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!"