Mistaken Identity

On Lake Toba in Sumatra you can track down an island upon an island upon an island upon an island. Apparently! I loved the place, all the more so because I met the person who was to become my best friend there.
We arrived at night and a German lad called Torsten banged on about how lucky we were and how special it is to arrive somewhere in darkness. I hate to admit it, but in this case he was right. We awoke to a vista of the lake and surrounding hills that was simply breathtaking. We were staying in a “buff hut” (a long wooden house with a roof shape modeled on the horns of the ubiquitous water buffalo) with an avocado tree outside drooping under the weight of the fruit.
A few days later, whilst exploring around the lake alone, I saw a couple of foreigners and made a path to avoid them. The man called to me sharply in German and it would have been too rude to ignore him, so I walked towards them. As I got closer, the man, who was about my age, greeted me warmly in German as if I were a long lost friend. We shook hands, and once he had calmed down I told him that I didn’t speak German. He looked as if I’d punched him in the face he was so shocked. He started blabbing, and called to his older female companion quite urgently.

The lady, who was obviously his mother, caught up to us and herself began a friendly greeting in German. Her son interrupted her and she stopped herself short before walking up to me and examining my face in great detail, looking very perplexed, talking rapidly to her son all the while. By this time, the man had come to his senses and started to explain to me, in English, that they thought I was Rolf, a friend of theirs who they had been traveling with elsewhere.
Even upon close inspection they still found it hard to believe I wasn’t their friend. I found myself apologizing for not being Rolf, but stopped short of wishing I actually were him! They apologized for all the confusion, and we went our separate ways.

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