Shopping in Kampala

Vennie, Anne, Kristine and I took a taxi into Kampala yesterday to go shopping. It was a fun day. But Kampala is crazy. It’s always nice to return to Masooli and the centre where it’s quiet and peaceful. That’s what the students studying here say about this place too. There are no street lights in Kampala. The many thousands of buses/taxi, boda bodas, lorries, cars just drive. Occasionally you see a police officer in an intersection sometimes directing the traffic. Sometimes we found ourselves in the middle of the traffic. I was glad Vennie was with us. Being a city girl, having grown up in Toronto, I’m still not sure that I’m equipped enough to make my own way in Kampala. The streets all seem to look the same with the same kind of chaotic traffic by foot and by road. I have no idea if I’d be able to find my way back there, which is too bad because we found a nice internet café with quick service there and very reasonable rates. Garbage everywhere in the streets. I don’t understand that. Why don’t they get rid of their garbage? It would look much better just by removing the garbage. I asked Vennie and Barbara that this afternoon after they dropped bottle caps onto the kitchen ground. The answer was that people are too busy to go to the appropriate receptacles and that the councilors organize for street clean-up. But somehow that’s not working. And we have seen “Keep Kampala clean” billboards around. I guess it’s one of those mysteries of life that don’t seem to be explainable. The most interesting street was the one where all the fabric shops are. A whole street with fabric shops, side by side. In each store there’s more than one salesperson vying for business. Kristine bought fabric and had a busuti made and after she’d chosen all her fabric and accessories another woman in the little store said, “Now by something from me”. Outside all the shops sat all the seamstresses and tailors sewing away. Kristine also found a shirt in a shop and tried to do some bargaining as the price was too high but the saleslady was not stepping down. Later when I took Vennie there to see what she could do the woman admitted that for Bzungus the price was 25000 Shillings but for black people it would be only 15000 and that she still wasn’t going to back down. We walked away and she came and found us later and accepted Kristine’s original deal. Another reason why a guide in Kampala is a good idea.