Today was our first official day in Kampala. It was great to
be able to see the country in daylight. We woke up bright and early to meet the
MUB students. On the way to their campus we saw the city in full swing.
Everyone was busy at work or on their way. Ugandan driving is well…
interesting. Very fast. Very crazy. No one follows the traffic laws. You have
boda bodas (motorcycles) weaving in and out of traffic. No one uses a cross
walk or a bike lane. After we survived our ride we met the friends who will be
touring with us for the next three weeks. It was lots of fun getting to know
one another while laughing and comparing stories. Everyone was very friendly.
However the students were a lot more soft spoken than I expected. Next they
gave us a tour of their campus. MUB has a whole different feel than most
college campuses in the united states. Everything is outside. The students were
having their finals so we couldn’t see a classroom. However from the outside
window they looked basic and crowded. One aspect of the campus I found
interesting is the block (building) that is guarded by barbwire and a wall.
When I asked Ezira what was inside this building he told me that exam papers
and answer keys were in there. It was guarded so no one could cheat. The dorms
were also different if I were to compare them to drake’s dorms. They were about
half the size but had four beds in it. The building was pretty run down.
However for the students it didn’t matter. Many of them worked very hard to get
to college and education is extremely important. Thus the living arrangements
don’t seem to be as big of a deal to the students. I could be wrong. But that
was my impression. After we had our tour we went to exchange our money for
Ugandan money. Thank goodness there were accounting majors there because I no
clue on the math on converting the money. Especially since a 2 fifty dollar billss has a different exchange
rate than 1 hundred bill. After walking out of the exchange were we on an
adventure to Owino market. This market is in the heart of downtown kampala.
There is no good store to compare the market to. For those of you who have been
to Israel it is like the market where everyone one goes shopping for Shabbat
combined with the shops in the different cordors of the old city. However it
was to a big extreme. It was crowded and hot. Everyone and everything was
EVERYWHERE. I kid you not! One thing I should mention that I have noticed in
Uganda is there is no effective trash system. Everyone just throws trash into
heaps on the side of the road or the middle of the side walk. Thus the trash
made the space even more crowded. I don’t think anything in the market would be
considered safe or sanitary in terms of US standards. Meat was covered with
flys on one cart. While next to it a another vendor had a huge pile of lettuce
and she was laying on half of them. Then next to that is someone making peanut
butter and on the other side of that someone is selling shoes or clothes or
paper to write on or Muyemba (mangos). There are huge piles of everything. And lots of venders are
selling the same items. They want to bargain with you. They especially were
fascinated by us. We were greeted with everyone’s eyes on us. They called us
Muzungu. This in translation means “white person”. Every corner we turned they
were shouting Muzungu Muzungu Muzungu. come buy this. Let me show you this Muzungu.
Or they would try to grab your arm. Thank the lord we had the students and
advisors with us or else it would have been a very scary situation. The vendors
would also call us, American, sister, ask us to marry them, they ask us how we
were, one even called me jeniffer while walking after me. The market deff
brought a culture shock to everyone. We were all exchanging stories when we
came back about what happen. Oh and I should mention about photography. I was
only able to take a limited number of photos because I had to protect my stuff
so it wouldn’t get stolen and if I tried to take pictures of people they would
try to talk me into buying stuff. They would all run up to us saying “picture
me picture me”. Thus I took pictures from a far. Or held my camera down low and
hoped I got a good shot. I think the thing that surprised me the most was the
children. There were children everywhere. They were helping sell stuff, running
around with no shoes or mother in site, or even babies with there mothers. Some
of these children were old enough to be in school. And thus it makes me wonder
why were they there and not in school? The MUB students didn’t seem to be
shocked by this aspect. Going back to discussing the market with all my
classmates was interesting. It seemed like we were bashing the place. Yes it
was not clean and safe to our standards but that is there way of shopping. That
is there way of life. Its not bad its just different. Yes there would be ways
to improve it to make it cleaner and more sustainable but at the same that would
be putting our American lens on the situation. Overall it was an eye opening
experience to say the least. Tomorrow we meet with patric bitature and then go
to the and farm. Oh and by the way the
weather hasn’t been to terribly hot! Knock on wood. Have a great day =) ill
post later! oh i was also able to try the matooke a famous dish made from bananas. it kind tastes like squash has the consistence of over cooked mashed potatoes. it was actually really good!
~Dori
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