For three days in a row now—from five in the evening until five in the morning, constantly on my feet—I've been working at a night club. The club is called "Mavericks." There are a few translations for this word, but apparently, the one that fits our club best is "unbranded calves"... In short, it's the best of the three strip clubs in town. Ira and Katya are waitresses there. Katya is very ashamed of this job and hates telling anyone that she has even a remote connection to such a place. You can understand her, right? That must be why she held out until the very last moment—until things got tight with work and money during the (local) winter. And now, after working there for just a month and a half, she's planning to bail—to look for another job. Ira dreams of escaping from there too. I'm a bartender now. Ira put in a good word for me with the boss, and they hired me. The club is big, with at least ten waiters. There are about eight of us bartenders (five Black guys, one white girl, and one other white guy). The waitresses are a mixed group. There's only one guy among them, and he's Black. Plus a bunch of managers, all white. One of them is a guy—gay—about forty-five years old; and there's a young girl (maybe my age, maybe a bit younger). Beautiful. And "taken." For now. The managers are all locals. Boers. And there are about a hundred strippers. Almost all white. Most are Slavic (Ukrainian, Russian, Belarusian). Moldovan, Romanian. The rest are African. Boers and Black. There are some very interesting-looking ones, but... well, anyone can judge. But to understand... Crowds pour in, everyone shells out eighty rand for entry (three hundred rubles, if we're talking our money). The music varies, but three songs a night are consistently Russian. Spotlights, a sea of various drinks (mostly alcoholic, obviously). Cigarette smoke, endless performances, shows, and girls dancing. In short—everything as it should be in a respectable strip club (if such a definition can even be appropriate for this kind of establishment). No, I can't say it's a "dirty" place. The premises and the interior design look civil enough. However, I would prefer to be working somewhere else... But what can you do? There's a chance to earn up to twenty-five in our money. And until I find another place where I could make the same or better salary, I'm stuck. I remember what Alexey said when we were just messaging and I was about to come here: "You won't make much money there. Especially since there's no free ride in South Africa like in Europe or America. And whatever you do earn, you'll spend right away. Because you can't live in Cape Town and not spend!" And I thought he was exaggerating. Anyway, I don't like it at Mavericks. I was thinking about it in my spare time yesterday and today. And now, I think I can formulate the main reason. And for me, it's not at all about worrying about "what my friends, family, or other people I respect might think of me." No, not at all! That's not the real reason. You see, in every place (sphere) you find yourself in, there will always be a certain mindset, a way of relating to each other, and most importantly—a certain general attitude toward life, views, values, judgments, and beliefs. Well, it's the atmosphere of Mavericks, or to put it more bluntly—the attitude toward life of the people working there—that is what doesn't intersect or align with my own. Do you understand what I mean? Is it worth describing in more detail, or have I explained it clearly enough? In short, if an opportunity and prospect for a more suitable job arise, I won't drag my feet. I'll be out of there immediately. October 20, 2008