Part III

Two pictures of Kampala: The first photo here is of "town" from the WellShare International Uganda office on Bugalobi Hill (I hope I got that right...). A guide book of mine claimed that Kampala, like Rome, was originally built on seven hills, but the similarities stopped there. Maybe it's true. There are a lot of hills, on top of which the wealthy tend to perch. Down below in the valleys are the rougher parts and the all-out slums. 

The second photo is on the street at the heart of Kampala - notice the huge white sacks on the street. All over Uganda, these bags are used to transport coal, and green plants are shoved in the top of the bag to keep the coal from falling out. I'm not sure how it works, but it's what you see all over the entire country.

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Part II

Again, here are the Kasubi Tombs I visited on Saturday, March 13th. Inside are the remains of four of the many past Kabaka, or Baganda Kings. If you want to see what they look like now, look in the papers online, because they burned to the ground a few days later. This was the largest straw "hut" in the world, and recognized as a UNESCO site both for that fact and for its central role in the history of the Baganda kingdom, the largest ethnic minority in Uganda.

The second photo is of Peter Mugwanya, my "special hire" cab driver for the weekend, and Azida, the office manager for WellShare in Kampala, both wonderful hosts and good company for the couple of days I spent in the big city. They are surrounded by the traditional pounded bark paintings produced by workers at the Tombs to support the place. I'm not sure if the paintings survived the fire. 

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Lt. Kelly Slothrop

Another thing about Kampala worth mentioning is the prescient path of destruction I followed over my brief stay there. On Saturday, March 13th, I visited both Kasubi Tombs and Makerere University, the former of which is pictured below (notice the tiny old lady sitting in the entry way - this straw hut is real big). Kasubi tombs is the site of royal burial for a number of Baganda Kings, Baganda being the traditional area of the largest ethnic group in Uganda. It's also a UNESCO site for being "the largest straw hut in the world." On Tuesday, March 16th, it burned to the ground. The following morning, it was the site of a politically-charged shooting of two protestors by police. The now only symbolic Baganda King, or Kabaka, is opposed to President Museveni, who insisted on visiting the tombs in the immediate aftermath following the fire. Protestors opposed to Museveni and his reigning National Resistance Movement (NRM), tried to block his entrance. Police fired into the crowd.

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At almost the same time at Makerere University - the flagship school of higher education in Uganda - a security guard shot three Kenyan students involved in campus politics. My short tour of the University on the previous Saturday was not quite so exciting.

Kampala

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A week has passed, and the strange rash I picked up there has since faded, so now seems like the perfect to talk about the shining city of Kampala. I am a relative amateur when it comes to crazy poor city traveling. I've not been to Mumbai or Mexico City or Rio or Lagos. And Kampala isn't much of a mega-city anyways, with a population of only a few million. The important things about Kampala are (1) it's the biggest city, by far, in Uganda, (2) it hasn't had much of a stable decade in maybe a century, (3) it's relatively poor, and (4) quite crazy. This photo doesn't do the place or it's traffic justice. There are no traffic lights anywhere. Most days, the streets jam. Boda-bodas, which are little motorbike taxis, while officially banned from the city center, swarm the entire city, it's sidewalks, and spaces in between cars like flies. I read in a newspaper article that three boda-boda drivers die every day. This is not a huge city, so that means there's some sort of boda-boda driver dixie cup dispenser in a nearby slum that quickly replaces the 1,000 boda-boda drivers who die every year. And I haven't even mentioned the exhaust. It is a sea, a mustard gas sea of exhaust that fills the city on most days.

I wrote to a friend that it's a bit like I imagine 19th century London, but with modern cultural detritus everywhere and a distinctly 21st century metabolism. A businessman with an iPhone and an SUV on one side of the street, dying beggar children on the other.

Mundu!

A short walk home is an adventure. After getting side-tracked by my co-worker, Monica, who led me to a secondary school football game, I headed home along the road east. The asphalt on both sides was crowded with pedestrians and bikers, who made way when the cars and trucks pushed through. A lorry filled with 30 or 40 people came barreling down the hill towards me. A young man standing near the front spotted me and began chanting, "Mundu! Mundu!" and the whole load of people joined in, pointing and chanting. Was I about to be killed? I wasn't sure if I should wave, say hello, or look at the ground. I smiled nervously and the truck careened on by. Soon afterwards, Janet, the cook at my house and at the office, came along from the opposite direction. After greeting her, I asked her what they had meant by "mundu." Ah, she said, "that's just 'white man'! They are joyful to see you here!" I'm not sure if I believed her.