Nightlife in Uganda's Sin City

By Alex Kiprotich

"Thank God, it’s Friday", is a common phrase. To many Kenyans, Friday is the best day of the week because it kicks off weekend partying.

Across the border in Kampala, the feeling is: "Any day is party time." Thus, the city parties all the time. Bars stay open until morning since there are no ‘Mututho hours’. Drinking is as much a part of Kampala culture as religion. Beer is available all day, and you are almost never out of sight of somewhere to get alcohol.

After covering the swearing-in of President Kaguta Museveni, I decided to sample Kampala’s nightlife at Kabalagala or Sin City, as it is known. At the club, I ask for a vegetable burger and vanilla milkshake from a friendly waiter.

He takes his time taking my order then tells me: "Sir it is fifteen thousand shillings." I get jolted, Sh15,000? No, it cannot be. The waiter realises my shock and tells me: "You are in Uganda sir." I smiled and gave him the money. I had momentarily forgotten I was not in Nairobi.

In Uganda, your wallet is not a place to keep money because it would not fit!

Uganda’s Las Vegas

After the meal, I headed for De Posh Club and I did not need anyone to explain to me why the region was christened Sin City. The women were clad in transparent clothes that left nothing to the imagination; and they strutted their stuff in a most lascivious manner despite the mad staring eyes of male patrons.

"It is the best night life in Africa," said Michael Snow, a British citizen on research vacation. He says says he chose Uganda as his base so that he could also experience the life of Kampala.

"Many people visit Kampala to experience the night life and not the Nile River nor the Lake Victoria," said Nicholas Nuwagaba.

Nuwagaba says Kabalagala is Uganda’s Las Vegas as it is also home to some of the richest musicians in Africa. Unlike Nairobi, nightlife is relatively safe because of heavy presence of police in the streets and people walk freely during the night without fear of being mugged. The bouncers in bars and clubs are also friendly and hospitable compared to Kenya’s who intimidate and harass patrons.

Kabalagala is everything it has been hyped to be and then some more. If you think that life is a big superficial party and you want to mingle with hundreds of women in a no-holds-barred arena, then this is the place to be. Even in the wee hours of the morning, the street walks are crawling with women dressed up skimpily, who Nuwagaba warns are prostitutes. "Only walk when sure where you are going because the night girls will offer you kiosk to rent for other activities not related to your assignment," he tells me in a fatherly tone.

And it is not only in Kenya where one can be conned by hawkers pretending to be selling gold wristwatches.

"They will sell you scrap if you are not careful," he says, as he points a hawker sweet-talking a customer outside Chicken Tonight restaurant. On the streets, apart from the police officers and motorcyclists who call out ‘banange’ to anyone walking in the streets, there are people who hawk mouth-watering array of delicacies.

Night owls

There are also the ill-kempt women who lurk around the boda boda stage, who I later learn sell cannabis and the Ugandan local brew– waragi to the cyclists. Nuwagaba says the girls in the bars are mostly students from the nearby universities scouting for men when they run out of pocket money.

"I can tell you most of these women are students – a lot of them from Kenya and Tanzania. They are looking for means to supplement their pocket money," he says.

As the night progresses, chairs and tables are stacked away to give more room for more patrons to fill in as they dance to reverberating music mostly Rhythm and Blues and the local music. Revellers should however be careful when taking the motorcycles as by 11pm, some of cyclists already reek of crude waragi. As the night wound down and I retired to my hotel room, I got answers as to why Uganda had the highest number of HIV infection in the 1990s.