Glowing Pipes Rule Kampala’s Night-Life

By Pidson Kareire
Witchcraft has engulfed our city of 20 hills. When the majority of us are busy snoring and dreaming a section of Ugandans are active in sorcery.
A myriad of women and men in the slums arm themselves with emindi (tobacco pipes) to conjure up the spirit world.
Whereas some smoke to get customers to flock to their businesses, others do it to bewitch business rivals and to get men to marry them, while others to harm their foes.
At Ggaba, on shores of Lake Victoria, witchcraft is done openly to the extent that even children know what is taking place.
One Tuesday night, while I sat in a local restaurant opposite a defunct Caltex service station, I was surprised when a waitress refused to direct me to the well known shrines. Her young son, however, volunteered to take me to the place. The darkness that shrouded the place exuded evil.
There was no proper path to the place and we got lost. However, we met Ssekabira, a student of Kampala University, who offered to take me there. As he led me to this shanty place, we bumped into naked people who seemed liked they were having a bathe, but they did not have basins or water and worst of all, they were not bothered by our presence.
The shrines were many, surrounded by several bark cloth trees. My guide asked if a had a particular reason for venturing into this arena, and while I thought of what to tell him, I saw several tongues of fire glowing in the dark. Frightened, we fled from the scene.
In Kimombasa, Bwaise and Kisenyi-Mengo slums, I came face to face with women seated provocatively, smoking huge and long pipes. Their appearance and behaviour spoke. They had blood-shot eyes and their words showed that they were possessed by a spirit.
In Kamwokya-Kisenyi zone, a woman says: “What I tell you is really what I witness physically. I see my neighbour stark naked, seated in front of the toilet. She is blowing a pipe and holding a leaf, which she incessantly using to fan her private parts. She is mumbling some words I cannot hear.”
While I was in Mengo-Kisenyi, I felt my stomach rumbling and wanted to turn back and flee, when I looked at the tobacco pipe with nine heads, but a woman encouraged me. “It’s all right, young man,” she said in Luganda after seeing me shiver. “There is no need for you to fear or worry about your foes all the time. You can finish him any time you blow this,” she added, while pointing at the nine-headed pipe. At this juncture, I just closed my note-pad and got to my feet.
She sat down on the bench just outside her sleeping box, looked both ways before asking, “Did anybody see you come over?” I was puzzled.
“What difference would it make if they did?” I queried. She did not answer the question. Instead, she started telling me the names of pipes. Her eyes were thoughtful. She smiled suddenly and said, “My son. Hmm! You don’t know these things? There are mainly four types of emindi. There is the Mukasa, Ddungu, Kiwanuka and Nakayima.”
“It means that if you treat them right, you can get what you want,” she asserted.
Rich people smoke Mukasa because they believe that it protects their wealth. Kiwanuka is for people who have businesses, but don’t reap much. They believe it can help them boost their businesses or income. Ddungu is for hunting for riches and Nakayima for love.
But, there are others like Jaja Muwanga, which is smoked by the rituals’ leader. The one with nine heads is believed to cause accidents and deaths to the enemy.
“Things take time, but some people don’t have the patience or the understanding that others have for those things,” says Kizza Mukasa, a businessman on Luwum Street. He wondered why the good Lord gave such people a brain, if they were not supposed to use it. “I don’t believe in such garbage; I don’t want to discuss it.”
At night, the sickly smell that hangs in the overcrowded squalid neighbourhood, hits your nose. Your entire life means nothing. The wavering glows over different nooks of neighbourhood seem to be permanent. The emindi rules supreme in overcrowded slums of Kampala.
While I was in Kimombasa, Bwaise, at night, i came close to hell. I saw the most wicked among the sinners. I stayed for a short time and then silently moved.
In Kakajo, Old Kampala one of those pipe smokers leaped to her feet and advanced threateningly towards me, her fists ready to strike. She said: “You man, why are you following us? What is wrong with smoking pipes? Even ministers smoke them!” Imagine!
This time her voice was tough, very rough, she stared at me and dropped her lesu, stripping naked. I took off.
Smoking emindi is not a just female domain. There are some wicked men who smoke pipes stark naked, while chanting obscenities.
The nights in these slums are crazy. All the corners are dark, peppered with glowing pipes. There is no corner that is free of evil doing. Ends