Today I woke up early in morning took a shower, dodged all the ceremony of a regular sunday and went downtown.
Mission?
I wanted to watch soccer. It was the huge European derby weekend. Everton was hosting Liverpool, Barcelona playing Madrid in a historical El Classico. Arsenal was hosting Chelsea. In Italy, Fiorentina was playing Inter Milan and these days that is a big game too.
But first I have to introduce you to the importance of a day like this one to a person like me. Where I grew up from-there's no one particular place but I like to refer to Kansanga because it is one of the coolest places on earth I have lived. Soccer provided for the most normal entertainment, I lived close to a place called Half London which hosted local concerts regulary. Most of Uganda's musicains made their bones in the industry when I was watching.
Later, I worked for Sabrina's pub on Bombo road in 2001, I was in high school vacation.
Sabrina's pub not only served the best traditional lunch buffet in Kampala, it was also a joint where most of Uganda's biggest music stars started their careers from. The pub/restaurant advertised itself as 'more than just a pub' and its famed Friday night karaoke was a huge hit in the country's low income earning and mildly educated residents of the city from the 1990s to mod 200s.
Current music giants like Bebe Cool, Jose Chameleon and Juliana Kanyomozi started singing in Sabrina's. With Chameleon I was even closer because I happened to have gone to the same seconday school as him in Katikamu. I grew up surrounded by music. The first and biggest show I loved really was Maddox Ssemetimba, the Ugandan-Swedish reggea maestro.
Therefre, from a start having worked in a music pub and lived near Kampala's party district of Kabalagala and Kansanga I got bored with the whole shebang of night clubs early in my life.
Yet as I joined university in 2002 I got a parrt time gig as a theme night promoter at Club Silk. All I did really was go to Silk Royale, meet Andrew Rwakojo or Rwakakoko something like that, he would give me compliment tickets which I would then take to anyone I chose in Kampala and offer them a night of dance and booze on the house.
In my first year, I used to sell these tickets to my classmates and later friends and later I got bored and giulty that I was leading fellow students to lifestyles where they would get into dangers, there were lots of free/cheap beers that was esecially common on Tuesday Campus nights.
In all this it is only soccer that gave me genuine entertainment, I was not alone, there were other people in my neighbourhood that were addicted to soccer as much I was. Most were young professionals that I liked to call yuppies, there were middle income earning people, the illetrate lot, the Kikubo business people etc.
Soccer for me was not just watching matches on TV, occassionally I actually played in some village teams just for dropping a sweat, but the kind I watched on live TV was mainly for ESCAPE purposes from my daily tribulations of life.
In fact I was not your avarage mad fan, I never shouted in arguments about soccer, I never had one particular team with which to identify-and this is a sin in soccer fellowships like in religions, I LOVED soccer sometimes for giving me an opportunity to drink beer as well.
As I grew and stopped doing pub jobs, my lifestyle changed too.
First my best friend Giusseppe Kizito joined ProLine Soccer Academy as a physiotherapist. I and Giusseppe shared a passionate love for sports, so much that Giussepe, upon admission to Makerere University on a Bachelor of Arts degree course decided to break off after a year and resumed the following year to pursue a Bachelor of Sport Science degree. Upon completing his course and getting his first job with the highly anticipated Proline Soccer Academy by MUjib Kasule, Giusseppe was stabbed by his brother to death on 12 July 2007.
Bu at some point I lost the enthuthiasm for soccer, this is because the English premiership was taking over every avaliable space of commercial radio, magazines and any other social environment. All the time radio presenters outdid themsleves in showing their listners as their competence in premiership analysis.
I feared I was becoming a hooked consumer.
By English premiership however the thing that Ugandans actually watched was only Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool. It was the madness between Manchester United and Arsenal fans that made the whole soccer craze become irritating for me. It was even more annoying whenever Arsenal was playing on a particular day, there would be nothing else for alternatives. In case one was not a fan of Arsenal. (Arsenal has a very large following in East Africa,) whenever the club is playing you'd be excused for thinking that some East Africans are actual shareholders to the thing or they are all English from London.
Earleir I had also moved to Rwanda and I had also acquired a regular fixture of my life. I'd work the whole week and spend Saturday and Sunday in a pub watching soccer.
When I moved to Rwanda in 2006 it became quite a puzzle as there were not many sports bars, but James (the tall man from Masisi) had introduced me to a couple of pubs in Remera where I'd watch soccer. After I moved from the Remera part of town to Nyamirambo I lived next to the biggest and only movie theatre in Kigali so I solved my soccer search forays in the city centre, stopped going to PanAfrique in Kigali city centre as well as visiting with Rastaman Seif Bizimana. Oh I remember the torturous days at the Kimironko market pubs and the rude people at Medi's Motel.
In 2008 I moved again from Rwanda to Tanzania and even there I had issues having a decent sports bar in which to catch soccer. The only two exceptional memories I have of Tanzania were watching the 2008 UEFA Champions' League Final between Manchester United and Chelsea at a pub near Diamond guesthouse/Inn in Arusha.
Watching the UERO 2008 Finals at Via Via pub near the ICTR where I worked.
I also cherish the memory of Charlotte Kingsman, but that is a story for another day!!!'
Eerly this year I moved to North America, I arrived here in February when it was time for the 2009 Superbowl. This most important of sports events in North America was pittying the Pittsburgh Steelers against the Arizona Cardinals.
I watched the game at Robin Honderich's apartment in downtown Toronto. Robin is the son of John Honderich, chairman of Torstar Publishing group, the same man that is responsible for my coming to America.
The match-to people familiar with the game of American football was a beautiful one, I for one did not know any of the rules, but there was great beer at Robin' house. He had his freinds over as well and so I met some young Canadains in Toronto for the first time and shared the experience of a big match-North American style.
Honderich senior had also prepared very good chilli sauce and though the food was still a challenge for me at the start, I liked his dish. The Steelers won the match. After the match I was informed that what I had witnessed was a big cultural expereince in North America. The Superbowl is a very important fixture in North American life. I have listened to passionate conversations about the thing.
Today I was reminded of a big match, (superbowl) as well as cultural experiences-the way I understand it anyway.
As I mentioned earlier, I had been planning since the begining of November as to where I will be watching the 2009 EL Classico, Merseyside as well as the London derbies from. These are the most important of matches, save for Manchester United-Liverpool for a soccer enthusiast.
Since everything in North America starts with the internet I had earlier researched about soccer pubs in the city and came to the conclusion that Ship and Anchor, a pub in the city's downtown core was it. It would be my place of abode on many weekends.
Today I wake up at 7pm, an anormally on a sunday, and head to the bus stand. I get to the pub when the Chelsea and Arsenal match is left with only 15 minutes to end.
I sit and wait for the start of the big one. The all important El Classico.
Unfortunately, today was a day of the Canadian equivalent of the superbowl, after the London derby the TV was switched off and the pub staff feigned genuine interest in searching the channels that were screening the Nou Camp match. I moved from the pub, but after savouring the very well prepared Ship Burger that cost me a whooping 10 dollars!!!!
I visited four different sports pubs and they were all screening the previews of the Grey Cup where a team from Montreal was playing one from Saskachewan, the Montreal team won the game in a very close final minutes of the match. 27-28.
Hopefully the next derby weekend will be better for me.
Today I turned 29.
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