So last weekend I went into Kampala with my new friend, Alexis. We did some shopping and errand running, had divine Thai for dinner, and then settled at the Red Chili hideaway for the evening.
Alexis went to check her email and I played a few hands of rummy with an American couple in the bar. Then it happened: a small black rodent ran up to my foot, I felt something sharp, jerked, and it ran away. Uh oh, was that a bite? Cause I remembered the travel nurse telling me that if I got bitten, I would have to go home. The American thought nothing of it, hadn’t I had my rabies shots before coming? No I hadn’t, and besides, even if you’ve had the pre-exposure vaccine, you still need post exposure shots. So, I left them and washed my toe, looked closely but no obvious wound, no bleeding, so I thought maybe I was overreacting to the whole thing.
The card playing Americans were a bit of a bore, so when I came back to the bar I joined another group of Americans, all Peace Corps volunteers. They were on their way out to the bars and invited me along. Sure, why not, Kampala nightlife was on my list of things to do while here. Alexis wasn’t in the mood for going out, so I joined the Americans on their tour of the Kampala scene. First stop was a bar called Half-London, highly recommended by Lonely Planet. Which goes to show how much they know! It was ok for a quiet beer (and I’ll go back sometime to try the game meat… I wonder if zebra tastes like moose?) but the only entertainment to be had was girls with no rhythm (there goes another stereotype!) dancing in bikinis.
So we decided to head for a bar called Silk, but before finding it we came across Ange-Noir Discotheque. Walls painted black, neon pictures and mirrors on the walls, and black lights everywhere. A variety of western and African hip hop kept us shaking our booties till nearly 3am, at which point we were all exhausted, though the bars stay open till 5 am, we couldn’t make it!
So the next day, Alexis and I did some more shopping and headed back to Nkozi. But the incident with the rodent was still niggling at my mind, so I went online and looked up rabies. Yikes! By the time you get symptoms, you’re dead! 100 percent fatality once it hits the central nervous system! And it’s not a pretty death either, its all convulsions and foaming at the mouth type stuff.
But don’t freak out too much my friends, I went to Kampala today and got the first of 5 shots to prevent that from happening. So I will be fine. Except for the inconvenience of going to Kampala for the shots, that is.
