Uganda is Definitely the Pearl of Africa

I have learnt that the first thing any African is asked when he travels abroad is 'How is Africa?' Ask any

African abroad and they will tell you that they have been asked this question one time too many. One of my lecturers who had been studying in the UK was asked quite a ludicrous one: 'How is Africa, is Idi Amin still president?' That was many years after the bastard had died in exile, never having been 'Africa's president'. There is still another one that I heard they might ask you, especially if the one asking had a racist mind, is: 'Is it true you guys still live in trees?' and the one usually asking looks so innocent that you might swear he didn't know what he was asking. But Africans are very witty and they have developed answers to such questions like: 'Yeah, of course we live in trees, and your High Commissioner lives in the tallest tree in the capitol.'

I am not racist, and never will be. I just love how racists think, that's all. However, Africa is quite a big place and no African can answer the question 'how is Africa?' What happens in Kenya does not necessarily happen in Uganda, or Senegal. Africa, if some people have never noticed is the second largest continent on the planet. African cultures are vastly different but there are things that never change no matter wherever you are in the world, like women being looked down upon.

I am Kenyan and I have had the privilege to live in Uganda, our neighbour to the West. I just want to illustrate that Africa is not that one big chiefdom some people think it is. When I first arrived in Kampala, the capital city of that neighbour of ours, it was nine in the morning, I experienced the differences at 'first sight'. I had been asleep all the way and I only woke up when the bus parked at its station. The first thing I saw in Kampala, or rather noticed, were the 'taxis', known as matatu in Kenya. Unlike in Kenyan matatu which are all graffiti that you can never know the original colour of the matatu, their Ugandan 'counterparts' were all a sick white, with a blue-striped line all around the body to show that they are PSV. What is more is that the taxi park was right in the city, and Kampala is located in a hilly area so where my bus had parked was a place overlooking a great part of Kampala and of course the taxi park. So from above their old roofs, the taxis', looked like some dirty white bathroom tiles. This should not give anyone a feeling against Kampala, it is a great city, the CBD is like any other in the world, with some very cool environment. But what really caught my attention was that the taxi park was so tightly parked, and no chaos present. In such a place you would expect people scratching each other's taxis but it was not happening there. The drivers inside the taxi park are among the most skilled in the world, and are all male – I wonder why. But women are generally regarded as not very good drivers. I have seen it myself when they are parking. She looks left, right, left, right, front, back, gets out of the car to estimate the space, gets in the car, accidentally honks and looks if anyone was offended so she can get out again and say sorry, then back to the car until an impatient male comes and honks at her and here she gets the guts to sloooooooooowly park.

Another striking difference is the number of motorbikes, or boda boda as they are known here. Kampala has so many motorbikes you might think there is a factory set aside for populating this city with them. The irony of this is that they are actually imported. In high school there I remember my Kenyan friend joking that if all these boda boda were sold, Uganda would make four more international airports other than having one at Entebbe.

Yet another difference is the number of food kiosks, or sheds like they should be called. They are so many in the city that you might wonder what the Ministry of Health and Sanitation does. In Kenya these are regarded correctly as places of poor sanitation and therefore not allowed anywhere near the city. You might find them in smaller cities where the city councils there are dead asleep. Having arrived at nine in the morning, I noticed that the sheds were fully-packed. Men and women, but mostly men, enter these sheds as frequent as bees into a hive. The men eat 'heavily' like they say, and at that time of the morning. In Kenya, asking for a meal, not breakfast, before noon is asking a rhetoric question. No food is ever ready before noon, Kenyans generally take bread in the morning and bacon and other related things if they are privileged. This morning usually ends at 11:59. in Kampala, on the other hand, as soon as it is light, food is ready. Men eat heavily and prepare for work at that time of the morning.

I also noticed a great difference in the food. If you asked for ugali with milk – whether fresh or fermented - people would stare at you. To the, it would be like asking for bread and water. In Kenya, however, this is a great delicacy. There are great differences in food for certain. There is a small round fruit in the family of what Kenyans call sodom apples, I wonder where they got that from. The sodom apples are yellow when ripe and green when not. Their trees are usually not tall, but are very thorny. The juice of the sodom apple is used in curing diseases that I cannot recall now, but the same juice is poisonous to the eye, it can make you lose sight within hours. Now the Ugandans eat that fruit in the family I have mentioned, and they call it eggplant, whereas eggplant is a bigger fruit that is purple in colour. But to tell the truth, all these are related because their trees are similar, except that only the sodom apple tree is thorny. They eat this and many more. Locusts are a delicacy. (please read Locusts). They also cook any food they want in banana leaves and such is called luwombo.

