It was a few years ago. One of those nights that starts ordinary and ends in a way you never saw coming.
I had gone out with five male friends to a small joint somewhere in town. Nothing classy, nothing planned. Just plastic chairs, a radio fighting static, and the kind of laughter that makes you think the night will be soft.
Four of the friends went straight for liquor, and they didn’t stop there. Cigarettes followed, one after another, like they were trying to outrun something.
Two of us didn’t take alcohol. We sat with hot tea and Mountain Dew, drinking plenty of it, laughing at their jokes, and thinking we were the sensible ones.
Around midnight, the air in the joint changed.
A small disagreement became a serious misunderstanding. Then voices rose. Then hands started flying.
Four of the friends bolted into the vehicle that had brought us and drove off in a hurry. They left me behind with one friend who was so drunk he could barely keep his feet under him.
In the chaos, I realized I didn’t have my phone. The only things in my hand were a packet of cigarettes and a matchbox. The irony: I don’t even smoke.
There was no boda-boda rider in sight. Even if there had been, the route home was known to be dangerous at that hour.
The bar owner( a very tall man) chased everyone out, shouting and threatening to call the police. Customers scattered into the dark,most had not cleared their bills. In minutes, the place was empty but with scattred chairs and tables and bottles.
So, we started walking aimlessly, because we had no other choice.
My drunk friend spent the entire walk abusing me. Coward. This is your fault. While he talked, my mind was racing with a different fear: What will I tell my wife if I don’t make it home tonight?
Kumbe, the worst was still ahead.
The road curved. The streetlights disappeared. That’s when we saw them.
Four guys sitting on upturned jerrycans under a tree, with a small fire throwing shadows on their faces. Bottles of crude waragi were going round. And in the middle of it all, the smell hit me — njaga.
They looked up the moment we got close. The night went silent except for crickets.
The First Confrontation.
The tallest one stood up slowly. Scar down his jaw. Eyes that didn’t blink.
“Yo, what’s up men? Why do you move at this hour of the night? Are you not the thugs terrorizing this town?”
His voice was low, but he said it like he was law. Like he was doing us a favor. Like they were the good and cool law enforcers or patriotic citizens on night patrol.
My drunk friend, God help him, pointed and slurred, “You! You think you own this road? Are you the mayor or RCC, are you President Museveni?Move,Kwenda huku!”
My stomach dropped. I grabbed his shirt and pulled him back. The other three were already standing.
I forced a laugh that didn’t sound like mine. “Chill, boss,easy. We’re just passing and we are also ‘staff’, sisi-kwa-sisi. When they heard the word ‘staff’ and sisi-kwa-sisi, they were convinced we were fellow thugs-comrades in crime.
My guy here is drunk. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
The scarred man stepped closer. He looked at my empty hands, then at the cigarettes, then at my friend swaying.
“You look lost. And you look broke. So what are you doing walking here like tourists?”
For a second, my mind went blank. Then desperation gave me words I didn’t know I had. “We’re from the other side,” I said, dropping my voice. “Near the railway bridge. We came to look for kawunga and maragwe(posho and beans) but nothing came through tonight.”
One of them squinted. “Other side? Which block?” I answered we were from the Baghdad Squad-a term they understood very well.
He answered happily they were the Tell Aviv Squad.
I shrugged like I was tired. “You know how it is. Some nights you eat, some nights you don’t. Today we didn’t.”
The fire cracked. Long pause.
Then the shortest one laughed. “Nah, he sounds like us.”
The scarred man studied me. Finally, he nodded toward the fire.
“Sit. If you’re hungry, you share. If you’re empty, you also share.”
Otherwise had almost believed it in the dark. For a second, I thought they were police from CPS Jinja on foot patrol. Until I saw how dirty and crude they really were.
My friend almost fell as he sat. I sat next to him with steady hands.
They passed me something rolled. I had never touched it. My hands were shaking, but I lifted it to my mouth. In that moment, pretending was the only currency I had.
The smoke was hot and bitter. My head spun.
“Bomba claat… we’re in the same struggle, men,” I heard myself say, and I didn’t even recognize my own voice.
They laughed. One clapped my shoulder. “You’re cool, brada(brother). Just unlucky tonight.”
I reached into my pocket and brought out the 7k I had for boda-boda. “Fuel,” I mumbled. “For the boys to carry out the operations,endelea na kazi”—I dropped in some broken Kiswahili.
The scarred man counted it slowly, then stood.
“Come. We’ll walk you to the junction. After that, you’re on your own.”
They escorted us about 250 meters, joking like we were homies. At the junction, they turned back into the darkness.
We kept walking. I Thought The Night Was Over.
The Ambush
We hadn’t gone 10 minutes when the road narrowed again.
This time there was no fire. No talking. Just shadows and the sound of sticks hitting palms.
Six men stepped out from both sides of the road. No questions.
“Drop everything down,mukono juu,hands up,hariksa. Now,” the tallest one shouted. Built like a goalpost. Panga tied to his waist with rope.
I became hopeless. I had nothing. One stick of Orbis cigarettes that I was about to throw away.
I closed my eyes and said a brief prayer. God, don’t let this be the night.
That’s when I remembered: my other friend was a trained soldier.
He looked finished. Drunk, swaying, mumbling. But somewhere in that fog, some faculty was still operating.
Kumbe during the scuffles at the joint, he had accidentally pushed a fork into his pocket and forgotten it there.
As the tall man lunged at us, my friend moved.
I still don’t know where the energy came from. Maybe fear. Maybe training that doesn’t die. Maybe njaga that was still in my own head.
He pulled out the fork and drove it straight into the man’s stomach.
There was a thud. Then loud wailing.
The man dropped. His crew scattered, shouting and disappearing into the bush.
My friend grabbed my hand. “Run.”
And we ran. We ran like Akii Bua. Feet pounding, breath tearing, all the way to my home just before morning. Both of us alive. Both of us shaking.
After
When daylight came, I sat my soldier friend down. He remembered the fork. He didn’t remember the running.
We laughed, because that’s what people do when shock wears off. And then we thanked God, because we knew how badly it could have ended.
And in that moment of relief, I said something I have never forgotten: njaga helped us survive that night.What if I had criticized the thugs for their actions?What if I spitted at the smell of njaga?
But This Is The Truth I Had To Sit With.
First, alcohol almost destroyed us. Four friends drank until they could not think and drove off. One friend drank until he could not walk.
Alcohol steals your judgment first. Then your coordination. Then your ability to read danger. If we had been sober, we would have left earlier. We would have made a plan.
Second, desperation will make anything look like a solution.
Njaga is illegal for good reason. It impairs the mind. It creates dependence. It puts you in danger.
That it appeared to help us that one night was luck, training, fear, and God’s mercy — not wisdom.
You cannot build your safety on something that eats you slowly from the inside.
Third, you never know what will save you. A fork in a pocket. A soldier’s reflexes. A lie told to the right guys at the right time.
But you cannot plan your life around miracles.
Final Word.
I tell this story not to promote njaga, and not to glamorize what happened.
I tell it as a warning.
Don’t drink until you can’t think. Don’t walk into darkness with no plan.
Don’t let panic teach you lessons that wisdom should have taught you long before.
The safest journey home is the one you start while you can still see the road clearly.
If you or someone you love is struggling with alcohol or substance use, please speak to a healthcare professional, a trusted counselor, or visit your nearest health center. Help is there, and you do not have to fight it alone.
The above is AI-generated image depicting a scene from the story. Its created to illustrate the moment.
