Kampala, Uganda

A few weekends ago I flew to the other side of Lake Victoria, to the Ugandan side, and landed at the airport in Entebbe, a small town about 40 km from Kampala, Uganda’s capital. On approach, I saw less water hyacinth and murky brown water than I do from the Kisumu shores, and much more water activity. My small Kenyan Airways flight shared a crowded tarmac with elephant-sized white planes marked on their fuselage with the black letters of the UN. Men and women wearing camouflage and light blue berets filled the airport, waiting to board the planes for Sudan. I looked at them with wonderment and awe for what they do (and where they were headed), but moved on past, grabbed my luggage and headed for the car to Kampala where I would spend the weekend exploring the city and rafting on the White Nile.

We drove the one, straight, well-paved rode from Entebbe to Kampala slowly. There is always only one road to get anywhere, no short-cuts or bypasses, causing lots of traffic jams. But, I never mind the drive because it gives me the opportunity to observe carefully the roadside activity. All over Kampala, in fact, I found the infrastructure much better than in Kenya and everything appeared cleaner, more modern and better built. Much of Kampala suffered during the Idi Amin dictatorship in the 1970s, followed by the Ugandan loss in war with Tanzania in 1979 and the subsequent tribal wars that took place before Yoweri Museveni, the current President, came to power in 1986. Uganda prospered (relatively speaking) in the 1990s and Museveni rebuilt much that had been destroyed.

We kept the windows down as we drove along and it was hot, very tropical, with thick air. Uganda is very green and lush, a sense exaggerated even more by all of the green bananas sold along the road. I have never seen more bananas and would ask everyone whether, or how, these roadside sellers possibly sold all of their bananas. They do though, everyone would tell me. Looking up from the green bananas along the road into the distance, I could see the seven green hills on which Kampala is built – making it a really beautiful city. I stayed on Nakasero hill in the city centre at the Speke Hotel, one of the oldest in Kampala.

This is the place of “jua kali” my taxi driver told me as we inched towards Kampala. “Jua kali” means hot sun in Kiswahili and represents the thousands of men and women who work in the informal sector of Kenya and Uganda. All day long, under the hot East African sun, these men and women work in their small workshops along the road. You can hear the clinking of hammers and the whirring of saws as they bang out wooden and iron furniture, pots, auto parts and other handicrafts. Their work is harsh, and done under unsafe and unregulated conditions. However, it is an important part of the economy. In Kenya, the informal sector accounts for over 90% of all businesses and, I’m told, contributes about 15% of Kenya’s GDP. In Kisumu, this informal sector comprises over 50% of the working population and the workers involved in it make about $40-50 per month.

After I checked into my hotel and spent an hour trying to find an ATM that accepted a MasterCard (none did), I quickly ate a Chinese lunch at a restaurant called Fang Fang and set out with yet another driver to tour Kampala. I told him I wanted to see everything, and we did, winding our way around all seven hills. We saw a variety of religious buildings: the National Mosque in Lower Kampala, started by Idi Amin and completed with funding from Colonel Gadaffi; the Namirembe Anglican Cathedral where I made the driver wait while I watched women guests parade into a wedding in many pastel colored ball gowns; and the Baha’i Temple, the only one on the African continent (the one in North American is outside Chicago), set on beautiful grounds high above Kampala. I took a somewhat touristy, but interesting, tour of the Kasubi Tombs, the burial place for several Ugandan kings, including the father of the current King Mutebi II, whose role is only ceremonial these days. The large thatched pyramidal-shaped tomb is surrounded by small thatched buildings where descendants of the wives of Muteesa I – he had 84! – live and take care of the tombs. Winding our way around, we continued through the campus of Makere University with its stark white and blue-shuttered buildings; past Mulaga Hospital, the biggest in Uganda; and down Gayaza Road which runs right through the slums of Kampala. And, everywhere I noticed the largest, ugliest, meanest looking vulture-like bird I had ever seen – flocks of them sitting on tops of tree – the maribu stork, which migrates to Kampala to breed 4 months out of the year.

After spending a full day driving around Kampala, I had Indian food – the best I’ve had so far in East Africa – at an open air restaurant called Khana Khazana in Kololo hills, a nice residential area where all the expats live. Then, Saturday morning I awoke early to head for my rafting trip on the White Nile…

(Pictured: Maribu storks in a tree outside my hotel; me outside the entrance to the Kasubi Tombs; banana sellers along road)