There is one fruit worth talking about. It is officially called the jackfruit and it is funny that you will find it in the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (8th edition). There it is defined as 'a large tropical fruit' but I feel they did not define it to the fullest. They should have said that: 'It is an ugly, large, shapeless, pimpled, milky fruit that is only found in Uganda in which a new eater of the same does not know what to eat and what not to, and that leaves you regretting why you tried it in the first place.' It is indeed a fruit like no other, I wonder what the great God was thinking as he created this very curious thing they have called a fruit. It's rind is just the perfect comb for the African hair and it is funny that only some very poor locals use it, whereas it would save Uganda the need for imported plastic combs. When dissected, a very strong white gum oozes from those cuts, and from between the strong fibre that protects the edible parts. At first you do not know what to eat, and how to eat it. Many freshers in the eating institution of the jackfruit take it straight to the mouth. This shouldn't be how to eat it because that gum can seal your mouth for a whole week. Instead, you use your fingers to pluck the edible flesh from between the strong fibres inside. These pieces are usually distinct in the sense of separate so that they look like smaller fruits in the larger one. This should only happen when the strong white gum has been rubbed off with a serviette or any equivalent. You take the whole piece you have plucked to your mouth. You use your mouth art to weed the undesirables out, so to say; we still have a large seed inside every bit of flesh, and around each seed is some kind of husk to the seed. Chew and swallow the rest. That's all. That first experience is just like any other. Once you fall in love with the jackfruit you just don't stop.

Another thing about Uganda is that it is a drinking nation, alcoholically speaking. Rumour has it that it is the 'most drunk' country in Africa. Everyone from small kids and women drink, that is everyone who wants to. In Kenya, women who drink are the very rich and shameless and you do not even spot them, they go to bars that we can only watch from a distances, all rich people. The poor women who drink in Kenya are whores, forgive the expression. These do not mind what you say about them. Beer in Kenya can only be taken comfortably by the men. In Uganda, and I observed this in a certain ghetto called Kisenyi that I used to live in, women have places that they meet and drink their Bells, Niles, and Clubs. And surprisingly, the number of bars in this drinking nation is so low that you may doubt this fact, but that is because unlike anywhere in the world, Ugandans sell their beer just like they sell any other fizzy drinks – in any shop. Truly I cannot remember ever seeing the pubs I see so frequently in Kenya. The boda boda fellows drink as they ride, and no one gives less of a … than their cops, that is about drinking and riding, and driving. These fellows prefer sachets of spirits because with these you just hold with your teeth and leave your hands to deal with the bike. Do not be afraid of getting a boda boda from the smell of the fellow, these, too, are other masters of the road. Accidents happen anywhere, even in places with the highest sobriety.

In old dear Uganda people can drink while riding their motorbikes but they DO NOT eat while walking. This is one respected rule, from their culture. If you ever spot a fellow doing so, he might be a foreigner, especially a Kenyan who do not have any problem with that. I was quite an outcast for some time before I learnt that I was not supposed to do so. Even while the effects of modernisation are still felt in Uganda, their culture are strongly guarded. They still have a kingdom that is over 800 years old called the Buganda kingdom. The Baganda are the inhabitants if the central part of Uganda where Kampala is. Ugandans from this kingdom and some others that I might not have noticed do not eat while talking, or rather talk while eating. If you find such a Ugandan do not speak until he has swallowed his last. If you say 'hello', he answers after whatever time he has used to eat his food, which truthfully speaking, is too much compared to what Kenyans eat. Likewise, if you have a Ugandan friend from this other kingdoms, and he happens to visit you while you are eating, you might wonder what is wrong with him because he will sit and not talk waiting to greet you at the end of your meal.

These facts about Uganda justify why Uganda is the pearl of Africa, and also that there are such significant differences between the various cultures in Africa that you should not ask me 'How is Africa?' when we meet in your world.