#soundsofmusic

Hearing the loud music when I finally reach the taxi stage after a long day, is the assurance that I am in safe territory (okay, that home is in the vicinity, just 10 minutes away).
Several bars and outlets, all offering a varied choice on what they imagine will attract customers. Maybe what kind they hope will keep clients digging deeper and deeper into their pockets for more booze. The barman (or woman’s fancy). Could be the reason why the first bar plays church hymns off an old cassette player.
Unfortunately this is drowned out by a blast of Congolese lingala from the establishment next door. Never has more than ten clients, mostly middle-aged pot-bellies who unashamedly relieve themselves in the village football field in full view with their UATs and UAVs parked close by.
The nightclub that sits behind these two is always full of moving bodies. If approached from another angle, all one sees are heads bopping to Ugandan tunes. The regulars are mostly young males feeling cool in pencil-tight pants, and a few skimpily-dressed chicks. Boom kadaba boom baboom kadaba!
The fourth place hosts three karaoke nights a week and the yodeling inside there is audible from near and far. Outside, groups of young men gather round a pool table, slamming balls, cheering and punching the air when the last ball crashes into the pocket.
As one moves from the “townier” side of the village to the more local zone, lower down the hill and into the valley, you are accosted by more sounds of music.
Rare kadongo kamu blaring from a barber’s wooden stall that balances dangerously on four rickety stilts. On most nights, a woman, and two little children sit outside, miserably eating their supper as they wait for him to finish shaving a late-night customer’s head so they can retire for the night. (It is highly suspect that they sleep here).
A few meters on, on the opposite side where rainwater has eaten away half of the road, is a hovel that tunes in to Radio One’s evening show Rhythm of the Night. The patrons of this watering hole speak in a dialect that contains words like akashongoro, kazire and amaarwa.
Not so far away sits a CD recording center with pin-spot disco lights that dance round and round in the dusty road. Everything about the new establishment shouts, “Hey, I’m here!” It is located on a new building which is religiously mopped sparkling clean every morning and afternoon, come rain or sunshine.
Occasionally, one or two youths are gyrating to the music. Another sits at a computer tapping tapping the mouse to select another mega hit.
Sometimes there are three to five young men bobbing their heads from side to side like they are high on something.
One time, the selector was playing a recorded speech of the Ghetto President and everyone else was sitting still, arms crossed over chest, religiously listening to a reminder that power belongs to the people.
After this row of raucousness, comes some peace and quiet, save for the little shop whose owner is a faithful viewer of Pastor Yiga’s TV station, he of the Abizaayo fame.
And just before the turn to the estates, the turn where a pit latrine sits right next to the road, lives a young couple who have no regard for peace and quiet. He can be playing a combination Sheeba’s Chopping Board (John Rambo) song and there’s Premier League match cheering on the TV in the background.
A few feet away is a dingy hovel that once served as a salon, a shop, and then a hardware store. The 8x8ft contains two low wooden benches, a dirty table covered with a faded Glucose tarpaulin and a sideboard that serves as the counter.
The room is bathed in a green glow, the music loud, uncoordinated and muffled.
Drunks are still stumbling out at eight the next morning, some remain sprawled on the benches.
Others are out cold on the verandah.