Still exhausted. At the risk of gaining two kilos from the eating and drinking I did this weekend I've gone ahead and canceled my physical training sessions this week just so I can take it easy. Still, barely getting eight hours of sleep over two days was worth it given that Gbemi reported back that she had a blast in Prague. Phew! That means there's hope for the rest of you who want to visit.
Friday afternoon, the day after our near tram arrest, was spent walking about the Castle District and Old Town. It must have been the weather—its getting warmer, the tourists are pouring in—but Prague seemed to have suddenly gained an abundant black population. Especially women, who I don't normally see around these parts—we must have spotted at least six of them.
In my normal routine, it's not unusual for me to go days without seeing another black face. However, there is a constant supply of black men—Africans—to observe on Wenceslas Square—at night. I find it unfortunate that there's not much that's positive to report about what some of them do out there on the strip. Still, not all black men here are engaged in dubious activity—they have office jobs, work in construction, own businesses, teach, are musicians and DJs, play basketball, and more.
Of the groups above, basketball players were the only ones I had yet to encounter, until Saturday when Gbemi, me and some friends ended up at Radost, a popular night club here for hip-hop. The minute I saw the lot of them—about eight or more—swagger in, clearly taller and by their mere physical presence taking up more space than everyone else in the joint, I knew. “Oh wow, here come the American All-Stars....” B-ballers aside, till then I had never even seen a sizable number of blacks together in one gathering before. “Where are these people normally?” I wondered. Apparently, they all show up at Radost on hiphop nights—Thursdays and Saturdays.
I was tired that evening—I had barely four hours of sleep from an all-night outing Friday—but not too tired to notice black girls getting little action even though black men clearly outnumbered us. Our group, near the bar, swaying to the music, a pair on the dance floor alone, surrounded by black guys with their minds on other things, namely the smörgåsbord of available Czech girls. Whatever. I snagged me a German cutie and gyrated to my heart's content.
I make it a point in my day to try to say hello, smile, acknowledge black people I see. And that not one of these b-ballers even thought to say, “Hello Black Girl, what brings you to this foreign land?” was quite sad. I wasn't looking for a hookup. But tell me how you're having a much better conversation with that Czech girl whose tongue is halfway down your throat. And of course, there were two near fights. C'mon, people!
Two Becherovka shots, a rum and coke, a gin and tonic, sips of Gbemi's mojitos, and a Baileys later, I got bold enough to suddenly insert myself into a group picture that some of the players were taking. Next thing, I was calling Gbemi over to join me. Its liver-damaging effects aside, alcohol is a nice social-leveler because soon we were chatting with the players and learned that one was from Harlem and another from Crown Heights, Brooklyn! My borough-mate turned out to be more down-to-earth than I could have imagined.
Then I started to wonder if perhaps most of these guys would not have minded talking if I had made the initial approach. Guys can be just as afraid of rejection as women are. They'd rather do nothing. In a place like Prague where these black men—boys, really—are a novelty they don't have to do a thing; Czech girls are eager to do enough of it. On my part, If I ever go back to Radost and spot "Crown Heights" there I'll ask him out for coffee. Nothing romantic, but I would like to know more about his experience (and that of his teammates) here.
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