there.
this is a post about nightlife in obs. it will be packed with names to which i cannot provide faces and it might be slighlty boring for the outsider. however - it was a very good night.
i was expecting a boring night. arianna was about to go what i unknowingly call 'techno-party' (but in the real world would be sophisticated dj-ing house), the glennies were at a rugby match. maria, the new german housemate of ours announced a fish braai in our horrendously smoking braai area. better than nothing, even though i don't braai with zhe germans any longer. but don't underestimate this german! her south african boyfriend was rocking the show. k.o. (yes that's his name) was producing quite pleasant boerewors and mashed sweet potatoes. and he brought along another friend of his - rob the double bass player, and since i couldn't keep to myself that i consider double bass players sexy, we were on good terms from the very first minute. k.o had to leave for his shift at zula after some time, and maria went to bed also, so rob and i stayed behind warming our feet with the leftover fire. until a friend of him told him to come over to tagore's - they were having a jam session there. tagore's is just across the road and for one beer, why not. on the way there we stopped at rob's place (he's our neighbour) to pick up some money and admire the german double bass of his (if this sounds anyhow kinky, trust me, it wasn't).
the jam session was unfortunately already finished, but the jammers were still aorund. tagore's reminds me slightly of the dachkammer in berlin, although the dimensions are much much smaller - a bar, a piano, an incredibly steep staircase to upstairs, where there are living-room-like establishments packed with board games (rob and i first played som rounds of jenga and later practised some architecture with the blocks), whilst talking about fear in south african society, brand awareness and the feel-good factor of charity.
after i climbed down the killer staircase once, i didn't get up any more - not because i was incapable of, but because downstairs a hell lot of fun was going on. some random dude tried dancing with me whilst i tried telling him something like 'white people don't have the beat' until some other dude insisted on drinking a glass of wine with me sandile from guguletu, wine guy, told me about how he was a tsotsie (those guys that lighten your pockets if you get lost in the wrong areas...short note on wrong areas: i again had a person saying how dodgy obs is and another person saying how absolutely safe obs is. decided to listen to the people who talk with experience) and loves being a tsotsie and that he would show me guguletu and never ever even try to tell anybody i was his girlfriend because that's not gonna happen. for some reason i'd even believe him - i have his number, he doesn't have mine. and i heard there are good braais in guguletu.
via sandile i somehow ended up with this indian guy who's the cook of tagore's. he is named after his mother's favourite herb and his name sounded a bit like marihuana, but maybe that was just my bad hearing capability again. and he rocked. he doesn't smoke, he doesn't drink, but he drives a motorbike and promised to take me through the mountains on its back. he grew up in district six: his family got evicted when he was fourteen. he was telling me how he still remembers the sounds, the smells, the people - how district six was the ideal blueprint for post-apartheid south africa and how the government itself messed the best example of coexistence up completely. how there is no going back - although land is being handed back to people who were formerly living on it, most of them are dead.
maybe it's just the tourist's general appeal to district six, this little something underlying a concept that we probably can't understand but still try to - but how i would like to write down his stories. maybe i will. next time his motorbike is standing outside tagore's, he might already be cooking up something vegetarian for me and definitely be in a chatty mood.
and even my 10 metres walk home happened in complete safety, after all rob and i shared the same way. too bad i wasn't the only one home: lily also just arrived with yet another guy following her - the 'criminal' as we referred to the former one has vanished as fast and discretely as he had appeared. for some reasons none of us was tired and lily resolutely decided to find all wine bottles that are still hidden in this place and empty them. i don't know until when we've been sitting in her cottage. she's decidely crazy, but in a somehow nice and charming way.
when i woke up with this immense hangover, i stumbled over a little dog and its owner in the kitchen: nikita from next door, self-catered unit but without a washing machine and the same backyard as ours. and with a friend who does tattoes. nikita and her roommate are constantly smoking weed, but for the rest my declared new favourite hangover mates: we were laying in the sun, listening to music, discussing women's day and drinking several litres of water. whilst jack snapper, nikitas jack russell-puppy, was sleeping on my belly. i'm full of white dog hair now but very very happy. for the detoxication process, i got myself some organic wild blueberry haccp-certified fruit juice. it's half in english and half in chinese, so in these times of olympia it wouldn't trust stuff like that - but it's doing the job.
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