THE PUB: Nostalgic over days when booze was just for ‘wazee’

In the land of my watani, that is, people whose ancestral birthplace covers the slopes of Mt Kilimanjaro, alcohol is referred to as shakula ya wasee.

According to my watani’s tradition, it’s only the elderly who are entitled to the joys of partaking of the mbeke, the fine-tasting traditional beverage brewed from sweet banana juice.

Even amongst my people, the Vaasu (Vaathu) dengelua, brewed from sugarcane juice, was the preserve of the older men who weren’t expected to do any seriously hard work.

The notion of alcohol being especially for wazee has been eroded over time because of capitalist culture, in which even a toddler will be considered mzee so long as he has money!

It explains why among my watani, a man aged 70 will give a shikamoo to an under-30 chap who appears prosperous. Yeah, shikamoo mwanangu!

Drinking is now being seen by many as a symbol of financial wellness.

If you can afford a beer from Monday to Sunday, many will view you as mtu wa maana. A person of significance!

And the bigger the amount of alcohol you drink without showing signs of drunkenness, the more manly you’re considered. Eti, a real man!

A younger clansman of mine, Dullah, scoffs at those who take lagers. I once offered him several bottles of 500ml Safari, which he polished off so fast it made me worried.

He was in his third as I battled with my first 330ml Castro Laiti.

“Hey, bwana mdogo, what’s the hurry?” I asked Dullah.

“Ahaa!” he said, lifting his virtually empty bottle.

“You know, bro, to me this is just like water; I’m taking it only because you’re the one who’s buying, and I know you people from Dar have loads of cash to waste!”

“So, what would you prefer?” I asked.

Dullah’s reply: “I could do with K Vant… That’s what gives me the kick I need. A man should drink to get drunk instead of wasting money with these soft brands you Dar people cherish.”

You order him a medium-sized bottle (750ml), plus a litre of water.

“Hey, mhudumu!” Dullah remarks, “What’s the water for?”

I stepped in and said the water was for softening the K Vant. Dullah laughed in disdain and said it would be wasteful buying something good and strong like K Vant and then messing it up with something as useless as water!

See? You’ve got this kind of youth who’ve plunged into an indulgence that, in the good old days, only mature people—those exempted from hardcore tasks in the community would be allowed to consume.

If you dismiss Safari, which is 5.5 percent alcohol, and proceed to take gin, which is 35 percent, and which you take without any mixer just because you consider yourself a real man, then society is in deep trouble.

It’s such a pity that today, alcohol is for everybody and no longer considered “food for the elderly”.

Yeah, a preserve for grown and mature members of the society who understood what responsible drinking was all about.