Kyengera: A Town That Never Sleeps

By Patrick Mutebi
It’s a dry Friday evening. After enduring the day’s scorching sun, folks flock Kyengera to cool off in the evening. Traffic jam rules the area at this time.
Kyengera trading centre never goes to sleep especially on weekends. Locals hardly leave the bars and clubs.
The area is famous for its cheap roast chicken and tasty gonja.
On my right hand side are groups of youth involved in conversation. Talk involves topics of boyfriends and girlfriends and how they are going to spend their Friday night.
To them, spending a Friday evening in Kyengera’s trading centre “puts them in the weekend mood.”
As taxis park near the trading centre, passengers disembark and order for gonja or chicken.
Others bargain with the sellers while inside the taxi. The act has now been nick-named “operation gonja” or may be “operation nkoko.”
The gonja and chicken selling continues to mid night.
People from all walks of life flock the trading centre for chicken and gonja. Travellers on the Kampala -Masaka road find the area a favourite snack joint before continuing for their journey.
Chapatis (rolex) rolled with eggs and roast liver are other items sold in the area.
The chapatis popularly known as ‘sukumi’ are mainly eaten by the youth most of whom cannot afford the chicken.
The trading centre also has eat outs where lots of people flock for super.
The menu comprises: cassava, sweet potatoes, yams, molokony (cow hoof) fresh fish, matooke and pilao (rice cooked with meat).
People begin flocking the area for supper at around 8:00pm
“Nyabo nsibirayo nga bulijjo (Madam give me the usual dish),” a man instructs a lady in charge of food. I realised that he is a regular customer.
I discovered that customers love the area because there was no power.
“Ffe ba kasitoma baffe tebaagala masannyalaze.(Our customers do not like power,”..one of the food vendors revealed to me.
The customers preferred darkness because ironically to them, that is when they would see the fun in the area.
A food vendor told me some ‘big’ people also stormed bufundas in the area for food but hated to be sighted by news reporters whom they say “balina olugambo. (Are rumour mongers.)”
The respectable drunkards have made it famous.
The disco clubs are another attractive assets in the area.
Clubs Ritex is one of the famous clubs in Kyengera town where majority of the youth go to exercise their bones.
Wednesday and Saturday nights are the disco days in Kyengera’s. People hardly leave bars to go back home on these days.
Club Kanani is another favourite disco joint in the area.
The club opens on Tuesdays and Sundays.
It is not common in other towns like it is in Kyengera to have two disco clubs, which make the young and old fail to recognise the road that brought them back home.
To Kyengera’s socialite, negative talk about Club Ritex and Kanani can easily earn one a slap mainly the kanyamas (big boys) of this area.
For those of you looking for tasty snacks and night fun, Kyengera trading centre is the place to be.
Ends