If you sit outside on the terrace after sunset, you will hear the choir of frogs. It is relentless at first, almost intrusive, then it settles into you, becomes background music, part of the furniture. The charm of the place.
Serena Kampala has somehow maintained its shape over the years, at least since I was there nine years ago. I had an evening nightcap recently with a Rwandese gentleman who wanted to write a book. His story of genocide. He had a scar on his neck that he kept touching absentmindedly, as if checking that it was still there.
The Mist was bustling. All the seats outside on the terrace were taken. I was drinking whisky on the rocks. He was having soda water. There were long pauses in his narrative that were filled with the frogs and our thoughts. I wondered where he went when he looked out at the artificial water body - whether he was still at the table with me or somewhere else entirely, dragged back by the current of his own past.
We ordered finger foods at some point. Chicken wings. We piled the bones in a neat pyramid on a saucer. Everybody wants to write a book, I told him. But nobody wants to spend the time, the talent, or the money that a good book demands.
“There is AI now,” he said.
“Yes, there is.” I said, a bit irritably.
He nodded. The frogs continued.
Later, around ten, he left. I took a walk around the premises - cool quiet night, artificial bridges, manicured shrubbery, the gentle theatre of a good hotel that triumphs time.
Then I came back to the bar counter and ordered one last drink and watched people laugh and talk and lean into each other, and it felt both lonesome and special at the same time. The best bars always do.
