I can now say I have been terrorized. I was not harmed, touched, or threatened in any way. But I was indeed terrorized in the night.

At 3 A.M. my friend awoke to a tapping sound at her window. When she looked, she saw fingertips. We called the watchman and he searched the area and found nobody.

Two hours later, she heard a tapping again. Then, because the windows are covered only with mesh screen and not glass, she heard whispering, something like “Come, greet me” in Kiswahili. She screamed my name and ran to get me. As we were both clutching each other on the couch and calling the watchman again, we heard whispering coming from directly behind us, right behind our ears. We jumped over the table, stood trembling in the center of the room, and screamed for an entire minute straight. The watchman rushed back over but again found no one.

We waited in the hospital office until it was light and then went to file a report. The local police laughed at us. Other people said that there was no reason to get all worked up because of “a little peeping.” We evacuated the village and took refuge elsewhere, still looking for answers.

Well, we found answers, but they left a little to be desired.

When we told our stories to people, they all had one answer: night runners. To be fair, they prefaced their stories by saying, “This will probably be hard for you to understand.” So to understand it better, I’ll pass this cultural tradition along to you.

A night runner is not a bad person, a drunk, or a thief. He is a normal man that has simply been bewitched. They get pleasure by running at night and terrorizing people, but their intent is not to harm. It is merely to instill fear, and screaming just eggs them on. Apparently, our screams of bloody murder made some man’s night.

This “affliction” is passed from father to daughter to husband. If a night runner man has a daughter, this daughter will pass it on to her husband. After the marriage, the daughter comes home carrying a home cooked meal and a small leopard. It is the size of a dog, but it is a spotted cat, hence small leopard. Once the husband sees this small cat, he instantly becomes a night runner. Around 9 or 10 every night, he will leave the house with the small leopard and run through the night. They may be old men that usually walk very slow, but at night they run fast, fast enough that no one can catch them. They go from house to house and disturb people, which could be anything from throwing rocks, whispering names of the dead, dumping buckets of water through the windows, fiddling with locks, etc. They also enjoy running naked. While they are terrorizing, the small leopard keeps watch. If the leopard smells someone coming near, it will alert the man and they will both run away so they don’t get caught.

These men are conscious of the fact that they are night runners, but they cannot help it. They are embarrassed of their condition. When caught, people don’t turn them into the police, because frankly, they aren’t doing anything wrong (disturbing the peace or trespassing isn’t a thing here). They usually tie them to a tree. This is the most embarrassing thing that could happen because when morning comes, everyone will see this naked man tied to the tree and know that he was caught as a night runner.

The wife has no choice but to support this man and his activities, because it is, after all, her fault that he is a night runner in the first place. She must stay awake while the husband is out because if she falls asleep, the husband is more likely to get caught.

So yeah. I didn’t really know what to think when I heard this, but suddenly there was hope. There is a way to catch them.

The proven method is this: First, you must leave the house for 3 days. This purges the house of the smell of human presence. Upon returning, you must have someone else cook for you in a different house and never eat hot food, because the smoke of the cooking fire will follow you. After doing this, you must sit outside at night and wait for the night runner to come near. If you sit in the dark he won’t be able to see OR smell you, so then he will get close enough for you to recognize him. Once you recognize him, he will never return.

So, this is my new mission. Work has been pretty slow, so I’m willing to devote all of my efforts into scaring the night runner from returning to my friend’s house. I’ve been getting tips from local villagers, and I’ve learned a few things:

-If I attempt to set a trap during the day, he will see me. Possible traps this out-rules are ditches, moats, mosquito net mouse traps, or fires, all of which I had already mapped out.

-If I see clay pots on someone’s roof, there is a chance the small leopard is sleeping there.

-If I kill the small leopard, the man will be able to find another one through “the night runner network.”

-I must learn the face of every man in her village so I will be able to easily recognize him at night.

-I cannot get hurt during any of this process because the intent is not to hurt.

-These night runners could be anyone: doctors, lawyers, groundsmen, your supervisors, etc. They are completely normal and good people, but they are bewitched.

-There are newspaper articles about these night runners and I’ve been reading up.

-There is no sort of night runner repellent. Trust me, I asked.

So if you have any other tips for me, send them my way. Wish me luck!

[side note: Peace Corps is not taking this situation lightly. My friend is moving to a more secure house, and more importantly, they did not laugh when we called terrified during the night. So no worries.]