Ahhh, abange mwe — our times! We truly DANCED!
Not this hiding you hide at night like a bat in a bar with blue lights. No! Our disco was DAY TIME. 2 o'clock in the afternoon, when the sun is straight on top of your head like a hot saucepan.
Jinja Main Hall.
Victoria Primary Hall, Jinja.
Those were our cathedrals! Our parliament! Our heaven!
Saturday, you wake up early. You take your bell-bottom trousers — you have ironed them since Friday night with a charcoal iron, that one that leaves a small black mark if you are not careful — you polish your Bata Ngatto shoes until you can see your face inside, you comb your Afro until it stands like a hill of Kifuuta, you put on your Brut or Old Spice, and you WALK.
We would WALK to Jinja Main Hall!
No boda boda to knock you down. No boda to hoot gwe! Gwe! behind your ear. No traffic jam. Jinja Road was empty, clean, with jacaranda flowers falling like blessings. You walked with your friends, swinging arms, laughing, discussing who will dance with who. From Walukuba, from Mafubira, from Bugembe, from Main Street — we walked! Our legs were our Mercedes!
And when you arrived — oh my friend — Segico had already set his musical disco equipment! Those big black boxes, speakers bigger than a coffin, amplifiers humming like a tractor. When Segico dropped the needle — tssss krrrr — the whole of Jinja Main Hall would tremble! Dust would fall from the roof! Even the old Indian shops across would hear that we had started!
WE DID NOT DANCE. WE FLEW. WE SWEATED LIKE MORNING RAIN FILLING RIVER NILE!
My child, you have never seen sweat like that. We sweated not small. We sweated like morning rain filling River Nile — enkuba yoku makya ejjuza Kiyira! Shirts wet on the back, faces shining, Afro wet, but nobody cared. The more you sweated, the more you had danced well. Your sweat was your receipt that you paid for real joy!
And Hell — that small bar next to our bones, next to the hall — oh, Hell was full! Beer was cold, two beers make you a king, but music was hotter than beer!
Inside Victoria Primary Hall, Jinja — that hall was smaller but sweeter. You could touch the wall and feel the beat. There we introduced break-dance! A boy from Army would come with a cardboard, put it on the floor, and spin on his head like a spinning top — Waaaa! — the whole hall would shout! Then ragga, then walking to the moon — that Michael Jackson moonwalk — everybody trying to slide backwards and falling down, holding stomachs, laughing until tears!
MUSIC WAS REAL. REAL MUSIC WITH SOUL!
You remember? You must remember:
The fire that burnt Jinja Main Hall:
Bob Marley — No Woman No Cry — whole hall singing, fists up, eyes closed!
Peter Tosh — Get Up Stand Up.
Jimmy Cliff — Reggae Night.
Lucky Dube — Remember Me, Slave, House of Exile — that voice from apartheid, crying for us!
Michael Jackson — Billie Jean, Thriller, Beat It — then we walk to the moon!
Yvonne Chaka Chaka — Umqombothi — when it played, even mothers carrying babies would shake! House maids made it an anthem, and am burning out Yintana Karolinska.
Boney M — Ma Baker, Rasputin, Brown Girl In The Ring.
Don Williams — Some Broken Hearts Never Mend — slow dance, hold a girl like you hold a calabash with milk!
Kenny Rogers — The Gambler, Coward of the County.
ABBA — Dancing Queen.
Tina Turner — What's Love Got To Do With It.
Tracy Chapman — Fast Car.
Lionel Richie — Hello, Is It Me You're Looking For?
Thunder that crossed River Nile:
Franco Luambo Makiadi & TP OK Jazz — Mario, Testament ya Bowule.
Papa Wemba — Emotion, Viva La Musica.
Kanda Bongo Man — Isambe.
Mbilia Bel — Nadia.
Yondo Sister — Bazo.
Awilo Longomba — Coupé Bibamba — just coming.
Remmy Ongala, Mariana — Orchestre Virunga.
Maroon Commandos — Charonyi Ni Wasi.
Local legends — our own blood:
Jimmy Katumba and The Ebonies — Twala Byange, Twalina Omukwano.
Moses Matovu & Afrigo Band — Jim, Obangaina, Vincent Nange — since 1975 until today!
Phil Bender Kaminya — Sanyu Lyaffe.
Fred Masagazi — Atani Atani.
Elly Wamala — Nabutono, Ebinyumo ebyaffe.
Peterson Mutebi.
Herman Basudde — professor of kadongo kamu.
Ekirooto.
Paul Kafeero — Ekijjankunene and Muvubuka mu nange.
Fred Ssonko.
Sam Gombya, Sebo Muko, Nakayima Suuna.
Dan Hill — Uganda's Michael Jackson with his one glove!
Ras Banzaye.
Abdul Ssempeke.
When Afrigo played at Jinja Main Hall and Sailing Club, my friend, even the chairs and water would dance. The headmaster dancing with his student. The policeman dancing with the smuggler. The Muslim dancing with the Catholic. No tribe. No class. Only music! Only sweat!
And listen — life was without the Protectors, and it was real good morning!
Yes, I say it! We lived without those plastic Protectors — balabala, those things they now advertise on radio every minute. And life was sweet good morning! Real good morning, like morning tea with no fear! You loved a girl with real heart, with real body, with trust. No fear of counting diseases. No fear of packet breaking. You loved with clean heart, you danced with clean sweat. Your morning after was good morning, not morning full of worries and clinic queues. It was love pure like water from a well in Kifuuta!
We had no phones. No TikTok. No inbox pleading, "Please, please, you are my only." No! If you loved a girl in Jinja Main Hall, you walked to her side during a slow song. You stretched your hand. If she gave you her hand, you had won Uganda Cranes World Cup! If she refused, you respected and walked home. You wrote her a letter with scented paper and put it in her desk at Victoria Primary. We did not beg for love. We danced for it!
So, my child, you reading this now with earphones on your boda:
Enjoy now with what makes you happy!
Stop pleading for love like a beggar at a borehole.
If she loves you, she will dance near you.
If she does not, let her go. Jinja Main Hall is still inside your heart.
Thank God for everything you do! Thank Him for the leg that still can shuffle, for the ear that still hears Lucky Dube, for the heart that still remembers Umqombothi and Walking to the Moon.
The gods of Kifuuta Katooke, Kyotera, Buddu; the gods of Kiteledde, Kyotera; the spirit of River Nile, Kiyira, that we sweated to fill — they are still keeping you!
Today, play Bob Marley loud!
Today, play Afrigo loud!
Today, play Chaka Chaka loud!
And dance, even alone in your sitting room in Kampala, in Jinja, in Kyotera. Dance like it is Saturday, 2 p.m., at Victoria Primary Hall, Jinja, 1982!
Because, abange — OUR TIMES — WE TRULY LIVED!
Were you there when Segico played Walking to the Moon at Jinja Main Hall and we all tried to moonwalk and fell down laughing? If you were there, you know the dust of that hall still holds the print of our Bata Ngoma shoes. If you were not there, ask River Nile; it remembers our sweat.
The Oracle of Kifuuta, Kyotera, Buddu, says, "Long live Jinja Main Hall! Long live Victoria Primary Hall! Long live Segico! Long live real music!" As I keep Katooke, Kyotera, Buddu.
