Learning to Navigate Kampala

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Wednesday, February 8, 2006 KAMPALA, UGANDA

Okay, so now, we really meet Kampala…called Hussein on his cell phone, headed off to Owena Market looking for African cloths for quilts. We ended up in the second hand clothes market; dozens of shops all hawking used clothes from America. You know, when you give clothes to Goodwill or the Salvation Army, what isn’t used in the States is baled up in huge bundles and shipped off to Uganda, for sure, who knows where else.

Wandering through this market was so much easier than wandering in Asian markets, where the touts are constantly haranguing us. Here is it mostly greetings, and all have to be said: “Hello, how are you?” “I am fine, how are you?” and then usually, there is a question about how was your night? I always wonder just how much detail they are expecting.
We could not find a single person who was able to comprehend fabric or textile or cloth on a roll. By then, my right eye was BURNING intensely. I got what Bill had suffered through several days earlier. When the infectious disease specialist in Lincoln, NE had told us about the cheapest anti-malarial drug doxycycline, he said that it made a person light sensitive. So, we have slathered on tons of sun shield, not realizing that our eyes would become light sensitive. Oh, what pain, and what tearing…So, now both of us are off doxycycline; all of the Americans have gone off anti-malarial drugs because of the various side effects. At least, Kampala is so high that there are few mosquitoes in this dry hot season, and so we will try something different when we leave here.

In pain and in frustration, I said, let’s go to the Indian restaurant that has been recommended, the Indians will speak English and probably understand what cloth we are looking for. We decided to walk. This place really needs rickshaws; most taxis are not marked, Hussein’s is not, for instance, and we didn’t know how to navigate hiring either the boda bodas (motorcycles) or the matakas (mini-vans holding 14 or so).

We still thought that we needed an adapter plug to use local electricity for the laptop, so I paused in a high class plumbing shop, still in tearing agony, Bill wandered off to the various shops, and I ended up visiting with the young man whose family apparently owned a number of these stores. He was born in Damascus and brought up in Lebonan, so we talked about the places that we had in common. He fed me some sugar cane, and had his man locate, negotiate, etc. the boda bodas (motorcycles) to get us to the Indian restaurant.

I asked side saddle or regular, he said, whatever, so I got on behind my driver, and Bill on his, the drivers had helmets, we did not, and off we went. Thank goodness, we could never have walked that far. 1,000 shillings each, contrast with 10,000 shillings per taxi ride. We arrived just fine at the National Theater, and shortly thereafter, we were in the most wonderful South Indian restaurant eating wonderful south Indian food, drinking a beer, in the dark, so my eye wasn’t watering so much, oh, how the day improved.

The chatty people that we are we started to visit with a young man at the next table and learned that he is a 30-year old Israeli who took flying lessons in the States and now works for a US-based humanitarian organization flying people and supplies around in the Congo. Wow! That country is still very much at war, and one of the few places in Africa that produces the majority of the fabrics sold in Uganda.

The Israeli said that Uganda is a paradise in comparison to the Congo. After meeting this one year commitment, he wants to motorcycle the USA up to Alaska or go to New Zealand. Either one, we said, you want to join SERVAS, the homestay program that we are part of. So, we wrote down all that information, and sent him on his way.
We found a nice shop there on the street and Bill bought a shirt that needed to be taken in, and then we found a really good Internet café that requires a three-month membership, but the membership is what the Western-based Internet cafes require for one hour. So, we joined, and the staff know how to hook up the laptop and we bought can be on-line for 30 shillings a minute, that is less than $1 per hour.

EVENING: Courtney, our guest from the evening before outdid our cooking, from the garlic based heavy cream dip for the carrots, to the salad and lemon pepper steak and cheesed up broccoli from her own garden. But, the piece de resistance was the apple galatte (?) and creamed whipped up by Robert, the Marine, his first time whipping. Plus, of course, I enjoyed the wonderful South African red wine, pinotage.

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Comments

[Ron Bolton]

I need to run to the post office.
You are making me want to travel. Some day. Right now I must go to the post office. Don't know when I will check in again, but I think it will be soon.