Feast in Uganda from safe distance

If you live in Kampala, you go to the airport in the equivalent of Naivasha. If your flight is at 5pm, you start going to the airport at 1pm. It is like living in New Jersey and catching your flights at JFK — you spend more time enroute than actually flying. But, things are a lot better now after the construction of the Entebbe expressway, a four-narrow-lane dual carriageway connecting the capital, Kampala, and the airport city, Entebbe. 

Although I have never spent much time in Entebbe, it is on the shores of Lake Victoria — all of Lake Victoria, bar a few acres of shallow, marshy and hyacinth-infested waters which are in Kenya — is in Uganda and the city is gorgeous. It is a little bit like Kisumu with a discernible absence of the high-pressure, money-at-all-cost madness seen in Nairobi. People are not killing each other for land in Entebbe, I can tell you that. Which means there is an opportunity to export our own land maniacs, the way the British sent their thugs to Australia and told them never to go back.

Kampala is an interesting city. Let me behave like a foreign correspondent. A foreign correspondent lands at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and takes a cab. By the time he gets to the poolside at the Intercontinental Hotel (RIP), he is already an expert on the economy, politics and society of the African Republic of Kenya. He takes out his laptop and bangs a front-page story for the rag back home, taking care to call a few POLOFs (Political Affairs Officers) who feed him a couple of carefully packaged and well-used bromides.

Obviously, there are some unbelievably wealthy Ugandans. Not many, but very rich. Their buildings are imposing and extravagantly built. But there are millions of Ugandans who are not wealthy at all; the Ugandan equivalent of our lower middle-class, struggles quite a bit, judging by their number which goes to the centre of the city on the back of motorcycles.

In Kampala, there is no mad greed and pressure for money. The only stress is for space on the road; there are more motorcycles than Ugandans. For some reason, there appears to be VIP insecurity and big men are escorted not by some APs but well-armed tactical units in specially made, newish Toyota Landcruisers.

Ugandans feasts

I’d like to advise visitors to manage their relations with police with great care. I can’t tell the difference between army and police, both are deployed all over; you might have a guy from the special forces in jeans and jacket managing traffic at the airport. They are all very young but I don’t think you want to mess with them. I was taken through the scanner by one. Giving orders, very pushy, very in your face. Until, in irritation, I stood up, looked into his face — and took a step back. His eyes were like long pebbles — cold and unflinching. I followed his orders diligently and walked to the car without looking back.

Ugandan police can be serious. In Kenya, you can always buy your way out of a traffic offence. While most times you can do that in Uganda too, I suspect, sometimes they might whip you through the night and drag you to a magistrate in the morning, bloodied and blinded by swellings.

But it is in their approach to food that Ugandans are very different and better than us. Here, your mother makes githeri and, if she is in a good mood, throws in some cabbage from yesterday’s meal. When she brings it to the table and smashes it in front of you, she stares unflinchingly in your face like that young soldier at the scanner. Her fingers are already stiffened to pull your ears at the first sign of disgust at her bad cooking.

Because their land is so fertile and it rains all the time, Ugandans don’t have meals. They have feasts. In one meal will be matooke, wrapped in banana leaves, steamed and deep-fried plantain, rice, vegetable rice, sukuma wiki, traditional vegetables, arrow roots, sweet potatoes, groundnut sauce, deep-fried chicken, roast chicken, boiled chicken, roast lamb, boiled lamb, fried lamb and so on and so forth. The food makes you fat just by looking at it. I have seen food in all parts of the world. Outside of an American eat-all-you-can buffet, I never saw such generous tables.

This generosity is only rivalled by the proportions of Ugandan ladies whose presentation is most comely. While the Rwandans play in, and likely dominate this league, Ugandan ladies have what Kamlesh Pattni would have referred to as a “rewealing” attitude in matters of dress and, combined with the rich food and dangerous cops, are a recipe for heart attacks in over-weight middle-aged men like myself. 

So, in Kampala, eat the food and follow the advice of the game guide: Take it all in from behind the safety of your window.

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My people, the Meru, are waiting for Agriculture minister Peter Munya to be nominated Mr Odinga’s running mate, they say, to teach their cousins on the other side of the mountain the true meaning of voter turnout. While I do not doubt the single-mindedness of my clansmen to do what they say, including cutting someone, I don’t know how they reconcile this determination with the fact that, if you poll them, 70 will likely tell you they want to vote for Mr William Ruto.

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