Ex-pats by nathanafrique on Blogster

I agreed to follow Eva and her Dutch friend Margaret to a bar called La Terrasse, which, along with the Bla Bla Bar, is the premiere ex-patriot bar in Bamako.

Near our table, a group of Asians order their first round of drinks and proceeded to drink as fast as they could.

In through the door walked a man that looked like an upright Stephen Hawking, wearing a blazer jacket that dragged and moped off of his slight frame. Wrapped around his arm was a smartly-dressed Malian woman. He swung her around and they sat down on the couches and he ordered expensive drinks.

On the other side of the bar, a Lebanese woman taught all the men how to dance salsa. I felt myself drifting away from the conversation I was having with a Dutchman at my table to watch her every movement.

The night progressed and I somehow managed to be roped into an appointment the next day with Mohammed, the Premier Secretary of the Embassy of Tunisia, because he really thinks I should go there.

The Asians raged and ordered another round. They were now playing a game that seemed to involve nothing more than banging their fists on the table and shouting Asian obscenities, as if that would help force the beer down.

A rather scary looking pair of Frenchmen sat in the corner, somehow finding the only noirish sliver of shadow to hide behind. One of them, the elder, was a Sean Connery doppleganger and the younger looked like he had fled France with a suitcase full of dangerous secrets. They sat there, drinking and smoking steadily, never speaking a word to each other or anyone else. Just watching and waiting.

Something got Stephen Hawking up on his feet and he grabbed his prostitute by the arm and shamelessy dragged her to the dance floor, where they all but danced. He extended and retracted his arms and pulled her clanging into his chest and bent her fingers back until she stopped him because it really did hurt. Beyond embarrassment, and rather angry at himself, he dragged her back to the couches and promptly fell asleep. To use my friend Andrew's description of John Kerry, he looked like a fallen cake, like the half-baked batter taken out of the oven. When molded back together, one wonders if it is still edible because it no longer looks like a cake. The prostitute found another john, a Malian, and they exchanged cruel jokes aimed at the poor man, whose neck would jolt him half-awake from time to time.
"If the European men are too ugly, or too crazy, they come down to Mali where they can afford all the beautiful women," remarked Eva. What happens in Bamako stays in Bamako, including whatever jungle fever fantasy your white privelage can cook up.

Then entered the American Peace Corps girl. She knew Eva and approached her, smiling sickly. Both of their bodies tensed up as they exchanged "How are yous?" and "So good to see yous!" I forgot how girls like this talked. With faux glad-tidings, with nervous shifting, with endless banalities. Eva, adept at most social situations, could barely get through this one, and sighed to herself when she sat down. It is worse than the rasta in the street telling you "Hakuna Matata" and "Life is Beautiful" so he can sell you his bracelet. No, this kind of joviality finds itself meaningless. It doesn't seem to contrast with sadness, pensiveness, godliness. It seems to exist as a blanket, enveloping the whole of her personality. If you poked a hole in her, she would deflate and sputter in the air around the bar, infecting everyone with her well-wishes.

A sleazy Algerian playboy walked in, wearing a Jimmy Buffet orange button-up shirt and Eva told me every girl in the bar had slept with him, which was flat-out shocking to me. It makes me want to become an ascetic, hole myself up in a concrete wall, and shut out sensation from my life. Is The Clap an airborne disease? The man talked on two cell phones as he made his rounds in the bar, saying hello to every patron. The girls at our table melted when he approached, but he only gave them a few moments of his time before gravitating to the American girl at the bar, who was already well into her first drink.

The Asians were now dead drunk.

I was now dead tired. I hailed a taxi and went home.