Ange’s campus night is infectious
Jun 06, 2003
WOW,†a thunderous applause engulfs Ange Noir discotheque every Thursday. It is Campus Night! Patrons in their 20s dance shaking their elbows, rolling their eyes and gritting their teeth hard as if possessed by demons.
By Titus Kakembo
WOW,†a thunderous applause engulfs Ange Noir discotheque every Thursday. It is Campus Night! Patrons in their 20s dance shaking their elbows, rolling their eyes and gritting their teeth hard as if possessed by demons.
The kanyamas (bouncers) at the gate grab my camera at the entrance. I am told to pick it on my way out.
Time check: midnight. That is when the queue at the entrance stretches to the road. Everybody present wants to jig and relax after the day’s events.
The dress code is white, yellow or red –– colours that appear beautiful in the coloured fluorescent lights and indeed the patrons love what they see in the mirrors. The revellers want to dance before the mirrors to check out their jigs. You can spot lonely hearts perfecting their strokes and some admiring the others’ strokes.
This goes on all night.
Be afraid and stay warned: someone is watching your man or woman. They whisper a “hi†as they pass by or rub against the fleshy bums. You can tell who the snatcher is by their accent and their style of dancing.
Slot in a Ja rule, Nelly or Jennifer Lopez number and patrons from Makerere, Nkumba, Mukono and Ndejje universities storm the floor to stomp hard all night and trek back to their halls of residences or hostels at 7:00am the majority in taxis.
Petit babes throw fists in the air, elbows swim back and forth as rivers of sweat slide down their cheeks. Every body loves the mirror –– they pull faces at it, dance while watching the jig in the glass and rehearse smiles stretching the glossy lips.
Fast forward 2:00pm. You have to hold your partner tight or you risk losing them to an army of admirers strutting about like hungry lions.
For starters they sway in catwalks, mingling their swift waists as they saunter about in body hugging frocks.
The boys bounce about in sleeve-less T-shirts and over-sized trousers. Some wear sneers and talk from the side of their lower lips. The girls are in tight-fitting skirts –– I get scared they might tear any time. God is surely a creative and seasoned sculptor to come with such a wide range of ‘pieces’ like these.
By the time I have my fifth bottle of Bell, I have already fitted into the Ange-noir lifestyle. I get to the dance floor with this wasp-waisted babe. She twists like she has a rubber waist. After a short break I return to the floor with my wasp-waisted partner in strokes.
A boy with an ‘O’ moustache dressed in a T- shirt gawks at my dance mate with envy. He latter snatches her away from me when he requests her for a dance. This is the last I see of her.
Prostitutes here also snatch men from the “elite†girls from various campuses. They trap the men in the loo corridors and “baptise†them instantly.
“Honeeeeey bunch,†or “Sugar stick†are some of the names the prostitutes baptise strangers. They prefer tourists from Europe with the treasured dollar. Ignorant foreigners are surprised when a bevy of girls make them celebrities overnight. They force them on the dance floor to shake to unfamiliar soukous and in turn. This is because they spend like they have a grudge with their wallets.
And for the guys, some borrow car keys if they have non to impress the babes they have a crash on.
In Ange-noir, beer goes for sh2,000. But trust Ugandans at cutting costs. They walk in after guzzling beers bought from bufundas at sh1,200 or they dash to joints serving beers across the road to fill in. Inside I see many drinking soda. Talk to them and they have this drunken sense of humour, which comes with one too many a bottle of Nile Special, or Uganda Waragi.
I am looking forward to another Campus Night. There is happiness, competition and friendliness in the air. Patrons make you feel wanted, funny and handsome. My wish is that management could halt smocking in the discotheque.
Take heed: if you have had more than 40 birthdays, you stand a chance of running into your child or fiancée feeling ‘happy!’ in the hands of a ‘friend in need’ –– that is Campus Night. Excuse me, this night in a drunken stupor when I saw my last bottle of beer jump off the giant speaker, move in the Michael Jackson style backslide before pouring on the carpet, I knew it was time to go home and sleep. It was 4:00pm.
