The Kinjura Club

Before Uganda gained independence in 1962, the British had established large tea estates in Western Uganda to satisfy their tastes for the brewed leaves. Thousands of acres of farmland and forest were cultivated to grow tea, supported by cheap local labour, and supervised by colonial ex-patriots.

On Sunday I had the opportunity to visit an old colonial tea estate - the largest in Uganda at about 9000 acres and currently managed by TAMTECO (Toro and Mityana Tea Company Limited) - and the colonial clubhouse established by the ex-pats before Uganda gained independence.

The Kijura Club is about 30 kilometers north of Fort Portal near the village of Kijura, reached by an often-muddy dirt road that weaves its way along the Rwenzori foothills, through banana plantations and small villages. Although in disrepair and no longer a functioning exclusive club (though to join it will cost a whopping 60,000 USh - $30 per year), it is still a meeting place of the ex-pat community to drink, eat, and watch the great African pastime -- football.

The England-Germany game on Sunday was the perfect occasion for such a gathering, and the doors were opened by Norrie, a pleasant Scotsman with an amusing accent and a squinty face, who organized a pork BBQ with all the fixin's.

The clubhouse had seen better days, but the dilapidation certainly contributed to its charm. Outside were two tennis courts, the nets long missing and a ball rack rusted over, the concrete courts supporting more weeds and wildflowers than gameplay these days. An empty swimming pool and a long overgrown airstrip also served the patrons a generation ago.

Inside the parts of the ceiling had fallen away exposing the simple corrugated metal roof, but the lack of formal aesthetics all but made up for the nostalgia that seemed to plaster the walls and remaining decor. The bar had been redone since the 1950s (see original picture), adding 60s-esque stonework. But the original wicker flower-chairs survived the years, as sturdy as the day they were built. A cork dartboard finished off the bar.

In an adjoining room was table tennis, perhaps a recent addition, sharing the room with the old "library," containing volumes from London, their bindings deteriorated, their pages with the slight odour of mildew.

Finally, in the rear room, stood a giant Snooker table. A full-sized Snooker table measures 12x6 feet, and is a type of billiards. The story of this particular Snooker table is a story within itself, and without any actual information one is left to wonder about its past: First being manufactured in London probably sometime in the 1950s, then transported on ship through the Suez Canal on its way to Mombasa. From there it was most likely put on a freight train and shipped via the Uganda Railway to Kampala (made famous by the Man Eating Lions of Tsavo in Kenya).

Somehow the slate slabs, woodwork and felt then made the 300-kilometer trip to its current location. The balls are, in good colonial tradition, ivory. To complete the story, during Idi Amin's reign in the 1970s, the table had to be hidden from looting by Amin's troops.

With its decades of colonial and local history, the Kijura Club has recently found money to begin repairing the facility so that it can be enjoyed for many decades to come by the new colonialists, ex-pats, volunteers, and yes, even locals. As Norrie said, "Originally it was black people behind the counter serving the whites. Now I'm the one behind the counter serving the blacks!"

Check-Points

Businesses in Uganda haven't quite figured out competitiveness yet (most stores sell the same products at the same price and are located right next to each other), but it's refreshing to know that the spirit of entrepreneurship does indeed exist. Take for example the police check-points along my road:

The traffic police are quite corrupt, and stop taxis that are overfilled with passengers (my personal record was 9 adults and 4 children in a Toyota Corolla). According to law, only two people are allowed to be in the front seat, but typically taxis don't leave unless there are at least three - if not four - passengers up front with the driver. At the check-points (there is one between my site and Fort Portal, about 90 minutes away), instead of ticketing the driver, or revoking his license, the driver pays the "fee" of 2,000 Shillings ($1), and we continue on our way.

Now, an extra passenger gets the driver about 6,000 Shillings ($3), so there is an incentive to over-load the car because the driver still makes money in the deal.

Today was an interesting turn from normalcy in the traffic check-point story. As usual, our driver was warned of the up-coming traffic stop by passing cars. At a bend in the road about 300 meters before the check-point, the driver stops and two passengers in the front got out, leaving the driver and myself (four more remained in the back seat). The two men hopped on a waiting motorcycle, and took off down the road. We continued, got pulled over, talked to the police, didn't have to pay a fine, then continued about 300 meters to another bend in the road. Our two passengers were there waiting, got back in the car, and all eight of us took off again.

The price for the motorcycle was probably 500 Shillings, and the driver didn't have to pay the 2,000 Shilling fine. Everybody wins today, and corruption was stopped cold. Thank you, Uganda's finest!

Football

It had been a rather quiet day, not too much going on and admittedly, I was bored. In the late afternoon two of the girls from my vocational school passed by my house (both of them called Akiiki - so goes it when there are twelve possible nicknames in a culture) and told me that all of the students were up playing football; come join.

Football - what a great game. It's so simple, the rules are easy and you can play just about anywhere. In American golf is the game of the elite and basketball the game of the lower classes. In the rest of the world, football is the game everyone plays, and indeed World Cup begins on Friday (the most watched sporting event in the world). Every village has a pitch, some with timbers demarcating the goals, others with rocks or jerri-cans. They're a type of village park and town commons (grazing the cattle here keeps the grass low, but makes navigating through the dung piles quite difficult).

The balls can be as cheap or expensive as your resources allow - black and white imports from Kenya or China, to plastic sacks bound together with banana fibre.

And here you don't "play football," instead you "kuzina omupira" - dance football.




A student from our vocational school out playing on our village pitch. The other students play behind.










Students from our vocational school, taking a break from the game.