Life in Kampala

I noticed that all my posts tend to be centered around activities and trips, and that I haven’t talked much about the day to day quirks of living in Uganda. I thought I would write this one about some random stuff that might be interesting:

- Attention: Something that follows all of us foreigners every day and that we can never hope to avoid is the attention we get once we step foot outside. Many of you know that I am not the biggest fan of attention and standing out in a crowd, so this has taken some getting used to. Walking down the street, particularly outside of Kampala results in everyone staring at you as if you’ve sprouted a second head, and children especially will often just stop in their tracks and just stare as you walk by.

- Food: Being the big foodie that I am, I’ve been trying everything Ugandan cuisine has to offer. In general the food isn’t super exciting, but I’ve found some little gems here and there. Avocados are abundant, huge, and cheap here. They are about twice the size of the avocados in the states and are about 20 cents each. One of our favorite healthy dinners to make is to go up to the local market by the hostel, buy a portion of beans and/or rice, a few tomatoes, green pepper, red onion, and avocado, and mix it all together with some salt, pepper, garlic powder, and hot sauce. In total this runs about $1 a person. Another favorite from the market are the delicious but less healthy rolexes. These consist of an omelet-like thing with 2 eggs, a little bit of cabbage, tomato, and onion fried on a grill, and then rolled up in a chapati (similar to naan). Its simple, greasy, and tasty. Jackfruit is another treat we have discovered here (picture below). At first glance it looks like durian, but it is a different fruit that takes a lot of work to eat, but the interactive nature of it is half the fun. You have to remove the individual pods from the giant fruit, take out the seed, and peel off the white inedible fibers from the sides before you can eat the fruit, getting your hands coated in a sticky substance in the process.

- Religion: Virtually everyone here is incredibly religious. Christianity is dominant, but there is also a significant Muslim population. I’ve been asked a few times if I am “saved”, which I think means born-again. Being pretty much atheist, it can be awkward to talk about religion with locals because I get the feeling that they think I’m a total heathen. At a restaurant they chastised me for not praying before eating. My research assistant was extremely confused when I said I never pray – I think it’s a totally new concept for her. Its interesting to hear about religion’s place in people’s lives here and why its so important – its all cool with me as long as no one tries to convert me!

-Transportation: This is always my main source of stress here, as there is often no safe and affordable way to get around. Most people have gotten really comfortable with riding boda bodas, motorcycle taxis, but they are notoriously dangerous and I try to keep my boda boda rides to a minimum. The young, adventurous drivers like to pass cars by swerving into oncoming traffic, and often try to squeeze through the tiniest of spaces, resulting sometimes in knees bumping into surrounding vehicles. Matatus, or the large vans that serve as public buses, feel much safer, however if its rush hour you can get stuck in traffic for hours going at a crawl, and I’ve found that there is nothing more frustrating than Kampala rush hour. The safest option are special hires, or private cars, which usually have seat belts. These tend to be much pricier, but we often take them for peace of mind, and when it’s a group the price is actually quite reasonable. Lastly, what actually seems to be the most dangerous is just being a pedestrian. Most of the accidents we’ve heard of happening around here usually involve pedestrians getting hit by boda bodas, which tend to come out of nowhere. On foot, you also get to enjoy the lovely air of Kampala, which is filled with dust and plenty of black exhaust from the vehicles that would never pass inspection back at home.

Those are a few tidbits of everyday life here. I’m also attaching some photos below from the past week, which include 4th of July at an Embassy-organized party!

Enjoying my first hamburger in a long time at the US Embassy 4th of July bbq

Part of the night that made me embarrassed to be American - they made local Uganda schoolgirls perform patriotic American songs in front of all of us.

American flag cake

Decent fireworks show, albeit very low and almost setting houses on fire

With my two British architecture student friends, Jo and Rosie

Best idea ever - making a Scrabble board with Jo and Rosie. Here is Rosie hard at work coloring in the squares

Making the letters...

Final product!

Jo, Rosie, me, and Katharine at an Ethiopian restaurant

Pub quiz night at the Irish pub Bubbles O'Leary. We won several rounds in a row and kept getting free rounds of random drinks as our prize. Here are Jo and Rosie with our friends Connor and Will displaying one of our prizes - shots of Bailey's with kahlua

bottle of house wine for winning another round