WOW,†a thunderous applause engulfs Ange Noir discotheque every Thursday. It is Campus Night! Patrons in their 20s dance shaking their elbows, rolling their eyes and gritting their teeth hard as if possessed by demons.
The kanyamas (bouncers) at the gate grab my camera at the entrance. I am told to pick it on my way out.
Time check: midnight. That is when the queue at the entrance stretches to the road. Everybody present wants to jig and relax after the day’s events.
The dress code is white, yellow or red –– colours that appear beautiful in the coloured fluorescent lights and indeed the patrons love what they see in the mirrors. The revellers want to dance before the mirrors to check out their jigs. You can spot lonely hearts perfecting their strokes and some admiring the others’ strokes.
This goes on all night.
Be afraid and stay warned: someone is watching your man or woman. They whisper a “hi†as they pass by or rub against the fleshy bums. You can tell who the snatcher is by their accent and their style of dancing.
Slot in a Ja rule, Nelly or Jennifer Lopez number and patrons from Makerere, Nkumba, Mukono and Ndejje universities storm the floor to stomp hard all night and trek back to their halls of residences or hostels at 7:00am the majority in taxis.
Petit babes throw fists in the air, elbows swim back and forth as rivers of sweat slide down their cheeks. Every body loves the mirror –– they pull faces at it, dance while watching the jig in the glass and rehearse smiles stretching the glossy lips.
Fast forward 2:00pm. You have to hold your partner tight or you risk losing them to an army of admirers strutting about like hungry lions.
For starters they sway in catwalks, mingling their swift waists as they saunter about in body hugging frocks.
The boys bounce about in sleeve-less T-shirts and over-sized trousers. Some wear sneers and talk from the side of their lower lips. The girls are in tight-fitting skirts –– I get scared they might tear any time. God is surely a creative and seasoned sculptor to come with such a wide range of ‘pieces’ like these.
By the time I have my fifth bottle of Bell, I have already fitted into the Ange-noir lifestyle. I get to the dance floor with this wasp-waisted babe. She twists like she has a rubber waist. After a short break I return to the floor with my wasp-waisted partner in strokes.
A boy with an ‘O’ moustache dressed in a T- shirt gawks at my dance mate with envy. He latter snatches her away from me when he requests her for a dance. This is the last I see of her.
Prostitutes here also snatch men from the “elite†girls from various campuses. They trap the men in the loo corridors and “baptise†them instantly.
“Honeeeeey bunch,†or “Sugar stick†are some of the names the prostitutes baptise strangers. They prefer tourists from Europe with the treasured dollar. Ignorant foreigners are surprised when a bevy of girls make them celebrities overnight. They force them on the dance floor to shake to unfamiliar soukous and in turn. This is because they spend like they have a grudge with their wallets.
And for the guys, some borrow car keys if they have non to impress the babes they have a crash on.
In Ange-noir, beer goes for sh2,000. But trust Ugandans at cutting costs. They walk in after guzzling beers bought from bufundas at sh1,200 or they dash to joints serving beers across the road to fill in. Inside I see many drinking soda. Talk to them and they have this drunken sense of humour, which comes with one too many a bottle of Nile Special, or Uganda Waragi.
I am looking forward to another Campus Night. There is happiness, competition and friendliness in the air. Patrons make you feel wanted, funny and handsome. My wish is that management could halt smocking in the discotheque.
Take heed: if you have had more than 40 birthdays, you stand a chance of running into your child or fiancée feeling ‘happy!’ in the hands of a ‘friend in need’ –– that is Campus Night. Excuse me, this night in a drunken stupor when I saw my last bottle of beer jump off the giant speaker, move in the Michael Jackson style backslide before pouring on the carpet, I knew it was time to go home and sleep. It was 4:00pm.