Locals Night

As of late, my social schedule has been a slight step above that of an AARP member. Getting up at 7am, eating dinner at 5pm and getting ready for bed at 8pm. Granted, I’ve been taking part in all kinds of cultural activities that have overshadowed my need to be social, but there comes a point when you need some evening entertainment.


My bus got into Arusha around 6:00 PM yesterday, just in time for me to eek out the last bit of sunlight in order to walk over to where the cheapo backpackers are. I met Ziggy who showed me to, as asked, “the cheapest room available.” Ziggy apparently appreciated my shysterness and invited me out to play some pool at a bar around the corner. I met back up with him around 7pm and he introduced me to his friend Giraffe. Yes, the dude is rather tall.

So Ziggy, Giraffe and I hit up the local pub, where, shockingly, I was the only mzungu around. They helped me translate my dinner order of the African standard of rice, greens & meat soaked in mystery sauce. Giraffe ordered another African standard of a plate of chips (fries) with chunks of meat slapped on top. Over food & drink we chatted about our backgrounds, interests, jobs and travel before hitting up some games of pool.

Ziggy has a Chagga background and helps manage the place I’m staying when his parents are away and/or sick of managing it. Giraffe is a tour guide and has lost count of how many times he’s climbed Mts. Kili, Meru & Kenya. He’s laid off all the mountain climbing because he says he’s too lazy for that anymore. He just focuses on the safari circuit now and left his old job to start his own tour company.

We pretty much played pool the rest of the night where I got my ass kicked many times over by the locals. They ended up calling me “itsy” since a) I’m short, and b) I always came within an “itsy-bit” of the pocket, but could never seem to sink the ball.

I also met some super drunk girls that swore they were speaking English, but you could probably classify it as Engswili because I understood maybe 3 out of every 10 words. The one chick certainly enjoyed “talking” to me because there was a lot of nudging, back-patting, shoulder-slapping, hand-grabbing and hysterical laughing going on.

Overall, the experience was not unlike that of any other sports bar I've been to, except minus TVs, fat people and western toilets. You had your guys in the corner playing pool, people mingling about at the bar, sloppy chicks being super loud and your handful of overly drunk people creating their own dance party wherever there’s free floor space.

Good times, good times.