The last time I
went downtown – to Nakivubo Stadium to be precise and before it was peddled off
to pave way for a shopping mall, was probably seven years ago when Aga Sekalala
and Co used to host Ekigunda Ky’Omwwaaka
– a music festival that kicked off at 6:00am on Sunday and ended at 6:00am on
Monday! The thing about Ekigunda
Ky’Omwwaka is that, most fans came from deep rural Buganda - from kyalos whose names when read out,
sounded more like some nasty terminal village disease than a name of a kyalo.
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| Simba FMs Ekigunda |
Most of the day
while the sun was still up, the crowd is the most pleasant one. They are relaxed
and strolling through the countless food stalls or simply basking in the middle
of the football pitch watching the various artistes do their thing on stage.
Then comes that
hour when daylight takes a back seat and dusk sets in. It last all but five
minutes – no tell a lie, it’s almost as instantaneous as flicking a light
switch from ‘on’ to ‘off’ and that it. That split second transformation from
light to darkness is what the crowd have been waiting for.
Ugandans have a
love darkness. I don’t know where the craze came from – perhaps from the era of
endless nights of load shedding towards in the 90s and into the millennium. But
that’s beside the point. While we used to complain about load shedding, on the
other hand, it was something we wholeheartedly embraced just like the crowd at Ekiggunda do once the skies darken.
The sedate day
time crowd start shuffling about and breaking down from crowds an into pairs or
rather couples, with each couple looking for the darkest spot in the stadium to
call their own for the rest of the night.
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| Just Dark Enough |
In the late 90s
when I was still new in town after decades of a sojourn abroad, I was invited
out to a kafunda in Wandegeya for a
drink just before darkness set in. As I waited for Host to arrive, in walked a
couple and after scanning the layout of the gardens, they took their place at a
table in the corner that fairly lit. Five minutes later, Dude walks up to
Waitress who after a brief discussion returns with a chap who was obviously the
handyman. Handyman wasted no time in unscrewing the bulb where Couple had
perched themselves and plunged the corner into a dark abyss.
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| Just Enough Light |
Andy The Greek
used to own a restaurant called err, Andy The Greek. What used to amaze him, is
how most of his Ugandan customers would literary beg for a table to be set in the
far flung corners of the gardens especially behind shrubbery or the roses. He
tells the tale of Regular Client who always requested for a table to be placed
behind a thicket along with an umbrella – something that he found odd
especially at night. But there was a reason. Once he and Female Companion were
settled in the plastic chairs, Regular Client would lower the umbrella so low
that they couldn’t be seen by others that it was almost like being in the
darkest part of sin city.
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| Dark Enough To Get Away With It |
Nakulabye is
umbrella city in that each kafunda in
the area has more than a multitude of them – in fact more than they actually
need. One night and on my first visit and at night when I returned from the not
so pleasant toilets, with all the umbrellas and coupled with load shedding, I
couldn’t remember where we were sitting. Straining my eyes I thought I saw a
table and umbrella that looked familiar except that when I took my seat, out
came this gruff voice wanting to know what I wanted with his woman. A hasty
retreat was made.
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| Too Much Light At Miki's Pub? |
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