Now Everybody Put Your Hands In the Air...

I put myself in a chair with my laptop in front of me. I had this plan that I was going to finish my update about last weekend and if I don’t do it now (Wednesday) it might well never happen, nor will it be particularly relevant (although of course, I have no clue when you will be reading this…). Anyway, let’s just pick up where I left it last time: Saturday evening!

I think I stopped by letting you know I was having a relaxed afternoon at the guesthouse, enjoying the blue skies and sunshine. In the evening we decided to go out to Backpackers Hostel (or something similar). I thought I had written about that place already, but a quick search through my ‘archive’ shows apparently I didn’t… It’s a big place that should be busy with (surprise) backpackers and other travelers, but the first time we went there, on a weekday, it was very quiet. There’s a big stage and a nice pizzeria with fire wood made pizzas, so we went back to enjoy the pizza again and see if on a Saturday maybe the stage was being used and the place busy. Upon arrival the opposite was easily confirmed, the place was dead quiet and boring, it seems to be lost glory. We were however in the mood for some amusement and some energy after a ‘boring’ (chill) day, so we decided to go out and explore a bit more of Kampala’s nightlife.

We texted the woman who lives in the guesthouse, the daughter/cousin/family of the owner, called Caroline. She owns a club just down the road that we had gone to a few times before, so we checked if she was in the club as we wanted to start there with a drink and by playing some pool. We also texted Dorcas, a lady at the office who also still young and we know likes to go dancing, which is a big part of culture here. We said we’d be up for going out together one day, so why not let the initiative come from our side? We thus got on a bodaboda (the guy promised to drive slow and safe, we thought it’d be our last drive…) to Caroline’s club, called Climax Club. It’s a big place, but very local and nothing all too fancy.

After being there till about ten Dorcas picked us up and we went to the club she wanted to show us: Ambiance Club. A very big and actually quite fancy place still quite near our guesthouse. We had to pay 10.000 shilling entry fee, which I was a little skeptical about. I don’t like paying to just get in a place, where I know the drinks will also be (relatively) expensive. It good soon clear, however, why you have to pay. As said, the club is fancy, well maintained and has screens, lights, air conditioning, a few bars and a VIP floor (entry 30.000). Drinks are indeed relatively expensive. I say relatively, because 5.000 for a beer (less than 2 dollar, i.e. about 1.40/1.50 euro) at such a location is of course not expensive to our standards. But here 5.000 for a beer is relatively expensive. We chilled and half watched the final of the Copa América on the many screens and saw Chili win the cup while on the background music played and people were dancing and cheering/looking sad. Once the penalties where over the screens went back to showing music videos, the volume went up and the lights were set to party mode. We left our seats to go to the dance floor and enjoyed ourselves with dancing to a combination of international and Ugandan music. Those who know me know I cannot really dance, but that doesn’t really matter here and as long as you move most parts of your body in some form of rhythm you’re good. Being nearly the only mzungu’s of course we had some attention from other people, but as long as you keep smiling, give them a minute of attention and then gently move away that’s all fine. We ended up having a really fun night with lots of music and energy, exactly what we had been looking for!

On Sunday we took our time. The weather was gorgeous once again. It might sound weird but it hasn’t happened too often that there’s multiple days of warm, sunny weather without rain. We decided to also relax on Sunday and just use the weekend to enjoy being in a tropical country at the equator! Instead of going to Entebbe, which required much more traffic and hassle than we were willing to use, we decided to go to hotel Africana. I had been there before, the national CSO fair was held there, and thus knew they had a pool! We went before lunch time, had lunch at the hotel and enjoyed the last few hours of the day lying in the sun next to the pool. Unfortunately I got a stomach problems early on Sunday, and Anna later on the day. What the cause is we still don’t know, but probably at some point we might have eaten something wrong or did something else our bodies didn’t appreciate. We both had a fairly sleepless night and whereas Anna decided to stay in the guesthouse on Monday I went from roughly 11 to 15.30 in an attempt to feel productive. Given that I mainly surfed the internet/Facebook and managed to transcribe only 4 minutes during those hours shows that the attempt failed somewhat… Anyway, the following days we improved and now (Wednesday evening) we’re slowly going back to being normal/healthy. My stomach is still occasionally protesting (it’s now Friday…), but there’s not much I can do about that so I just do what I normally do, keep smiling and move on. Life goes on and so does Julien!

Let’s leave it there for now, I’m surprised I wrote so much about a day and an evening as it is!