Just to prep you, this will be fairly long...Today I experienced Kampala. A Ugandan girl named Jessica would be my tour guide. In order to get to the main road we had to take a boda (public motor bike). I’ve never been on a motorized bike so it was very different. I did enjoy it though. Once we got to the main road, we hopped in a Matatu (public taxi – a van that they squeeze as many people as they can in). It was very warm with all the people. And I was the only white person in the van. As we got into the city we seemed to be stuck in traffic, so Jessica said that we would get out right here. (I found out later that we were actually at a taxi stop…it’s completely chaotic to me but apparently there is some kind of organization.) Jessica paid 1000 shillings for each of us (about 59 cents) and we were on our way. Once we were out of the taxi, we walked past open produce markets and I noticed that people kept calling something out to me. Jessica told me that the word is Mzungu, which means white person (they mean no offense by it). I passed one guy and he called out “Mzungu, marry me!” This happens to young white women and you just have to ignore it. Jessica then took me into ShopRite which is a larger supermarket and it actually remains me of an American grocery store. Afterwards, we continued to walk through the streets but whenever we needed to cross the streets, Jessica would hold my hand. This was weird to me but I started to notice that whenever there were two or more people crossing the street they would hold hands. This is because pedestrians don’t have the right away and the bodas don’t normally stop for pedestrians. We walked on to the post office (which is huge) and then found the ATM so they I could take money out in Ugandan shillings (1700 shillings = $1 US). Jessica then took me to some shops where they sell Ugandan-made crafts. There was so much variety and everything was beautifully crafted. By about this time it was close to noon and getting very hot. With so many people and no breeze it does tend to get fairly warm. Jessica then took me to Bible House for lunch. Bible House is a place where Bibles come in and are distributed throughout the city and surrounding areas. And, obviously since we were there, they also serve lunch. This was my first real experience with traditional Ugandan food. They served matoke (cross between banana and plantain that is boiled then mashed), rice, beef in a sauce, a peanut sauce (it’s purple because they keep the red shell on it while it is cooking), a rolled-up piece of flat bread, stewed greens (not really sure what type of greens but it was bitter), sweet potatoes (not nearly as sweet as American), and passion fruit juice. Ugandans traditionally eat quite a bit but this was just too much. I did my best to eat everything on my plate (it’s disrespectful if you don’t) but when I’m really hot I just can’t eat very much.
After lunch we walked past several schools. It seemed that all the schools were located in the same area. All the children were in different uniforms depending on which school they were at. After walking for a bit we ended up in this place where there were so many taxis. I had no clue where we were or what we were doing. Jessica kept weaving us in and around all these taxis until we finally got into one. I found out later that this was a taxi park and you have to find the right taxi going your way (they have signs posted above where they are parked) because they have assigned routes that only take you to that place. We waited for a while in the back of a very hot van as venders came around to all the vans to sell everything from bottled water and packaged cookies to cell phone cases and handkerchiefs. After we got out of the city and to our destination, we hopped back onto the bodas and rode to the Matoke Inn. I was very hot and very tired when I got back but I was able to have a fairly relaxing evening. It was such an exciting day.
