I forgot about the bar fight.

What happens when a couple PCVs go out with some Namibians for an enjoyable evening of pool and adult beverages?

Bar fights.

I don't know how I forgot to write about what might be the most exciting evening I've had in a long while here in Namibia.  A month or so ago my friend Debbie came to visit for the weekend.  My good friend Ruben joined us with a couple of his friends, and we decided to go play pool.  There's only one place in Gobabis safe enough for us to play pool, a lodge on the other side of town owned and frequented by white people. 

When we arrived, Debbie recognized some of the white guys from her town; they frequent the same bar she does.  They greeted each other, then we went to play pool. Debbie and I were the only white people in the group.  I was involved in some friendly flirtation with one of the guys, and the white guys sitting at the bar didn't take kindly to it.  One made a comment to the effect of "Oh, you like the darkies, do you?" Along with my friend, I walked away, and the white guys started making racially charged comments across the whole bar, and before long they were calling me and Debbie kaffer lovers (kaffer is the Namibian n-word), slurring the parents of my friends (as in "your father is a kaffer"), and not long after that things started flying: pool cues, bar glasses, fists, nasty nasty words.

The good thing is that Debbie and I were never in any real danger.  I never felt fear - only anger and disgust.  I know I talked alot about feeling like I was living in the segregated south when I first moved to Gobabis, but looking back now on this incident makes it so much more real.  The feeling of supremacy that the whites in Gobabis feel simply because of their skin color disgusts me.  And it's said that race  relations are improving in Namibia, at least in the towns.  I say that at least Gobabis has a long way to go.