Fundas culture: Why Ugandans are falling back in love with Kafundas – Sqoop

On one occasion, while chatting with my sister, who works with UBL, we got into discussing recent drinking trends. Apparently, they have noticed something interesting: more and more consumers are falling in love with bufundas — or simply, fundas.

For the uninitiated, funda comes from the word kafunda. It is that small neighbourhood bar or drinking joint — sometimes even a wholesale shop that somehow transforms into a pub after 5 p.m.

Nothing fancy.

Dim lights. Plastic chairs arranged in circles. A Bluetooth speaker hanging on for dear life. A television showing football with no sound. Endless conversations from people who somehow seem to know each other — and everybody else’s business.

Yet somehow, these fundas are attracting more people than mainstream bars: the ones with fancy aesthetics, expensive cocktails, imported accents, enough air conditioning to preserve meat, and playlists carefully curated by DJs who seem convinced that every song should come with a migraine.

And I have always wondered why.

Community Still Matters

Unlike mainstream bars, people in fundas actually know each other.

Everyone drinks around the hood. People know where you stay, where you work and, in extreme cases, where your grandmother was buried.

Should things go south after one too many Nile Specials, someone can literally escort you home.

The waiters and waitresses are usually your neighbours, former classmates or fellow church members. Ubuntu comes naturally.

Compare that with established bars. You can spend three years drinking with people and all you know is their nickname and the area they claim to live in. You have never stepped into their house, don’t know their next of kin and, if they disappeared tomorrow, you would only have their Instagram handle to mourn them with.

Everyone is trying to be cool.

Fundas don’t suffer from such diseases.

No Pressure, No Performance

In a funda, you arrive as the real you.

Shorts, slippers, an Arsenal jersey from 2014 — nobody cares.

There is no pressure to impress anyone. Nobody is judging your phone, your shoes or whether your whiskey is eighteen years old.

In the funda, we are all shareholders in suffering.

And once you become a regular, life gets easier. You are assured of lifts. Sometimes you get alcohol on credit. People check on you if you miss your usual seat.

All that matters is your presence.

As adults navigating a world increasingly full of loneliness and performative friendships, that sense of belonging means a lot.

The Surprise Nobody Talks About

But one thing completely blew me away.

At my neighbourhood funda, the guys have unit trusts.

Yes — unit trusts.

These people we often stereotype as Bandali philosophers have organised themselves into different saving groups.

The older men, mostly aged 45 and above, save money for what they call “field visits.” And before your mind goes where Ugandan minds naturally go, these are actual farm visits. They travel around the country learning modern farming methods and wealth-creation skills that they later implement back home.

Another group contributes Shs2,000 daily and invests through unit trusts. Their annual savings are reportedly approaching Shs200 million.

Then there is a third group whose sole purpose is to maintain a welfare fund that settles members’ liquor bills.

Honestly, I was amazed.

Among my own so-called sophisticated friends — the Bandali bros with whom we meet in polished establishments — all I know are faces. I don’t know surnames. I don’t know where they stay. I don’t know who their people are.

If one of them vanished, I would probably discover it through a WhatsApp status three weeks later.

Meanwhile, the men seated on plastic chairs under flickering bulbs are building investment portfolios, visiting farms, extending each other credit and creating genuine communities.

Perhaps that is the secret behind the resurgence of Uganda’s fundas.

People are not merely looking for places to drink.

They are looking for places to belong.

And sometimes, belonging comes with a plastic chair, a cold Nile Special and friends who actually know your real name.