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WHAT’S UP!

My earliest recollection of Easter was singing Easter carols at Budo Junior School, also known as Kabinja. We would wake up really early, before anyone else, and go around the school, knocking on doors and singing the carols. My favourite was He rose from the dead.

The normal school routine was that we would all be woken up at 6:00am (I think) and go for ‘trot’, which was an early morning run about 2km long. I’ve never been a morning person, and even at that age, about six or seven, I hated being woken up early. The teacher on duty always had to apply a ‘friendly’ stick to get me going.

But on Easter Sunday, I would be one of the first to get up, leading to one teacher who thought he was a comedian to remark that every day should be Easter Sunday so I would get up early. Yeah, right.

But it was a magical time, although I don’t remember it having a lot to do with the fact that it was probably the most important day in the Christian calendar, when Jesus rose from the dead and thus saved the whole human race from themselves.

Easter almost inevitably always found us at school, and it was probably the only time the school gave us a treat. From the sumptuous breakfast served (carol singers always got an extra helping), the lunch and special evening tea. So before we grew up and things of life got in the way, Easter was always a special day.

We left Kabinja and joined King’s College, and all of a sudden Easter wasn’t that big a deal anymore. Pre-teens and young teenagers are much too self-conscious to be seen going around singing carols, so sadly that ended. And the biggest day at ‘Budo ngulu’ was Founders’ Day, that was when the special treats all came out.

So, unless it was half-term and we all went home for the weekend, Easter was just a long weekend to play basketball when the older kids left the court alone to do things older kids do.

Around this time, Uganda started descending into its spiral of insecurity, and nothing was special anymore, except maybe staying alive. I wouldn’t celebrate Easter till I left the country years later, and by then I had learnt to sneak the occasional beer or two.

To many Ugandan adults, Easter is special in that it is regularly the longest weekend of the year, and thus time to indulge without worries of showing up at work worse for wear. But I was an entertainment journalist, and Easter was a busy time for entertainment. So I ended up working longer and harder over Easter than other times of the year.

From 2002 to 2011, I was the editor of the City Beat magazine, still Uganda’s only truly entertainment magazine. Easter time was always a busy one for us as we would be tasked with publishing a special issue, complete with bumper advertisement spend. So it became a really stressful period. I feel for the folks that are doing that right now, hats off to them.

In fact, I developed a routine that every weekend after Easter, I would go off to Ssese islands for recuperation, away from the madding crowds. It was ironic that after eagerly waiting for Easter as a kid, I was now eagerly waiting for the weekend after Easter.

But one recent memorable Easter that stands out is when the Old Timers (OT) pub in Ntinda opened what the regulars refer to as ‘Old Times Season 3’. In a country where the average business does not last beyond its second birthday, these folks have been at it for more than 10 years.

I still remember the first time I stepped through the doors of OT one Thursday night in 2003. It had been yet another stressful day at the office, but I heard an announcement on the radio about a jazz night at a pub above Capital Shoppers, so that’s where I went to recover. Only to find warm beers, a loud and noisy band playing very forgettable music, and waiters that preferred playing pool to serving drinks.

I posted my frustrations on Facebook, and a friend suggested I cross the road and check out a new pub. I crossed the road, and have never looked back. It was a rudimental place with basic amenities but again, unlike most businesses in Uganda, these folks cared about the place, and would reinvest whatever money they got. Week after week, they improved, and of course they played the kind of music I liked.

Again, typical of Ugandans, some folks didn’t like that they were doing well, and after some time they were literally thrown out. After about a year or two in the wilderness, they opened Season Two at a place in Bukoto. It wasn’t the best of places, but they persevered. And they would tell us how they had their own place they were working on, and we should hang in there.

So, seven years ago they opened the current pub along Martyrs’ Way, Ntinda. And they are still going strong; so, this Easter weekend I will pour a libation to the ghosts of Easter past while some cool funk plays at Old Timers.

And as the wise old Irish put it:

May your glass be ever full

May the roof over your head be always strong

And may you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you’re dead.

A very happy Easter y’all.

You can follow Kalungi Kabuye on X @KalungiKabuye