It’s a grown bar because it has grown folk. And you know grown folk because they spot grey hair and look at their phones while holding them away from their faces. Like the phone is emitting heat that might singe their eyebrows.
Sitting in this local bar in Kampala’s Bugolobi, you might as well have been in Nairobi - Nairobi West, even Hurlingham. Only here there is Bell beer on tables. And someone shouting, “Gwe!”
But it’s a local as local as a local can be. Very spacious, well aerated, with grown-folk music. And like most locals you know, because it’s right by the roadside, we had to join others on the pavement and park.
There was that familiar mix of grilled meat and beer in the air. The music was excellent, courtesy of a gentleman called DJ Crim. And what’s a local without big-screen TVs? In this case, they were showing rugby and football.
The rugby guys sat on low tables in a small clutch - a pose. Big Ugandan boys, one with a neck the size of a drum. I was informed that it was the director’s table or something. They were drinking champagne because the bar was turning four that Saturday. Balloons clung to the ceiling to mark the occasion.
While a flood threatened to submerge Nairobi that night, Kampala was balmy. I wasn’t in the mood to drink, so I ordered Angostura bitters and sparkling water. [They charge for bitters. That’s how empires fall]. Only one whisky was being sold in tots; otherwise, customers were encouraged to buy doubles.
My friend, whom I hadn’t seen in ages, sat glued to a football match on the screen - Arsenal, I think. The great sorcery of football. That gave me time to gaze at people. Which made me lean over and ask, “Isn’t that Gaetano?” It was him in the flesh -Gaetano Kagwa, of Big Brother Africa fame and now a presenter at Capital FM. He was being very Ugandan, to mean, he was drinking beer from a big glass.
Later, we drove around Kabalagala and found a whole lot of Ethiopians in the streets. That was different.
