Tag: observations

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The way I see it, Ugandans love showing off their publich speaking skills. Albeit, according to standards I’ve been taught, they aren’t very good at it. Rapidly rising and falling tones, over emphasis on nothing worth emphasizing, hand gestures that become blurry with speed, and most annoying of all, an all knowing tone that implies ‘do not argue with me.’ Among our professors and guest lecturer’s there were only a few that were more reasonable and understandable from my (our?) standpoint. But when you step outside of the classroom, almost everyone I’ve met and heard a speech from, speaks in the same pattern. Speakers at Sunday Church, taxi (special hire) drivers, drunk people at bars/clubs, people we interviewed for class…you name it, although mostly they were men.

I suspect, just as how we are taught at home to speak to a crowd in a ‘correct’ way, Ugandans have their own standard of what is engaging speech. I wonder if when Ugandans see the “western way of speaking” would they feel we are unenthusiastic and boring?

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Probably the one thing I would appreciate the most when I go home is the hot showers. There is no hot water at the grand hostel (for that matter anywhere except fancy hotels, even then, the hot water comes slowly and painfully), meaning rain or shine, we take bone chilling cold showers. The most pleasurable moments of the day are probably standing under the shower and relaxing, unfortunately, this is hard to do when goosebumps appear all over your body and the only thought running through your mind is ‘get off darn soap!’ If I had to do this in the Canadian winter (or even the Hong Kong one), I will definitely freeze.

I don’t care if cold showers are actually good for your health or not! I want my hot showers back.

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I’m not a big fan of mosquito nets, although they were fun at first. My first night without one at the Grand Hostel ended in approximately 10 bites on each arm and 3 on my face, so I caved and bought a net. Covering you like a little tent, it’s the most annoying when you come home late and a bit drunk, and you still have to tuck the ends into the mattress before hitting the pillow. Although in the end, you find out that you don’t really need to be so careful about making it mosquito proof, most of the time, they can’t get in anyways.

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‘The Grand Hostel – Simply the Best”

How can you beat that kind of slogan? Except situated right next to a slum area and on a really bumpy dirt road, it really wasn’t grand or the best. It was, nevertheless, decent and livable. Although rumour has it that it is owned by one of our professor’s relative, which accounts for the “we surveyed around and found the best bang for your buck hostel” explanation given to us at the start. We also found out that we actually had to pay for rent for the whole semester because no students would rent it after a month of school starting. Wish they had told us that before!

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I must admit, Ugandan food is not my favourite. I don’t know if it is because our hostel and faculty cook crappy food, or is this really what people eat everyday. According to our one Ugandan classmate, yes, this is what they usually eat, with even less variety. We even play a guessing game before meals, we almost always get all the dishes correct, because, of course, we get almost the same things everyday, especially for the vegetarians like me. Beans, matoke, posho, rice, noodles, local spinach, cabbage, meat, etc.

For me, famous for having not many tastebuds, the food actually tastes good most of the days. Without much variety maybe, but decent and filling (you can say that again, I never understood how Ugandans can polish off a piled plate of matoke for lunch and dinner). But once in a while when we go out for food (Italian pizza! Indian curry! Lebanonese humus and falefal!) I realise how much I miss food from home…all kinds of Chinese food, sushi, veggie dishes from the Foundation, Indian dohsas, not to mention real cheese etc etc. (It was, frankly, a relief when I arrived in Rwanda and Tanzania to find food that is actually seasoned and tasty!)

That being said, I actually do enjoy matoke, posho, chapati, and the beans/peas. Especially the fresh fruit, oh dear, I have never tasted such good fruit in my life – whole pineapple, mangoes, avocadoes (!!), passion fruit, papaya – I remember one time when I was buying a pineapple, the guy actually asked if I wanted it ripe for today or tomorrow! That’s a far cry from the expired this month or next month pineapples from home. As for street food, I enjoyed the ‘rolex’ – an omlette roled with a chapati – cheap (only 800 shillings), tasty, and filling. Unfortunately, we didn’t really dare to try the street food because of health reasons. Everywhere, you would see grilled corn on the cob, grilled plantains, grilled meat (goat’s liver, chicken, and the like), little fried cakes, little round flour pancakes…the only two I dared to buy were seasame/honey crackers and samosas – both too good to describe! We did make our own chapati with fruit (like a crepe) sprinkled with brown sugar. Very recommended!

