Kampala

I’m here, in Kampala, the capital of Uganda! It’s a little bit surreal. I’ve always thought that idea of wondering if you just dreamt everything that just happened was a bit cliché, but when I woke up Wednesday morning, after my first night in the hotel, I was genuinely surprised, relieved, and excited to discover that I was, in fact, in Africa. Part of this may be because I subconsciously expected the hotel room that I’m staying in during orientation to be a bit shabbier and the bed to be much less comfortable. After the beds I’ve slept in while in Asia, which are about as comfortable as a board of wood, I was expecting something similar here. Fortunately, they are quite comfortable, and I slept like a baby. The whole group is staying in a small local hotel—it’s not the Sheraton or other fancy hotels we’ve seen around the city, but it’s nice, and they’ve been feeding us well.

So far, Kampala does remind me a lot of Thailand. One of the other girls on the trip, who is from Bangkok, also noticed the similarity. I guess it’s the tiny marketshops that line the roads and are open late at night. The huge difference, though, is that so many of these shops in Thailand cater so blatantly to the tourist, whereas these seem to simply exist, indifferent to the existence of us visitors. We do get stared at when we drive around in our twelve-person van (into which we usually try to cram fourteen or fifteen people – there are 28 people in the group, a huge increase from last semester) and I think I caught a boda-boda driver taking a picture of us with his cell phone. [Boda-bodas are motorcycle taxis that weave precariously in and out of traffic, occasionally clipping the passing cars – don’t worry Mom and Dad, we are strictly forbidden to use them. By the way, driving here is crazy! There are absolutely no stop signs, crosswalks, right of way rules, nothing. Definitely glad our trusted van-driver Muna is driving, not me!]

But anyways, regardless of the stares, I feel less like a tourist, somehow, because there’s much less of a tourist economy here. The shops we drive by hold little appeal to me, but that’s because they don’t specifically target the tourist market the way the night market in Chiang Mai does. Here we see bed frames and comfy chairs, not Gucci knock-offs and kitschy knick-knacks. It feels more authentic.

It also reminds me of Thailand because of the climate. Today was sunny and warm, with a brief rain shower in the afternoon. The air is balmy and often smells like a campfire; there’s a sense that life happens outside – so unlike Boston or New York.

We haven’t done too much, so far. Mostly we’ve discussed rules, safety, health, etc. This afternoon we went to the Kasubi tombs, where the monarchs of the Buganda kingdom are buried. There are several kingdoms in Uganda, each further subdivided into clans. The kingdoms predate colonialism, but were abolished by I believe Obote, the first president after independence. They were recently re-established when Museveni, the current president, came to power, but now they are only allowed a ceremonial role. The original palace, a huge domed hut-like structure made of elephant grass reeds, is maintained to this day and members of the Buganda kingdom still come to pay their respects.

The food we’ve been eating is great, though sometimes heavy on kind of bland foods like potatoes and mushed plantains. The pineapple is amazing here, and I’m really looking forward to trying the local mangoes!

That’s it, for now. I’ll be in Kampala until Saturday, when we leave for Gulu!