Where boys become buddies

The sun was shining brightly as I approached the single room wooden shack deep in Uganda’s southwestern town of Mbarara.

Sitting proudly next to the old brown curtain draped across the doorway, Muhenda extended an open hand towards me. He was asking for 500 Ugandan shillings to allow me entry. For this was his ekibanda — a shack that screens football matches, or movies if there are no games. These bibanda are everywhere in Uganda — Kampala alone has about 500 of them.

They have one or two television screens, a video or DVD player, a decoder and a satellite dish and wooden benches for the youths who congregate to watch, squabble and sometimes fight over English premiership soccer clubs.

As I paid Muhenda, I could hear people speaking loudly inside. I entered and the noise was louder, but in the gloom I couldn’t see anyone. Instead, I saw a 21-inch TV screen showing men in red-and-white and blue-and-white chasing a ball. This was Arsenal vs Wigan.

In the bibanda, people sit with their backs towards the main entrance, engrossed in the screen. As my eyes got acclimatised to the darkness, I saw youthful men and a few girls. Some of the boys were dressed only in trousers, their hairy chests exposed; others wore vests. The smell of sweat and chewing gum dominated the room.

They chatted as they made fun, but beneath their gaiety was tension as they supported their favourite football teams. I greeted the man I sat down next to, but he didn’t reply — he was too engrossed in the game.

Perhaps he would never have greeted me if Thomas Vermaelen hadn’t scored — the first goal of the match in the 25th minute. He jumped up and shouted, ‘Mutuuulabaaaa —” (Mutulaba is a Luganda word meaning ‘do you see us?”)

He seemed to be speaking directly to the Manchester United supporters, even though it wasn’t they but Wigan who were playing Arsenal. But Man U supporters root for Wigan because supporters of Arsenal are historically rivals of United.

Now, after Vermaelen’s goal, only Arsenal supporters spoke, hurling abuse at Man U fans. ‘Nugu [envy]!” they cried as the TV showed a replay of the goal. ‘Waaaaaaaa kiwani,” the Man U supporters responded — using the Ugandan slang word for something that pretends to be what it isn’t.

During all this, the man next to me glanced at me and said in Luganda: ‘Wama gwe ogilabye otya [My friend, how did you see it]?” ‘It was perfect,” I replied. ‘Kyaliwange [my buddy], you know it,” he replied, his smile broadening. This started our friendship.

He told me his name was Kizito, he drove a boda boda (motorcycle taxi), his support for Arsenal would never die and that he came to Muhenda’s ekibanda every weekend to watch premiership matches.

He’s going to use bibanda to watch every World Cup match in South Africa next year, he said, because for him there’s no difference whether the World Cup is played in Africa or elsewhere — he watches all the matches on the screen in bibanda irrespective of where they are held.

The ekibanda we were in is a 10- minute drive from Kakyeka stadium where local football matches are held. But Kizito said he’s never gone there: for him, local matches are boring compared with European soccer. Muhenda’s match fees reflect this preference.

He charges according to the ‘weight” of the matches — as much as 1 000 shillings a person for an Arsenal vs Man U fixture, 500 shillings for lesser matches. He says a single match attracts more than 100 people.

In the past three years he’s been able to buy two plots of land in Mbarara and pay school fees for his children in Kampala.Suddenly a hush fell on the ekibanda: the power had gone off. Then insults were hurled at Muhenda: ‘You are a fake”; ‘Your mother is a man.”

But after a minute or two, power returned and we saw Arsenal’s Cesc Fabregas score the fourth goal in the 90th minute. Final score Arsenal 4, Wigan 0, and the Arsenal supporters sang happily as they left the ekibanda.

As I was leaving, I turned back and caught Kizito staring at me as he spoke to his friends. They wore smiles of satisfaction. He raised his hand and waved at me to bid farewell. I did the same and walked away.

Fredrick Mugira works for Radio West in Uganda. He is the 2009 CNN/Multichoice African journalist tourism and travel award winner for ‘Riding boda boda in Uganda”, published in the Mail & Guardian’s Voices of Africa series in 2008