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203 “whats” in 1.5 hours. It must be incorporated into the gunnius book of records.

You must be wondering, what in the world am I talking about? Well, try sitting through a lecture where the lecturer talks like this: “As the department of what? Finance, we have to be what? Careful when doing what? Procurement because of the what? Exchange rate from foreign currencies to the Ugandan what? Shilling. Note that every ‘what’ is said with a high pitched questioning tone.

One of my classmates actually counted how many unnecessary whats were said, with a total of 203. Fascinating. Little wonder that I learnt much more from reading the notes later than in class (which almost never happens…what?).

Apparently many Ugandans learn to speak like this (this lecturer was extreme, but many do actually speak with this pattern) because their primary school teachers use this as a method to ‘engage’ the students…This is what? A. It stands for what? An apple. Oh dear.

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We were in the middle of a computer class on SPSS when suddenly the lights disappeared and siren-like warning bell started. Startled, we all stretched our necks and scanned the room like radars. My first thought: bomb! In those eery moments, I actually thought the building was going to blow up. (I have a video of this which I will upload once I get back home)

Of course, it was nothing of that sort. It was simply a power outage and the backup battery power of the computers were telling us to shut down before our work was lost. Simple as that.

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I never really experienced the rainy season in Kampala before I left. I suspect I will when I return for a few days at the end of November. Although for a few days, the skies just suddenly opened up and poured. And I really mean Pour, with a capital P. Without any notice, buckets can fall from the cloudy skies for half an hour and then just as suddenly stop. The local raincoat/umbrella? Discarded plastic bags (everywhere) and broad banana leaves (almost everywhere).

Well, it’s a tropical country, what did you expect? Red mud splattered feet and tiny rivers roaring down the many hills. Some places get completely flooded (like Bwaise, the slum we worked at), up to the knees because there’s really no drainage system. It’s not a coincidence that prestigious places (the university, religious structures, rich people’s houses) are all on hills.

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The other public transport we use are boda bodas, motorcycles which zoom around the city at all times making “bodabodabodaboda” sounds. Probably the most lethal form of transportation ever invented, especially in rush hour – you have not experienced Kampala without riding on a boda in rush hour, weaving in and out of cars with your legs just barely brushing the huge matatus. Prized for its flexibility and ability to navigate quickly in traffic jams (which happen everyday, including Sunday), bodas are an indispensable part of public transportation. Legally, bodas can only take one person in addition to the driver, but we usually travel in twos. Take your pick: squeezed between the driver and your friend or at the back, ready to bounce off if the driver zooms over a particularly large pothole. Boda drivers are notorious for quoting ridiculously high prices to mzungus. I often ask to see what price they give me, even though I know the local price. Helpful if you tell them you would give 500 more shillings than the negotiated price if they drive safely and slowly. But don’t forget, boda drivers have to pay 70,000 shillings a week as rent; most of them work day and night, often sleeping on their bodas on the side of the street.

Oh, by the way, there are only 60 registered bodas in the city of Kampala.

And rumour has it that 4 to 5 people die each day from riding on bodas.

The last day I was in Kampala, there was a crackdown on boda drivers, no wonder everyone was wearing a helmet and driving super fast to escape the police.

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Speeding around Kampala (and indeed the whole country, or maybe even the continent. At least I see them in Rwanda and Tanzania (called dala dalas) also) with little regard of traffic rules and human safety, are the mini-buses called matatus or taxis. Goes to most places in the city for a cheap price (less than 50 cents), they are officially public transport. The one we usually take back to the hostel even had a number: 800 – Kikoni, Makerere. Most have their end station in the city centre, congregating in the new or old taxi park (the old taxi park is like a sea of matatus, it’s a small wonder that we finally learnt how to find our matatu).

On about half of them, you can see peeling Japanese writing, evidence that they are mostly imported old trucks. It seems like they haven’t been fixed since being imported, often you find a thick black smoke following them around.

When walking on the side of roads, you get a cacophony of honks and beeps, telling you a matatu or boda boda (more next time) is coming and wants you to get on. I have yet to figure out how the locals know which matatu is going where….sometimes the door guarding/money collecting person (conductor) shouts out the destination, but most of the time the people just flag them down and get on without asking. Tell the conductor “stage” if you want to get off.

Legally only 14 people (including driver and door guarding person) can get on, but as you can guess most of the time, it’s at least 16. One time in Mbale, we had a 8 person matatu with 16 people seated inside, go figure.