How about a drinkette?- Part 2

Now, I’m getting heavily into the “association of ideas” thing, so a reference last week to peeing behind shrubbery brings forward another anecdote. Once in Sokoto, northern Nigeria, I did a long drive with a British friend from the College of Education to see one of the local historical sites, the ruins of the massively fortified town of Surami. We took a picnic. At a point, chugging along a seemingly endless rural dirt road, Felicity announced she absolutely must have a pee. There wasn’t going to be anywhere to answer the call of nature comfortably until a long way ahead and we had seen no traffic at all for a good hour, so I suggested that I stop and she squat behind a bush. This duly happened. Now Felicity was a very large lady, and very white, wearing a long canvas skirt, a brilliantly coloured blouse and a big floppy sunhat. As she proceeded, would you believe, on this previously traffic-less road another vehicle passed us, a large bus, packed with passengers, some on the roof. The driver hooted merrily and the passengers on our side of the bus all gazed at Felicity, and there were cheery greetings of “Baturi!” (Hausa equivalent of “Lekhooa!”) That’s enough Nigeria just for now. Back to Lesotho, then Lima, and Paris and South Africa, and to round off, a few more memories of Lesotho. This is going to take some time, but I do assure you that coming up soon, when this is done, I’m going to go back to being dead serious. So serious (brace yourselves!) I’m going to be talking about the work of a French Marxist economist. Whenever I had a visitor from abroad in Lesotho I would take them for a coffee or a drink to the bar next to reception in the former Lesotho Sun. The main reason for this choice is that from the little balcony you get a great view over the city. As for my personal personal drinking places (and “personal person” is a Nigerianism), I generally avoided the bars across the road from the NUL campus as, although I enjoyed students coming over to chat with me and trying—with limited success—to get me to sharpen up my Sesotho, I thought it wasn’t a good idea for them to see me glugging wine in the uninhibited way I like. My favourite bar was Sechaba’s place at Thaba Bosiu, which closed shortly before I left Lesotho (I do hope it’s sprung back to life again). I’m a social drinker—I don’t much relish drinking alone, but like to have people around me for a chat—and made friends with the owner, who became a real older-brother figure, and also with the gorgeous barman, Bula, and with the Acting Chief of Thaba Bosiu, who was a very well-informed and fascinating gentleman to have discussions with. The wine and brandy would flow, interspersed with very tasty dishes of toasted tuna sandwich, salad and chips. Happy, happy days. Once when at NUL we had visiting theatre students from the UK, I suggested I take them for a trip to Thaba Bosiu, including a stop at the bar. The students were all female and the visiting British facilitator was worried that the locals might start chatting them up in an inappropriate way. I replied that the locals were all good chaps and, if anything, it might work out the other way round, especially when the young ladies clapped eyes on the afore-mentioned gorgeous Bula. We had a lovely time. Likewise when the Globe Shakespeare Theatre Company visited Lesotho and I took half-a-dozen of the actors to Thaba Bosiu; at Sechaba’s place the drinks flowed and we had a braai, interspersed with the actors performing bits of Hamlet (I asked them to skip the murders) and music from the show. Now we’re going to Lima, then Paris, and finally back to Lesotho. The most depressing evening I’ve ever spent in a bar was in Lima, Peru. Two Peruvian friends invited me to come with them to a bar in a part of town I didn’t know, because (and this didn’t ring a bell with me) Betty was going to be performing, that night only. They showed me newspaper clippings of Betty, a popular Peruvian songstress, it seems, from about twenty years earlier. We all dressed up and set out, together with the mother of one of my friends. The bar was small and dingy, with only half-a-dozen other customers. Evidently Betty had fallen on hard times. After a bit, a beaded curtain at the back was flung open and Betty came out on to a tiny podium. She was in her sixties, I guess, and pretty shrivelled, and dressed in a costume that must have been glamorous once but now looked very faded and worn. My two friends went all queeny and started calling “Betteeee, Betteeee”—the sort of reception you’d expect Rihanna to get.  Betty bowed gracefully and took a swig from a bottle and hiccuped, and then started singing. And she wasn’t bad—she still had a voice, sort of—and we rustled up a decent tip, but the evening left me feeling very sad. To be concluded Chris Dunton