Don't Go Barefoot - Put on the What? The Dom Con!

Despite the funny title, I sadly have to report that that statement was the only funny part of my Saturday evening. After meeting Sweet Kid last Monday, the Gulu kids decided that we wanted to go see his concert at this place called Buganda Pub on the other side of town (aka a 10 minute walk), sponsored by Trust Condoms (hence the title of this post). Although we were exhausted by the end of the day for no reason other than the fact that we are lame and go to sleep before 10 every night, and despite warnings that Buganda Pub is the sketchiest place to go in town given its usual customers of prostitutes and skeezy guys, we still ventured to the concert.

Upon arriving, we immediately felt weird – there were a lot of guys and girls just hanging out outside the pub, and they all promptly turned our way and stared when we arrived. We were lucky to have Innocent, one of the kids at the orphanage where Abbie works, and the Ugandan friend that he had made, Robert (who drove us to the pub and bought our tickets to get in). The inside of the pub was a little less sketchy – it was at least very big, with a stage and giant area with chairs for the concert. They seemed to tone down the sketch for the night, which I am so grateful for.

Anyway, the “concert” started at 10, which consisted of first an hour + of a “talent” show much to the likes of karaoke, except the singing was more like lip synching, and the dancing was non existent. Boooooring. They were playing the music EXTREMELY loud, and I was getting really annoyed and bored. When the real first real singer actually came on at 11:30, Master Plaster, he turned out to be pretty awful, and our hopes for the rest of the concert slowly declined. The peak of my frustration/anger/disgust was when a singer named Bella came on stage. After originally being excited to see a female singer, we soon found that she performed not unlike a stripper – including bringing a guy up on stage and proceeding to give him a lap dance. What was worse was the reaction of the Ugandan men while she was singing: cat calling her, whistling, putting money in her shorts, etc. If we had actually been at a strip club, I would have been less appalled, but the fact that we were supposed to be at a concert where the rest of the performers were respected for their musical talent, Bella appeared to only be popular because of her sex appeal, which she had no qualms about flaunting. Think Britney Spears in her Oops I Did It Again phase, but replace all of the screaming pre-teen girls and their parents with a bunch of skeezy middle age men and you should get the picture.

From there, the concert started to fall apart for me. They were blasting the bass to the point where I felt like I was going to vibrate right out of my seat, which always makes me freak out, and on top of feeling exhausted, disgusted and disrespected as a woman and as a white person, I pretty much started to have a panic attack. On my way trying to get out of the concert arena, I had to push through the crowds of men who proceeded to grope my arms and legs, despite me punching them and swatting at their limbs. While I was waiting in the bar area, trying to decide whether to just leave and go home or wait for Sweet Kid to come on, no less than 10 guys came up to me and trying to caress my stomach or grab my bag or get in my face. Strangely, I never actually felt scared or threatened, just mistreated, disrespected and furious. How could these men ever get the idea that they have the right to treat me that way?

After rounding everyone up and getting into the car, we had to wait for Robert to get some things from inside before we could go. While we waited, all kinds of guys stood outside the car staring at us and pushing the car. When Robert finally came out we unlocked the door for him and some guy actually opened up my passenger door and tried to grab me again. I was in shock. I’ve never been treated so horribly in my life, and I unfortunately gained a newfound hate towards most Ugandan men from this experience. Luckily, looking back on it now I'm able to laugh a bit at how absurd the whole night was, but I basically will never be going to Buganda Pub again...unless that’s where Chameleon is playing next week!