'Ebony and ebony, live together in perfect harmony'

Sigh, I just wanted a quiet drink at the pub with wifey, and a (new) American chum who has just come here from a year in Swaziland. After work, the wife and I headed down to the local dive and sat down with a beer at an outside table to await our friend. I was just in the middle of making a heated point to mke about HIV, when an African guy said in very good English that he was lonely and asked if he could join us. After a second, ah, why not, so he sat down. Turned out he was a male nurse from Swaziland here to work for a year. So when our American chum turned up, there was much discussion of life in Swaziland. The wife and I have toured there before, its a beautiful (if extremely poor) country. We talked about development a bit, and the mindset you need to work longterm in the field-'endurance and patience'.

Then it got odd.

Two table mates started arguing about whether people only go into medicine to make money, and our Swazi aquaintence started loudly extolling the values of white culture and cruise ships and lambasting Tanzanian's lack of education (shhh...keep it down man...)

I popped inside to play pool, leaving my wife and the Swazi guy chatting. I popped back out again to say hi, and the Swazi guy looked squeamish. He started talking about post-Aparteid South Africa, and how an Afrikanner ('Boers' he called them) had grabbed him around the throat for talking to a white woman. He said he did not want to be left alone with my wife...I tried to tell him this was not South Africa...anyway...thats when 3 big drunken Tanzanians (I guess after hearing his English and maybe some of his opinions about Tanzania) came up and tried to pick a fight with him because he was an African who could not speak Swahili at all (note-not all Africans speak Swahili!)

After a tense stand off,the Swazi guy and wife sidled inside...I'd had a beer or 2 so I thought 'what the heck' and went and sat at the table where the 3 angry Tanzanians sat glowering at me. (I tend to have a mutant gift of avoiding a beating while out and about on the turps.) At first they were suspicious (I think they thought I was a 'boer') but after speaking at length in Swahili with them, they seemed calmer. They were angry the Swazi guy didn't speak Swahili (I tried to explain he hadn't been here long..) and that he acted like an African-American (umm ok, I cant really comment on that...)They were just drunk and obnoxious, but I dont think they were violent.

Having left them, I went back inside, however the 3 big dudes soon followed and staunched out the Swazi guy. He wanted to leave and so I walked him in the dark to a dala dala stand. He was in 'South African' mode, talking about how he'd take them if one of them had a blade etc etc...I just wanted to go home.

Sigh, inter-African racial politics when I just wanted a beer.