Diaspoman : When Club Obbligatto soothed my nerves

Last week I told you about the harsh realities of school exams. MEN! That was tough. Ibaze, I thought that the exam had been set in the Greek language. The truth of the matter is that the exam was in the good plain Queen’s original English. However the content of the exam seemed like a mixture of Chinese and latin. Anyways, the only consolation for me was to jump on a bus with some of my fellow students at SFB and headed straight to Kampala for a tour of a sister university! The small problem that I faced was that some of my SFB classmates did not want to be seen moving around with a “Mature” like me. This reminded me of the first time I entered the SFB classroom. All the youngish students stood upright as if they had seen an Afande marching in. They stood upright to give me their maximum respect. They thought that I was the senior lecturer who had come to teach them econometrics. I just walked majestically and instead of standing in front of ‘my students’, I chose to sit behind the rest of the class and start my serious search for a degree in Management. Eventually, the real lecturer walked in and started to teach us about the laws of demand and supply. After the lesson, I tried to mingle with the students but they were trying to dodge me. I then somehow convinced them that I was part of them and that is how I started my long search for education. Students were shocked to see me attend school with them. I was fit to be their uncle for God’s sake! That is how I also acquired a nickname of Baba SFB. The kids would surround me everywhere we went. In the evening hours, I would lead them on to the Gikondo surroundings where we would sit in a makeshift bar and drink all the booze on credit. The booze sellers respected me and so credit facilities were readily available. Anyway, after the exam, we boarded the Kampala bound bus. Apparently, we had managed to obtain an appointment with some students at the Kampala international University. The University students had invited us for a get together so as to exchange ideas and promote fraternity. Instead of boarding a flight from Kanombe to Entebbe , our pockets dictated that we had to use a bus all the way to Kampala. By air we could have used 1 hour only. But here we were in a bus that would take us a whole long day on the bumpy, winding roads. At the Kampala International University, we were cordially welcomed by our hosts. As usual, the Kampala students thought that I was the senior lecturer who had escorted the SFB kids. It took them a while for them to accept that I was part of them. Once they were convinced that I was actually a fellow student, our hosts revealed to us that our meeting would be held at a place called Club Obbligatto. This is a joint situated around Port Bell road. We jumped on some boda bodas which swerved their way to Port Bell road. When we arrived, I thought that we were going to pull out some files and folders to discuss. Instead, we embarked on guzzling and pork roasting plus some wonderful blasting sounds from the live band at Club Obbligatto. Within a few minutes, the place was crowded. Loud music was blasting out of the loud speakers. People started to dance as darkness set in. We joined in and started to boogie and shake our bums. When it approached midnight, our hosts advised us to proceed for another meeting in town. The venue was a new place called Punchline situated around Gaba. We entered the place and got down to business. We crowded the place and enjoyed every single bit of our time. We danced up to the wee hours of the morning. Our mission to Kampala International University was over and it was time to board our buses back to SFB. For me, it was the best way of overcoming the harsh realities of SFB exams! diaspoman@yahoo.com