One year from last Friday our friend Erin will get married. Girls being girls we decided to throw her an early bachelorette party. Imagining we would have some wine and cake, take cheesy photos and talk about girl stuff all night, we were astonished when Erin said she wanted to go to Club G-String. “Whoa”! I secretly thought to myself, “I thought that was something guys did for their bachelor parties, not a girl thing!” But hey, we’re in Malawi, so I guess we’ll just go with the flow as we usually do (probably the finest skill we have picked up here). As it turns out Club G-String doesn’t really have anything to do with the underwear, it’s just the one and only dance club in Zomba. (And by dance club I mean the normal kind, the kind where people dance with their clothes on. Although come to think of it, normal is probably not the right word to describe it. But all about that in due time. Club G-String doesn’t make its appearance until later in this story; many fun things happened before we even got there.)
The night started off with us five girls and Tom, Erin’s co-intern, cruising off to a fancy house in which one man and nine dogs live. The man, James, is a soldier and a friend of Tom. Upon arrival we all ecstatically picked up a puppy and a bottle of beer. Obviously those two things go together, right? I got this little cutie, which we instantly named “The Fluffy Ball”. Erin wasn’t quite as lucky as one of the puppies decided to give her an early wedding gift and peed on her T-shirt.
From James’ house we headed to the Officers’ Mess in the military barracks. Yap, you heard me right, the girls who just a couple of nights ago had a long and serious conversation about militaries and masculinization, referencing Cynthia Enloe’s book “Bananas, Beaches and Bases” headed to the Barracks for drinks. At the Officer’s Mess we were told we should shake hands with anyone whom the guys saluted. So we diligently shook hands with all five commanders/officers present, including Sir Davy Jones, whose name is not really Davy Jones, nor is he knighted. Why everyone kept calling him Sir Davy Jones remains a mystery to date. We also made another acquaintance: the Queen was present on the wall. In fact, the Officer’s Mess is the first place we have seen a photo of her here in Malawi and just about the first place we haven’t seen a photo of Bingu the President (Anna will fill you in on the Bingu phenomenon in a later post). Anyway. We saluted her with due honour
The Officer’s Mess also provided ample opportunity to learn about the missions James and the others had participated in: DRC, Sudan and Chad. I guess ending up talking about military missions and responsibility to protect at a bachelorette party is the ultimate proof that we are, in fact, true geeks of international relations. Speaking of responsibility to protect (or R2P in Fletcher lingo), Congolese and Sudanese are not the only people the officers felt a responsibility to protect…
Yes my friends, we are now moving on to the crucial parts of the story: our arrival at Club G-String. We enter a dimly lit dance floor, immediately notice the bar is in a cage (yes an actual barred cage) and that mirrors are panelling every wall. The only light in the room came from a laser beam, occasionally swooping across our foreheads. No it was not the laser beam of a sniper; it was just Club G-String’s mood lighting. After we’d noted all these fascinating features I look around and notice another striking fact: the gender ratio. Let’s just say the number of females increased by 100% when we entered, at least that’s what it felt like. And trust me; people noticed. (Obviously we were also the only white people around) The guys formed a circle around us on the dance floor and immediately another circle of guys surrounding the circle of “our” guys formed, all trying to reach through our protective circle to touch (or even better; dance with) the white girls. Within seconds that outer circle pushed so hard inwards that the five of us were totally squished together in the middle, hardly able to move at all, while cracking up from realizing the absurdity of the situation. Moms, dads grandparents and boyfriends please don’t worry; our guys took their R2P seriously and fought off most unwanted touches and approaches. We remained dancing enclosed in the circle all night. I’d be lying if I said the situation wasn’t ridiculous yet hilarious.
On occasion people in my life say things like “oh, Hana, you don’t realize what you are worth”. Fear no more. That problem is solved. I now know exactly how much I am worth: 25 000 kwacha (approximately 150 $)! At one point Tom was approached by a big dude in white pointing at me and asking how much. Tom, being a gentleman of the Queen and all, obviously gave him an ugly look and said “NO!” (thanks, Tom!), whereupon the dude says “I want her for 15 000 kwacha”. At this point Tom points at him and keeps repeating “NO!”, which only results in the offer being raised to 25 000 kwacha. Somehow it was becoming apparent that pointing fingers and saying no would not do, so James entered the scene and yelled at the dude in Chichewa for a while (although I have no clue what you said there James, I still owe you a thanks!). Unfortunately I had no idea any of this was going on until it was all over and we were told the story – but it has instantly made my list of favourite Malawi stories.
Other highlights of the evening included all of us ecstatically jumping up and down, dancing and singing along to the Barack Obama song, which was played on Anna’s special request. While the others were enjoying our Malawian theme song (and by Malawian theme song I mean KC & JoJo’s All My Life, which the others are singing out loud as I type this) on the dance floor, Erin and I were busy learning an important lesson about Malawian bathroom culture. Essentially that privacy does not exactly top the list of values: in the end we entered a bathroom stall in which another girl was busy putting on her make up and peed while she was in there. The girl did not mind at all. In fact she seems to not even have noticed our presence. Good thing we’ve lived at the Warehouse and escorted each others to the bathroom on rat patrol many a night: that made our transition to this bathroom culture quite smooth.
As you have probably got the whiff of by now, this was a night of many a fascinating incidence. It didn’t end when we left G-String though; on our way home, driving up a steep hill we ran out of gas. Lucky me got to sit in the front seat as we rocketed down the hill with the engine off at break neck speed, hoping James would be able to break at the bottom of the hill and then get us to the nearest gas station on what little gas was left. He did and he did not (in that order). So, while James and some random buddy of his who just happened to drive by ran to the gas station, we got to hang out on a deserted and pitch black street of Zomba.
All in all, this was the most fun we have had in long time. Yet, no fun without serious reflection (at least if you are as geeky as I am). There were so many interesting things about the night. Like the fact that we, for all our talk of feminism, being independent women and the like, could never have gone to that club on our own. Or the fact that I was quite surprised to find the barracks to be a space not very masculinized at all, while the club was just oozing of testosterone. I guess I’ll leave it at that, this post is long enough as is!
Keeping warm in Malawi
Socks
