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nebsabroad-blog · 6 years

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Kampala Life

We are very behind on the blog and so we will start "simul-blogging" ™ [verb, def: the act of posting blogs both about your current experiences and past experiences out of chronological order] – retrospectively updating on Rwanda and our journey to Kampala at the same time as also talking about what we’re up to just now.

Ariel has already described one aspect of our life in Kampala, her eventful walk to work. This post will give a more general overview of what life is like in Kampala.

First off a fun fact: Kampala is named after one of the many hills that make up the city. And the reason that hill is called Kampala hill it because back in the day when the British were colonising they, of course, used to hunt and camp on that hill. And what they hunted was, maybe you’ve guessed it, impala!...ergo Camp Impala...hence Kampala.

Kampala itself is a great city; for us it is the perfect mix of craziness and home comforts that serve as respite when the traffic or general disorder get a bit much. We can indulge in some of the things we’ve missed like reliable hot water, ice cream, good coffee, cereal, home cooking, a couch and (this is going to sound terrible) sushi (really). But it is not as if we live solely in an expat bubble totally removed from the “real” Kampala, we sort of dip in and out. In fact a great thing about the city is that the expat areas (like the one in which we live) aren’t totally segregated from the rest of Kampala. From what we’ve heard, this is not the case in other cities. So while we definitely live in an area that is popular with expats it’s not as if everyone is white.

We arrived in Kampala after a particularly cramped and sweaty 9 hour bus journey from Lake Bunyoni (a lovely place that we will talk about in a retrospective post), and made our way straight to our flat. On the flat front we have massively lucked out. A former colleague of Ariel’s who now lives here has a current colleague who was in need of a flatmate from exactly the day we arrived. And it just so happens that this friend (our current flatmate, Kate) is away and will be so until mid Jan. So for 2 months out of our 3 in Kampala we have the place to ourselves and it is really nice.

The best thing about it is that it is costing us less than $300 a month and that includes a cleaner who comes twice a week and does all our laundry (oh hello there White privilege). Even though we had only been travelling for a couple months before getting to Kampala we really felt the need to have a base for a bit. It is especially good to a break from constantly having to unpack and repack which was getting a bit trying (you see this travelling lark is not all play...sometimes we have to do really stressful things like pack a bag). Also not having to wear my underwear inside out because all my pants are soddened is a bonus for all involved.

The first week in Kampala was spent getting to know the place. We did a great walking tour that took us through the main sights. A highlight was Owino market which we were told is the largest in East Africa. It is a crazy maze of tight capillaries that wind in no particular order and take you past people hawking everything from second hand clothes (if you've ever wondered where the clothes that you drop off at Oxfam but are so shit that they can't be sold end up I think we found out), crockery, cosmetics to peanut butter which is sold out of massive plastic barrels and is exactly as unappetising as that sounds. One of the funnier things they sell are reams and reams of scrap paper. These are stacked to skyscraper heights and contain remnants from school books, scrap books and office waste. Turns out that scrap paper is a good fort making material and on our wander through the market we saw one trader who had fashioned a bed 2 metres off the ground and was snoozing the day away.

November in Uganda is grasshopper month. The short rains brings a plague of the insects and they are a delicacy. And so on every street and especially beside Owino market you see women sat on the road with black bin sacks bulging with thousands upon thousands of grasshoppers. They are plucked out one by one and dismembered; wings and legs are unsentimentally plucked right off and the remaining body is set aside ready for frying. The grasshoppers are also accompanied by a really large gruesome cockroach meets beetle insect of all our nightmares. Given our nebbish ways the sight of these plus millions of insects turned our stomachs somewhat. When one of the women flung one of these horrid black beasties that had climbed on her foot we squealed and hid behind our guide much to the amusement of the women doing the plucking.

We have both started our volunteering, which we will talk about further in another post, and have fallen into a nice routine. While Ariel has a fairly enjoyable walk to work (see previous post). I start my day with the excitement of a boda-boda ride (motorcycle taxi) through Kampala at rush hour. This involves: leaving the house and mounting the first boda-boda that sees me, putting on my helmet, praying to the new gods and the old, travelling across Kampala’s mix of dirt and paved roads, putting all my faith in a pilot of dubious qualifications as he weaves through Kampala’s infamous traffic, mounting pavements and passing within inches of pedestrians, disrespecting every red light, crossing busy intersections by weaving around the oncoming traffic, and cleaning my pants at the end of the journey.

The nice thing about being more settled here is that we each have our own activities: I’m climbing again and Ariel is doing Sukuma (a sort of African beats Zumba) which we are convinced will be the next big fitness craze. This time apart is essential after spending every waking (and sleeping) moment together for the last 2+ months which was a rather intense experience; one that I am sure we will look back on with nothing but fondness. We’re also meeting people and slowly acquiring friends through 1) Ariel’s connections in Kampala and 2) my complete lack of dignity/subtlety (“hello will you be my friend?”) and have had some fun dinners and nights out.

So, in short, it’s all going well. We definitely think we picked the right city to volunteer and live in for a few months.

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