The Bouzouki Club

We had an advert from an English paper that said: Choreographer looking for girls for serious work in a Bouzouki Club. No experience necessary. We phoned, being very cautious of asking that it is not a strip club or anything like that. The English lady that answered said it was all above board, so we took the address and went around there. It was about a 15 minute walk and in a residential area, so when we reached the house we stood outside for a while debating if we should go in as it certainly was not a club. We went to a corner shop and asked about it, they said that it could be a club as there were some in the area, but it was just too early for the clubs to open. So with our knives in hand we went up. We were greeted by the English lady, and the place turned out to be her home, not the club. There were two other girls there who had started the day before and were rehearsing. She told us we would get $50 a night to do 2 shows, and the work was for 7 nights a week. When we are not dancing we have to sit with the customers, smile and be nice. We wondered how nice. They could buy us drinks but no funny business, or touching. She said we would have to rehearse for about 3 days before we started. We said we didn't know what a Bouzouki Club was, so she invited us to come back at midnight and accompany her and her husband to a club where he would be singing.

So we returned at midnight, and went to the club. The place was laid out like a disco, with a large band and some Bouzouki players. Once seated they automatically put a bottle of whiskey on the table., then cokes etc. It would have been very expensive to go to if we had wanted to go on our own. We watched singer after singer, of all shapes and sizes, male and female, there were a lot of them - a lot! We got progressively bleary eyed from all the smoke and at 3am made our excuses and went home.