It was two weeks before Christmas and all through the house, every creature was stirring with the necessity to go down country. So down we went. We left Sunday after church, stayed in Mbale that night with the Jameses, drove to Jinja Monday, stayed at the Kingfisher then took a day trip into Kampala Tuesday and drove back Wednesday.
That Sunday, as we were making our way to Mbale we saw a sign for the CPCC power project just past the Amaler prison. There was a mabati building, draped with power lines that shone with the flickering light of newly installed electricity. Heaps and heaps of telephone poles rose in some places taller than the building. Maybe this was the beginnings of what Museveni had said about giving Karamoja electricity.
Monday noon found us sitting at a wobbly, orange-clothed table at Ozzie’s, a small restaurant in Jinja run by a lovely old Australian lady. They make the best burgers I’ve ever tasted in my life. It’s a small place, with only 8 or so small tables and a tiny kitchen off the back, but the white concrete walls bear the mark of true beauty. On them rest several very impressive paintings by a fellow named Angello. His color-usage is amazing. If I were a millionaire, I would buy a big house and turn it into an art gallery of his work. Well, other people’s work too (Katie’s for instance and Rachel’s), but definitely a few Angellos too. Also decorating the walls of this quaint eatery are numerous pamphlets, advertisements and brochures for organizations like ADRIFT, NRE, and less well known safaris, game parks and tourist attractions. Among these was a small white booklet labeled “street children in Jinja S.A.L.V.E. international” I picked it up and started to read. “Our research shows that just over 1 in 10 street children beg. Tourists play a significant role in keeping children on the streets in Jinja, as they are enticed by cash handouts.” hmm. Food for thought.
Mom and I went into the market on Monday to do among other things, Christmas shopping. We walked down rows and rows of woven mats, cheap dress shoes, clay cooking pots, plastic jewelry and dried fish. They have the randomest things in the entrance to the market. People were shouting at me as I passed “Do you like to eat this kind of fish?” nope. Not at all. I think it’s the only smell in the market that I really can’t stand. But thanks for asking. We continued on through the part of the market where the produce is sold. I walked past heaps of oranges, mangoes, pawpaw, star fruit, passion fruit, jack fruit…fruit that I’d never seen before. This is the most colorful part of the market. Then the heaps of oranges turned into heaps of onions and garlic, the grain sacks full of green beans turned into grain sacks full of cinnamon bark. Vanilla beans, coriander seed, pepper corns, cardamom pods, rock salt, pink, yellow and red curry powers, crystal sugar, dried hot red peppers…the list goes on and on. This is the spice market, and consequently the best smelling part of the market. Next, in order to get to the clothes market, we had to cross what is affectionately called “blue jean central” or “the place with the creepy pastor dude who sounds like Gollum”. There is in fact a man who calls himself a pastor who stands amid the piles of jeans shouting at people about the fires of hell and need for repentance. I mean, he has half of a good point there, but too much of a good point can quickly turn to a very bad one when he takes to picking random people out of the crowd and assessing their personal sins from their attire. He once physically grabbed an unsuspecting tourist who happened to be scantily clad by African standards and made some very unfair accusations about her. Thankfully, he was not there today, so we continued our spree in peace. We walked from heap to heap searching through American thrift store rejects for a church shirt for James that was not Hawaiian, ripped up, or size XXL. Unfortunately, we had no luck. We did happen to find a surplus of rainbow colored hats, though. And a very cool belt with a glittery picture of Obama on the buckle. The entire time, this weird guy followed me around trying to sell me these cheap lace table coverings. He seriously would not get it that my table did not “need smart clothing” as he put it. Aiaiai. I argued with a guy over the price of a pair of jeans, getting him from 18,000 down to 5,000, only to remember that I was saving my money for Kampala. What a pity, for they were awesome jeans. And not a bad price, too.
Tuesday morning dawned cold and drizzly, a very handy thing when you’re going to be working up a sweat carting stuff to and from stores all day. Every store in Kampala was decked out with mammoth amounts of cheesy Christmas decorations. At the entrance to “uality hoping village” (actually Quality Shopping Village, but some of the lights don’t work) there’s this inflatable Santa thing that changes position every ten minutes. It scared the flamingo out of me when it suddenly dove forward as I walked in the door. After the grocery shopping was done, we went over to Garden City Mall to eat lunch at the food court and go to Aristoc, the awesomest book store in the world. It was so crammed with Christmas decorations and security guards, you could hardly move, but I did find some rather good things in there. Then, James, Dad and I went to watch a movie in the CINEPLEX which, can you believe it, I had never been to, while Mom and Josh went bowling at “Alley Gators”. I tell you, that bowling alley is scary! There are these life size figures of alligators everywhere. Crawling on the walls, clinging to the ceiling, and all are destroying bowling pins with their monstrous yellow teeth. Sends shivers down my spine.
It was a very fun Kampala trip, even if it only lasted a couple of hours. Even driving back to Jinja and then home was fun simply because of everything you could see by looking out the window. You never know what you’re going to see out there. People wear, do and carry pretty strange things. Such as a coffin or bed frame or thirty live chickens on the back of a boda. I mean, people do and wear weird things in America, but somehow the weirdness varies from continent to continent. Nothing eventful in the way of flat tires or running over animals happened on our way back to Karamoja, so we arrived home safe and sound, with minimal injuries. J
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