Highs and Lows in Kampala

I thought I knew what I was doing. I didn’t.

Here’s how I ended up in the center of Kampala with absolutely nothing to do on a Sunday under a sky falling toward night, which held me spellbound in its furious splendor.

After a month, I knew I wouldn’t return to Uganda.

My first trip wasn’t happy with the memories, only the realization that my passport had passed its expiry date while in Africa. I was locked in Uganda until the British High Commission could renew it and send me on my way with a hefty fee and a slap on the wrist. In the meantime, I was told to stay off the streets at night, as they couldn’t be responsible for me.

Well, I thought, there’s an invitation.

Kampala, late at night on a Sunday. Somehow, the insomnia took control. I felt good being alone. But on this Sunday, the loneliness was different. It was a wistful loneliness like the despondent writer thinking of somewhere else to be.

The year was 1995.

Walking, with the humidity weighing heavy on my shoulders, I could hear distant singing. I walked toward it. I didn’t know Kampala had a National Theater. The parking lot was silent, with twenty or so unoccupied cars and no one nearby. Looking up at the advertising board: South Pacific. Playing to a scattered audience, I suspected, of primarily white European expatriates, which seemed like the last bastion against something. I was not sure of it as I hurried away.

Something was frightening here.

Crossing the crowded streets, I kept looking up names of streets and buildings that stood out to find my way back to the hotel. There is still a sizeable British influence in Uganda. Many speak English, most Swahili. I walked along Parliamentary Avenue and saw the most significant number of whites I have ever seen together in Uganda spread all over Café Pap’s terrace, like human flowers in their gaily colored clothes and dining.

I wasn’t in the least bit envious.

I did ask about the Ugandan Parliament in passing. There is no activity at the Uganda parliament. However, Parliament Avenue is irresistible on a weekend, especially a Sunday evening. There is nobody about, no policemen in sight, no public vendors, the sky is clear of any pesky Marabou storks, and you can walk in the middle of the road if you wish.

I did.

I should have thought about where I was going. I merely walked. Drawn on, it seemed to me by a whisper in the silence under those sad trees.

To this day, Nile Avenue is fraught with meaning for me, and I can still tell you on which pavement and which day what marvelous thing happened to me. What heights of ecstasy I was lifted to, what depths of despair I was plunged all in a single hour.

Nile Avenue does not scare me, and there are no ghosts for me there. I was walking on Nile Avenue long past midnight from Crested Towers with a lovely woman searching for more excitement. If excitement is to be had, it begins at the Rock Gardens. Sheraton Hotel is opposite, and the dimly lit expansive gardens are where couples stroll silently waist, holding couples wanting to spend and take money. Paradise.

And outside Sheraton’s fences, harlots. Inexpensive.

There is poverty and suffering everywhere around, but not in Rock Gardens. Her eyes squeezed shut, the buttons of her white shirt open, showing ample cleavage of her breasts, while she was gyrating, her fingers snapping, her mouth open wordlessly mouthing fuck me now. Her boobs bounced to my amazement. I was feeling a lot of things.

I paid for dinner and more. Time stood still. There had been no years of loving, no heartbreak, just me fucking a girl inside a time warp.

It was almost 3. a.m. on Luwum Street.

I was going down to the Old Taxi Park. In these buildings along Luwum Street, the old, planned Kampala is here. The Sax Pub is busy, but down Luwum Street, to the echo of footsteps, Monday is already here.

Creaky empty taxis cruise the silent Kampala Road with the most forlorn look, conductor and driver worn, tired, and hopeless. In the doorway of a closed bank, a sleeping security guard shifts in his blue plastic chair to his left, murmuring and fighting through a frightening dream. On Entebbe Road, a deserted mother of four hopefully makes her way into an ATM booth to check their joint account for the 100th time in hours, though she knows nothing is there.

Rats emerged from a stinking, crumpled pile of rags on the pavement. I wanted to hurry by but watched as a hand reached out, a female human being.

It is a poverty one cannot be told about; only see and not believe your own eyes.