A man enjoys his beer. PHOTOs/www.shutterstock.com
The Covid-19 lockdowns need no introduction. The Uganda government, just like most of the governments across the world, locked us down to ‘flatten the curve’ of rising infections. The lockdown was supposed to last a mere two weeks, but ended up lasting two years. We were not allowed to work, travel or drive, we were suddenly handed an abundance of time that we did not know what to do with. So people would wake up, bathe and go sit at Nalongo’s Shop down the road to while the time away.
Nalongo’s Shop slowly morphed into a pub because, with the pubs banned from opening, while allowing grocery shops to keep open, the only safe source of alcohol became the grocery shop.
So Nalongo started stocking more and more tribes of alcohol to keep up with the demand. But she also realised that people were spending full days at the veranda of her shop, so she started cooking some cheap snacks such as popcorn, potato chips and kigele stew.
Neighbours that had hitherto never sat down for a conversation beyond a ‘good morning comrade, do you have battery jumpers?’ were now spending 10 hours together daily. Bonds were created. Friendships were watered to a bloom by all tribes of alcohol. New habits were learnt.
Weed demystified
Now on top of the snacks that Nalongo was making for her new-found customers, she started preparing a special kind of tea that was rumoured to immunise people from Covid-19. All one needed was take a cup of marijuana tea once in a while, and one would be sure to dodge the Covid-19 bullet.
All of a sudden, the weed became something to look forward to. Marijuana became mainstream. People that would never be caught anywhere near weed before were consuming it daily. Most people did it out of peer pressure while others were genuinely seeking preventive measure to Covid-19. Since that time, there was no turning back. Today there are some weed connoisseurs that had never touched a joint before the lockdown.
The hangout game of today often includes some weed in one form or another because of the Covid-19 lockdowns. Without the lockdowns, most of you would still be frowning upon those who consume it.
Kafundas got VIP customers
As the small grocery shops slowly turned into raging neighbourhood pubs, people that would never be caught sitting in a kafunda started frequenting them. Because they were not allowed to drive to their favourite pub in Kololo, and riding a bicycle to a favourite pub so far away was laboourious, they started frequenting the kafunda.
Slowly by slowly, Nalongo’s innocent charm got to them and they go out of their shell. Now it was okay to seat in a dusty neighbourhood pub and get to know one’s neighbours at a deeper level.
When lockdowns was lifted, these same people found it difficult to drink far away from home. There was an attachment that was hard to break now. In a way, lockdowns were a boon to kafundas and a slap in the face of the big-brand pubs.
Don’t quote me on this but this phenomenon may be the reason why Guvnor recently announced that they would only be opening over the weekends. Neighbourhood bars gained customers while the big boys lost.
Alcoholism more likely today
Before 2020, if you did not have money to go to a real pub, you stayed home and watched telly or played with your twin sons. But after the lockdowns, if you do not have any money, you can still hangout just fine by going to Nalongo’s Shop.
She is totally fine giving you all the drinks you want on banja because you have that kind of friendship with her now. She feels safe giving you things on credit because she can see your house from her shop and your wife is her friend now.
But therein lies the problem. If you are not careful, you will end up drinking every day without fail because on top of the fact that, the alcohol in kafundas is so cheap, the trust that has developed between you and the owner makes it easy to drink on credit.
This, if not checked, can easily lead to alcoholism. Again, do not quote me on this, but it may explain why the numbers at Butabika are staggering. I mean this is stuff that serious papers are written about.
Good bye to posh clubs
The lockdowns programmed us to look closer to home for hangout places and made us forget the big bars downtown. This changed the hangout game forever, crushing the traditional night clubs and giving birth to smaller boutique pubs. Today, the smaller neighbourhood pubs could not be happier.
They have all the patrons they want because people no longer have to drive to industrial area to hangout. Today, many small neighbourhood pubs have improved their services to keep the customers that gravitated towards them. And as a result, many youngsters are employed that would be jobless otherwise. It is called a silver lining.
