Club Seven = Classy

We head out tomorrow, so I thought I'd do one last post before entering the "Pearl of Africa". We leave Comox (the city I'm in on Vancouver Island) at about 8:30am tomorrow to fly to Vancouver. There we wait for 10 hours or so for our flight to London. Overnight to Heathrow, then another 7 hour layover there. Finally we'll board our flight to Entebbe, Uganda and arrive in Kampala (Uganda's capital) about 9 hours after leaving Heathrow. Should be a grand time. Especially since a few of us (myself included of course) have come down with colds. Surprise surprise. Nothing 36 hours of sleepless travelling can't cure!

Oh, in the picture from left to right: Myself, who of course does not require any explanation, Joel: A fellow Montrealer, but a true francophone. He pronounces his name like you would Noel. Next is Katie, the Comox native nurse who you will hear more about later. After her is Emily and Bryonee, who somehow know eachother from before, then Tenessa, a second Vancouver based nurse, and finally Melanie, another native. I'll post a link to some of their blogs as soon as I can figure out how, Bryonee and Emily have some pretty accurate descriptions of everyone in our group. There are more of us, these are just the active folks who decided to play frisbee on the beach one evening.

On Wenesday evening, the other interns and myself decided to enjoy a few drinks seeing as drinking is frowned upon by the Ugandan branch of the organization we are going with. Katie (a comox-native nurse) and I decided to head off for a short walk around the block to get some fresh air. We somehow made our way to the corner where the infamous Club 7 sits. Before I go any further, let me explain that the city I'm in is pretty blue collar and pretty rough. Our dreadlocked hostel hostess suggested Club 7 as a good place to score some coke or ecstasy "if that's what you're into". We're not. BUT it was quite an experience going into this bar.

Realizing that we didn't have ID or money for cover, we figured we'd play it by ear and get in somehow. As we walked towards the entrance, two very inebriated gentlemen came stumbling down the stairs, and began beating the buh-jesus out of one another. Knees to the face and everything. Katie and I recognized this as our golden opportunity, so we slipped by the little bloody disagreement, informed the bouncers of its existence, and ran into the bar. Perfect.

Club 7 isn't an ugly place on the surface. It has hardwood floors, a nice big bar, and plenty of space. But, the local patrons are another story. Upon entering the room, we were immediately informed by some young man about his intention of visitng an 83 year old woman the next day to try and earn a place in her will. Ouch. We won't go into details about just what he was willing to do for this money. By the looks of him, the hostel lady was quite right about what was available at this bar. He stumbled away, we grabbed some beers and sat down with some other locals. One was 21 and had two kids at home. Why he was at a bar at 2:00am on a Wednesday is anyone's guess. What do you say to that? Congratulations? I'm not really sure how we kept up a conversation with these folks, but as soon as we had the chance we ran.

All in all, I'm surprised I was not maimed or impregnated just by walking into the place.