Bonding over brews

I went to university in Kampala. One time, a friend’s father travelled all the way from Kenya to visit him. Lucky for me he arrived at lunchtime and when I went to make his acquaintance, he invited me to join them for lunch.

He was one of those cool fathers who didn’t wear those terrible Obama jeans whose waist is above the navel. He wore some trendy chinos and a farmer’s hat and he, I noticed, had a toothpick dangling from his mouth which even when he was laughing loudly, never fell out. I think it was a rare talent.

CULTURES
I could tell he had money; you can always tell fathers with money even if they try to hide it under a dodgy farmer’s hat. He was very talkative and inquisitive and generous, and he said things that made me laugh.

He bought us lunch at a restaurant that we normally wouldn’t afford and paid a whopping Sh75,000 bob or something nuts like that. Er, Ugandan shillings, not Kenyan shillings.

After lunch, he sat back in the chair (he had a big beer gut) and with his beloved toothpick dangling from his mouth, asked for a beer. He was told the restaurant didn’t sell alcoholic beverages (Muslim owned). This was around 4pm on a Friday.

My friend suggested that we take fadhe to have his beer. I wasn’t drinking alcohol then, and neither did I care much for sitting around in bars. I was a very sound SDA boy, so I passed on that offer and said I would just head to my hostel.

Note: the ‘hostel’ was a one-roomed house in the slum-looking area called Kiwafu where I lived with a Tanzanian roommate to save money for useless things like buying new clothes and treating girls on (very) cheap dates.

Our bathroom was open from the shoulder going up and so as we showered, passersby would see your foamy head and chest. It might seem like a desperate existence but we had the best time of our lives then.

So I went the hostel and left my friend to entertain his dad. The next morning, I was on my way to the library, which was located past a string of kiosks along Ggaba road. Kiosks in Kampala are strange; they sell bread and milk and flour, but they also sell alcohol.

It was not uncommon to see men and women drinking Bell beer outside kiosks. As I passed one of the kiosks I heard someone call my name and when I turned to look, I saw my friend and his father sitting on one of the benches outside a kiosk, drinking alcohol!

DRINKING BUDDIES
I walked over to say hello. His father wasn’t visibly drunk, but his face was shiny and he had on the same clothes from the previous day. His words were slightly slurred, ubiquitous toothpick in his mouth and his potbelly over his belt.

“Have a seat here,” he said, patting the edge of the bench. I reluctantly sat. He was more fluid now, giving me advice on life and education, and he was funny as hell. “Dad, tell him the story of your first day in university in in 1971 and how you met mum,” my friend urged him. I promptly forgot my library and consoled myself that I was seated in the library of life.

They hadn’t slept a wink and had drunk the whole night! I was gobsmacked. Not gobsmacked at the whole night drinking spree but the fact that this guy was actually drinking with his father! Like buddies! And doing it properly! I couldn’t wrap my head around that concept of drinking with your father. I can’t even talk to my father for an hour straight, let alone the whole night! I was enviable and confused.

The next time I saw him he said that in their culture it was normal for boys to drink with their fathers. His sisters frequently drank with their father as well, he said. “What happens when he gets really tipsy and a striking woman passes? Does he follow her with his eyes and isn’t that totally uncomfortable?” He said nope.

What if he says something that can scar you forever when he is drunk, like, “Son, I have to tell you something. You are not my son. You are the son of my heart but not from my gonads.”

I’m 40 years old now and my father – a teetotaller – has never seen me touch alcohol. He suspects that I drink but as long as there is no evidence, he can’t say anything.

My late mum (God bless her lovely soul), knew that we drank. When we would go to the village and bring out a bottle of whisky we carried with us, we would wait until dusk when he’d gone to bed before we imbibed with the bottle stashed under a chair in case he suddenly woke up to go to the bathroom outside.

And so to see this guy drinking with his father simply blew me away. I wonder if one day I will be able to share a whisky with my son. I wonder what the handbook on alcohol is when it comes to your children. Do you tell them to be free and drink? And at what age? Questions, questions.