KFC, malls and monkeys

We’ve been talking a lot about change and why we, like most people, are so resistant to it.

We first stayed in Kampala in 2007 – 7 years ago. Then we came again in 2008, and the last time we were here was 2010, 3+ years ago.  So we aren’t really surprised to see changes, just not that happy about some of it.

We feared the vendors would have gone, but they are in the market at night with their very evocative  kerosene lanterns.

One of the first things I noticed was fewer women in traditional dress – not necessarily gomez, the puffy sleeved dresses – but just the fish-tail skirts and fitted tops in African fabric. We’ve seen some, but not as many as before. Lots of Western clothing. Also, the kids seem more used to Westerners, none have yelled “mzungu” to us.

Then too, the market and mall situation. A new city official wants to do away with the small vendors and build malls instead. (The opposite, we’ve noted, of in the US where we are going more toward small farmer’s markets and away from the big supermarket.) Our local market is still there (and one lady remembered us!), but it’s changed. The cement stalls that were basically home to the vendors are empty and the women are all bunched together in the open instead. It’s hotter up there and hard to see whose vegetables are whose. The fly-bitten chickens in cages are still there, ditto fish, but not quite in as orderly a way as before.

There's a shiny new mall in Bugolobi, complete with KFC, a popular place to be seen

The metal workers that we used to hear in the mornings are gone, but in the evenings the women are still out there cooking maize on the little stoves (apparently illegally), and tables and chairs appear in the parking lot where the chicken sizzling on grills is served. And my tailor, Teddy, of course is there, she remembered us and now we can wave to her at her treadle sewing machine when we walk through the market, just like in the old days.

The new mall down the street has a Dutch bakery (okay, some change is good!) and a very popular KFC. Though most of the locals gathering at it are just drinking

The palm trees are still here, with their big pony tails of seed pods.

Coke – the Colonel’s chicken is super expensive. (We saw KFC opening in Ghana too; ah, the US export claim to fame.)

A good change is that the city is cleaner, no “drifts” of plastic bags and bottles against the fences. People tell us you can go to jail for two weeks if you are caught littering. We’ll see how it is when we get out of the city. Of course, everyone is still burning garbage.

Something that has not changed is that the monkeys are back at Salama Springs! They spent the day chasing each other and jumping from vine to vine in the garden. They’re a little more aggressive than they were in the past– someone might be feeding them. But they’re fun to watch. They lined up on the roof to watch Bill swim this a.m.

The fruit has not changed. Prossy brought us a bounty of bananas. Best pineapple in the world! (Sorry, Hawaiians.)

Some of our old friends are still here in their same position, some not. Unfairly, we feel bad about things not staying exactly as we put them in the deep freeze of our memories. Maybe, as Bill says, we resist change because we are more comfortable with what we know, that’s it’s all about security. I think it’s that, and nostalgia for the good times we’ve had here.

We’re letting go, however. Time to forge new experiences that we might miss next time!