Don't Mess with the Man in the Beret --or-- How I Almost Got Arrested on my 2nd Day in Kampala

My room at La Fontaine. The mosquito net gets untied and pulled over the bed at night.

Hello all! 

I'm currently sitting on the veranda at La Fontaine with Laura (another of my team members) and our housemate Casey (who is working on her dissertation with the Refugee Law Project in Kampala) soaking up the afternoon. We had another extremely busy day of walking and exploration and our legs are now jello beneath us. The chairs on the veranda were most welcome upon our return. 

This morning began with the rooster crow at about 6:30 AM. The hustle and bustle of Kampala in the morning quickly followed our feathered alarm clock. Outside, a woman swept the street with brush brooms as the boda-bodas (motorcyle taxis, so named because young men on bicycles used to take travelers on their bikes from border check point to border check point for a nominal fee) went speeding by. I opened my eyes and pushed away the mosquito net to get ready for the day. The first night I was here, the mosquito net ended up tangled around my body by the time I woke up. Thankfully, between my boyfriend's helpful trans-Atlantic advice by phone and the guidance of another of our housemates (Dave, who is working with one of the land-rights NGOs in Kampala) I figured out that tucking the net under the mattress alleviates this problem. 

Yesterday, Ron and Denise came to pick Laura and I up from La Fontaine (they're staying at the Makere university), since we had no idea what we were doing. Today, Laura and I had cell phones and maps as well as a quickly gained knowledge of the basic surrounding area, so we decided that rather than having Ron and Denise pick us up, we'd just meet them at Java (an ex-pat favorite with really tasty pancakes and INCREDIBLE fruit juice). Walking up the streets of Kampala is a quick lesson in social skills. Even someone like me, who has no idea how to talk to people, can find themselves quickly immersed in conversation and morning greetings. The boda-boda drivers offer, we say "no thank you" (it just isn't safe to take a boda-boda in busy Kampala traffic), the private hires (personal taxi--akin to American taxi) offer, and we say "no thank you" (entirely too expensive for everyday travel), and find our way to the taxi station. 

The Kampala taxi is actually a fifteen passenger bus. The driver stops and the conductor (who sits by the door) motions you into the vehicle. Etiquette requires that the seats from front to back must fill up before the pull down side seats can be used (a faux pas is to take a pull down seat before the back bench is full. We did that today. Woops.). The price for the ride to just about anywhere is 500 shillings during the off-peak time and 700 shillings during peak time. This is really a good deal -- as 500 shillings is about $.25 USD. A private hire can run 5-10,000 shillings (about $2.50-$5.00 USD). I'm not sure yet what a boda costs. 

We made it to Java and after crossing the street (a situation that resembles the higher levels of Frogger) we joined Ron and Denise for breakfast. My total meal cost (three large pancakes and a large glass of fresh juice) came to 12,000 shillings ($6.00 USD). This is much more than we anticipate spending for food the rest of the time we're here...but ex-pat places tend to be pretty expensive. The place was attached to a petrol station, so the entire experience felt very Western. 

Ron said his goodbyes (he was meeting someone for lunch), so Denise, Laura, and I started walking towards the city center. We needed to buy converter plugs, exchange money (found a place that gave us 2160 shillings to the dollar. This is the best rate we've found yet!), and put minutes on our phones. After our errands were done, we dropped Denise off at the Statistics Bureau (she had some research she was picking up for a friend of hers) and began to wander towards the Parliament building. I wanted very much to get pictures of the place --it's a beautiful building! 

Once in a while we'd run into young men sitting on the streets with palsied hands and shrunken legs. Denise is pretty sure that these guys had been infected with polio at some point. We try to keep some hundred shilling coins handy to give them as we go by. As we were walking, we also ran into a vendor who was selling hand-made greeting cards. His name was Andrew, we found out, and he was from Rwanda. I desperately wanted to ask him if he was Hutu or Tutsi, but I've found out that this is not the kind of question for random street corner conversation. It's hard sometimes not to stick out as a very obviously American (ie, not very knowledgeable) woman.

The air in Kampala is very bad. I'm extremely glad that we're going up to Gulu the day after tomorrow, where the air is cleaner and easier to breathe. Walking through the streets of the capitol city means inhaling junk of all kinds. Laura's allergies have been going crazy, and my asthma has been completely unimpressed with the walking. 

Several miles of random streets and boda offers later, Laura and I managed to find the National Theatre, which has a massive craft market with forty stalls. The vendors sell an amazing variety of hand carved items, hand made baskets, and clothes that they make by hand (as well as some that they bring in--like the t-shirt below). 

. 

Craft Stall at National Theatre (Market)

The T-Shirt says "Mzungu" ("Foreigner")

After an hour of haggling at the National Theatre, Laura and I found our way to Parliament. We were just about to take out our cameras and take a picture when a man who had crossed the street with us said quietly, "You will be arrested."

The cameras went back into our bags, "Why?" We asked.

"Because the guards here, if you take pictures of the building, and they think you are taking pictures of them, they can come over and you will have to give up your camera. Maybe even go to jail." He said, as he kept walking.

We thanked him for this useful piece of advice...remembering, for the fiftieth time today, that we're not exactly in Kansas anymore. You can blame the guys in the berets with the AK-47s for the lack of pictures of the beautiful Parliament building.

As we made our way back towards home, it began to rain (it is rainy season after all). It had been so muggy, though, that the rain actually felt really good. It was just about ten minutes of a light sprinkle, and we wandered up the streets with our umbrellas out enjoying the sound, smell and feel. Finally, we caught a private hire home (we were entirely too exhausted to attempt to locate a taxi station) and after stopping into the corner market for some bread, cheese, and water for dinner, we headed home. We had been walking for about six hours.

Jacob, the man who runs La Fontaine, introduced us then to Casey, who is our newest house mate. Now that we've all gotten our internet fix for the day we're going to take her to the corner market for some basic essentials (its her first day in country) and then head back to have some dinner, read a little bit, and go to bed.

We're headed to Gulu day-after-tomorrow by postal bus (run by the postal service). Ron has to stay in Kampala because our other group members were delayed due to airport shutdowns, but Denise is going to get us settled into our new location. I will try to get into contact again at that point.

Until then!