To Think That I Saw it on Kampala Road

To avoid entering Justice Lugayizi’s chambers a sweating mess, I usually take a bodaboda to work rather than endure the equatorial sun in a dark suit for ten minutes. If you watched the video below (upon further review, it was definitely more than one part idiot), you know what the commute to court is like. The walk back from the High Court provides a totally different experience.

For one thing, I walk back along Kampala Road, which is the Broadway of this city, if there is such a thing. It is the most heavily trafficked road in Kampala and provides no shortage of distractions on the ten-minute walk home.

Vendors have taken care to lay out their fare on a mat not usually larger than five feet by five. Among the things you can buy are belts, ties, dress shoes, and socks. I actually bought some gray socks (two pair for 2000 schillings, slightly less than a dollar).

Some are selling Bibles or magazines and newspapers. There are G-nuts (b/c they come from the ground), crickets (salty and a little chewy), candy, or bananas if you’re hungry. Maps of Africa and Uganda, Swahili-English dictionaries, and posters that look like they belong on the wall of a first grade classroom can be had while waiting at a stoplight. Generally, it seems that whatever fell off the last truck through is now for sale.

Men and women with disabilities and amputated limbs beg for money. You will also pass children, many no more than two or three years old, sitting alone with their hands cupped, ready to receive money. Many of these children are left for the day by an older child or young mother in the hopes that a solitary child will engender more sympathy and collect more money over the course of the day. Sometimes you will see a mother breastfeeding as she sits in the middle of the sidewalk.

Jane, a woman I’ve worked with during the last few days in the Directorate for Public Prosecutions (DPP) office, told me that the last time she visited her village a day’s drive “up country,” an old friend of hers asked her if she could find his children in Kampala. Evidently, his wife had taken them there. When Jane returned to Kampala, she sought out the woman who did not know where her children were. Jane suspects they are alone on the streets, begging for money.

Yesterday, as I was walking back to the apartment, I saw a man carrying turkeys. Plural. Big bastards, too, probably 15-20 pounds each. The man had one stuffed in a bag hanging from his shoulder and another stretched over his shoulders, legs gripped in one hand, neck in the other, like you might hold a towel behind your head. Oh yeah, the turkeys were alive.

Today, I saw a marching band walking down the street. Not the sidewalk, mind you. The street. About twenty children in green and gold band uniforms playing their worn instruments and leading a parade of several hundred. The people behind held banners speaking out against child sacrifices, touting a new cell phone company, and advertisements for what I think was a dance club. This was at about 11 a.m. Traffic was still moving, just slowly navigating past the band in the open lane, as drummers drummed, trumpeters trumpeted, and the conductor spun and bounced his baton in rhythm. While the band passed, the otherwise bustling sidewalks stopped to watch the show. Vendors stopped vending, policemen stopped policing, the homeless stopped begging, businessmen, ears to phones, halted conversations, and one very amused muzungu looked on and smiled.