Venture into a ‘sports’ bar and leave so depressed

I venture into this bar located somewhere in my beloved Kinondoni, the very district reputed to host Dar City’s highest spenders.

I’m lured by the signboard—SPORTS BAR. This must be a new establishment, I tell myself, for it’s just by the roadside, and I’ve walked past this spot a number of times.

You passed in between three occupied tables placed at the small verandah.

Each of the tables is occupied by two drinkers, and the number of unopened bottles placed before them is so big one can hardly see the tables’ surfaces.

This scenario reminds me of the good old ruksa days of kutesa kwa zamu, the period ushered in by a new political system in which even civil servants could carry sizeable amounts of expendable cash.

Ujamaa policy had been discarded, and any smart employee could establish a business to supplement his miserable government salary.

Close to the main door was a deejay spinning music. To me, a deejay in a bar is a bad sign, but, I tell myself, let me go inside and see.

The place is expansive. The lighting is cool, and a huge TV screen graces each of the four walls of the bar.

Unlike your kind of bars, such as Family and Forest, where you sit on plastic chairs or precariously high stools, here you’re welcomed to cosy couches on which you can lean back lazily and enjoy your beer placed on a wooden coffee table.

I take my beer while watching a CAF Confederation Cup match on the screen nearest to me.

The trouble, however, is that the music volume is very high.

As we all know, the real joy of watching a match on TV is when you can hear the commentator’s comments on the goings-on, the hollering, cheering, and jeering by fans at the stadium. That joy isn’t here.

And like in most of our bars, even enjoying a conversation with fellow drinkers isn’t easy. Luckily I’m alone on my couch.

And, thank you, Lord, the drinker on the opposite coach is clearly the unsociable type, for he’s so occupied with his mobile phone that he didn’t even lift up his face while responding to my greetings.

When a mhudumu walks over to me to check out if I needed another drink, I say, Not yet; you wait.

Then I add, “By the way, this being a very posh and cosy bar, wouldn’t it be wise if the music was played at a lower volume so that your customers would be able to have conversations and hear what the TV commentator is saying?”

“It’s possible…lemme check with the boss,” she says and walks away.

About ten minutes later, the mhudumu comes back to me. She doesn’t say anything about the music volume.

She’s here to check out if she could bring me another beer!

I say no thank you, pay for the one beer I’ve taken, and leave.

Wabongo’s noise tolerance will be our undoing, I swear!