The Sunday News
Ekasi stories with Clifford Kalibo
“FIFTEEN men on the dead man’s chest.”
“Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!”
“Drink and the devil had done for the rest.”
“Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!’’
This is the pirate “Old Sea Dog”, who was clearly enjoying his beer (rum), while singing an old sailors’ song. (Treasure Island — RL Stevenson)
Beer, meat, music and women have proved over the years to be an intricately inter-woven and inseparable cocktail. Thus in the absence of meat, music and women, a drinking session is considered incomplete by the imbibers. So goes the home-styled Ekasi philosophy: “Utshwala abungeni nxa kungela flesi lemenya eceleni plus good music.”
The majority of the joints which are synonymous with this set up are shebeens known also as eshabini or eshalasti.
Imbibers who prefer privacy and peaceful drinking avoid public bars and bottle stores at all costs. Such imbibers frequent shebeens almost on a daily basis, throughout the whole year, save for the days when one is not feeling well!
It is here that guzzlers can enjoy very cold quarts of beers while listening to soft jazz or country music. During the 1960s up to the early 1980s shebeen patrons were elderly, mature people such as teachers, clerks, postmasters, politicians, railway enginemen, fitter and turners, etcetera. Entry into a shebeen was subject to a tight screening and vetting, of which young, immature and rowdy young men were not allowed to enter by the shebeen operator.
A Saturday in a shebeen will start off as a slow and lazy day with mostly male patrons sipping their ice-cold beers and touching all sorts of topics ranging from soccer, boxing, politics and religion. The conversations will be intelligent and logical with Hugh Masekela, Oliver Mtukudzi, Sankomota and Kenny Rogers music playing in soft, silky tones and tunes. To boost up their clients’ thirst shebeen operators sell meat to their clients.
The meat is well-fried or grilled and spiced up and sprinkled with chillis (ibilebile). By this time the women compatriots are swelling in numbers joining the male drinkers. Usually at around 7pm the shebeen will be a full house and the tables littered with brown and green beer bottles and platefuls of meat. That’s the beer, meat and women. As if by cue you find the seating arrangement has changed. The patrons are seated in pairs, males and females. It’s now beer, meat and women. Others will remark, “Utshwala sobungena khathesi,” and the guys will be buying the beers like there is no tomorrow.
At this juncture the music in the shebeen has changed from the soft afternoon music. It’s now loud music being played, the likes of Lovemore Majaivana, Soul Brothers, Imitshotshovu, Oguluva, Fredy Gwala, etcetera.
You find the bald-headed old barleys with large pot bellies who in the afternoon had been discussing intelligently, now gyrating to the music with their younger female companions. The respectable professionals during the day, the respected family men are now dancing wildly, twisting and turning and making “get down moves” as they enjoy the beer, music and women.
Unlike the bottle stores, shebeen queens have a credit facility whereby beer is extended to patrons on credit. Thus the patrons will drink till the wee hours of the morning. Worse still others will camp at a shebeen for a whole weekend, only to emerge home on a Monday to take a quick bath and change clothes and proceed to work.
To round off the weekend the imbibers will return to their favourite shebeen early on a Sunday morning to nurse their hangovers, “ukuthoba ibhabhalazi”. As always the beers are cold and the imbibers are treated to free inhloko lamangqina plus music. So the day progresses, and it’s no longer ukuthoba ibhabhalazi, it becomes hard drinking yet again with beer, meat, music and women.
A new type of shebeen known as stokvel or “istokfela” has led to the rise of what is popularly known as umabhija.
The venues for umabhija change everyday because each day it is held at a different stokvel member’s place.
Umabhija sessions start on Fridays and will continue at the same venue on a Saturday. It then shifts to another venue on Sunday for “amaSunday Special”. Then they will have “amaMondays”, for curing ibhabhalazi. Following that there is “amaTuesday special”, then “amaWednesdays for ‘‘inhloko” then “amaThursday special”. All these are just sweet sounding terms, but all that happens on those days is just to drink and dance.
While umabhija has all the components of beer, meat, music and women it is a fast type of shebeen frequented by the 2000s. The music is of a different genre, as they play mostly house, pop and “amapiano” music. The type of jive “ko mabhija” is different from the old school shebeens. The jives are characterised by “gwaragwara”, “vosho”, “zeketse” and “spin”.
But at the end of the day it all boils down to beer, meat, music and women.
Feedback: Clifford Kalibo/ 0783856228 / 0719856228/email : kaliboc@gmail. com
