The Domestic Bill is letting ebimansulo and prostitution flourish while trying to ban Polygamy?? What is this?! This is madness!!
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Ekimansulo: Taking Kampala by the zipper
By Agnes Asiimwe
Dec 7 - 13, 2003
As we approached Hanny’s bar, it hit me that our car was boldly marked in red with The Monitor. That obviously wouldn’t fetch me a cheerful welcome at Hanny’s, especially with Amanda and the Moonlight Angels in the house. We decided to drive on and park somewhere ahead.![]()
Shadow’s Angels do their thing in this 2001 file photo. This seems to have been the precursor of the current nude shows.
At 8.15p.m I walked into the bar.
Hanny’s pub is located on Namirembe Road. At the entrance, I was subjected to a thorough check. I paid the entrance fee and walked in.
The well-lit stage was empty with a backdrop of red curtains. The chairs were arranged ready for the show, all facing the stage. But 8.30 p.m was too early.
The chairs were all empty. Save for the stage, the rest of the bar is dimly lit. In the next room was a pool table. No one was playing. A bored barman stood behind the counter. A waitress dozed in a corner. In another room a TV screened; to no one. After my small tour, I decided it was too early, left and returned at 10.30 p.m.
On entering, four young men were dancing on stage. They wore a uniform of black flowered shirts and light green jeans.
One of the dancers also doubled as the MC and stopped occasionally to address us.
He is Kalekyezi, a short and dark humorist who speaks Luganda with a Kinyarwanda accent.
They were already sweating, and they mimed songs of local musicians like Bobi Wine, Ziggy D and Chameleone. This went on without any drama, I was beginning to think, oh well these were only malicious rumours.
Then their jeans started going down, we started seeing more of pyjamas. One of the boys, tall, th in and of light complexion, was shy. He looked out of place there.
The third young man was vigilant and full of energy. He was dripping with sweat. I silently thought, here is a guy who likes his job. He started pointing his backside to the audience.
Two of them grabbed each other and rubbed groins, with their trousers down their legs. The crowd stirred up.
The dancing went on. Soon the crowd became restless. They wanted something new.
Shaggy’s Strength of a Woman started playing and four barely clad ladies walked in. They were in tiny maroon wrappers and matching revealing tops. They looked uncomfortable and conscious of their nakedness as their hands kept pulling at the tiny pieces of cloth.
They had headphones, the kind used in live performances. The audience became attentive.
Celine Dion’s Coulda Woulda Shoulda started playing, the girls looked at each other and hesitated.
One girl in plastic white high heels came forward and started miming. It was funny looking at her lips. She didn’t know the lyrics of the song. A series of mimes followed. The audience got bored.
‘Stop beeping us,’ one person shouted from the audience. ‘We want kimansulo’, another one shouted.A few erotic strokes were displayed, like peeping inside the girl’s wrappers, grabbing their crotches and rubbing against the girls but nothing more. The girls went back, leaving behind a very disappointed audience.
It clocked midnight. A few minutes later, Kalekyezi took off his shirt and announced that all those with cameras “had better leave”. But who doesn’t know that pulling out a camera in such a place is suicidal?
The DJ played a Lingala number. Kalekyezi started dancing. His colleague with the microphone encouraged him on, punctuating his phrases with obscenities. Kalekyezi danced on, wriggling his body up and down like a snake, his body got enveloped in sweat.
He took off his trousers.
He had white pyjamas. He lay down on the floor and feigned a sexual act. He came down to the audience. He was animated and excited, like a different spirit had possessed him. < FONT lang=0 style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF">
The MC kept asking for money, Kalekyezi walked person to person, dancing - putting emphasis on his crotch. After getting money, he would walk to the next person. Soon it was my turn and I felt like going under the chair, I managed to look on mechanically.
Later, he grabbed his clothes and went back stage. Other men entertained us.
Then Shagg y’s song played again, the audience turned their eyes to the backstage entrance, readying for the women.
They came, this time in white micro wrappers, made with a fabric of the American flag. They coupled up and danced to a slow number.
