeepers and unless we proved worthy, we would remain outsiders. But as there were around 50 people living in our village Merengmen, there were a lot of gatekeepers to try and impress.

Fortunately Mark and I were split and adopted by different clans – Mark took on the Chief and the family of the Wizobels, and I lucked out with the 2nd Clan – the Busops, headed by Musa, his adorable wife Miriam and their son, the Enlightened one – Sential. The men were the most dour but the women brought the place alive – especially with their taunting sexual lyrics...

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