The MC announced that they were going to show us [sex] positions. The girls lay down and opened their legs, the men got on top. They rubbed crotches.
The girls went on all fours and the men stood behind and grabbed their hips, which they lifted rhythmically. There was another ‘position’; the girls’ legs were lifted as their hands were firmly planted on the ground. The men separated the airborne legs and stood in the middle. The sight of the G. strings, the wriggling bums excited the audience. The girls looked exhausted after just a few minutes.
There was a particular girl, she was the prettiest, but she was not flexible. She found difficulty with almost all the acrobatic movements. From her facial _expression_, she didn’t seem to enjoy what she was doing.
They stood and started miming.
The audience was now somewhat pleased. After some time, shouts of ‘Amanda, we want Amanda’ started. It wasn’t until a few minutes to 1.00 a.m that he got onto stage.
He has mastered the art of playing woman that one has to remind oneself that it’s a man on stage.
‘She’ was clad in a blue sparkling outfit.
A tiny skirt that left nothing to the imagination; micro top, hair extensions, red lipstick, ankle length stilettos, a golden necklace and belt. He had bangles, finger and earrings. His accessories could have filled a small bucket.
“Good evening ladies and gentlemen,” he said with an accent and in a perfect feminine voice and a naughty smile on his lips. His gai t, his gestures, the way he rolls his eyes, purses his lips, laughs shyly lowering his eyes. He has rehearsed it all to perfection.
‘Mister DJ?’ he said.
Immediately a Luganda number was played. The audience surged, excited. He massaged his crotch, raised his legs and squatted to show his black underpants.
He particularly got excite d singing Chaka Chaka’s song Freedom. The message was clear. The group was on alert. There was the unspoken fear of a police raid. There were people outside constantly looking out for the police.
Towards the end of the show, boys lay down and girls sat on them and rubbed their crotches with their hands. They squatted on the boys’ faces, and kept changing positions.
I caught up with Amanda the following night at New Life Bar in Nakulabye. He is full of bitterness, especially against those copying his business. He wasn’t aware I had watched h is performance the previous night. Now in a male voice, he told me the tribulations in his business.
He says that the meaning of ekimansulo has been completely changed by his competitors. He maintains that it’s not about nudity. “It means dancing with ‘glitters’ all over one’s body which fall off as the dancing intensifies.”
“But the copycats are the ones who have gone too far,” he said. Amanda adds that although he came up with the word kimansulo, he doesn’t go nude on stage, and neither do his dancers. “I am going to start a llowing photographers and journalists into my shows, to show the difference from other groups.”
Elizabeth Awor owns the group Internet Queens featuring the Spice Angels and Dot Com. Generation. She is aged 21. She says she doesn’t do kimansulo dances as Amanda claims, but that it’s Amanda instead who took over kimansulo after the Shadow [Roger Mugisha].
Awor dropped out of school after S.4.
She went joined the Shadows Angels but some one there wanted to have sex with her – which she didn’t want, she says.
Awor claims that it’s Shadow who started the kimansulo business. “He had two groups, the Taliban girls and the Shadows Angels.
She claims further that The Taliban girls; Patricia, Carol and Joan used to do nude shows for exclusive audiences.
“They fetched more money for the Shadow, more than the angels,” she revealed. She is convinced that Shadow, [Roger Mugisha] is now a saved man. Awor then joined Amanda but was not content with the pay. She left to form her group.
She claims to have got most of her dancers outside Sax Pub - where they were working as sex workers. She says most groups pay their dancers at least Shs 10,000 per night.
For kimansulo, a dancer gets Shs 25,000.
The Police Regional Criminal Investigation chief, Mr Moses Sakira, said they no longer get reports of nude dances which were mainly in Nateete, Ndeeba and Kabalagala. But he said that Police wasn’t relaxing.
“The ekimansulo has gone, we are lucky other institutions like the presidency have come out to show how bad it is,” he said on phone.
He however made it clear that they will arrest any dancers if they find them dancing naked.
© 2003 The Monitor Publications
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