By Francisco Toro
Today’s my last full day in Uganda. I’m (really) going to miss this place. In the spirit of that one American tourist in England on Buzzfeed:
*Nobody swears.
*Nobody ever raises their voice
*Church on Sunday is not optional
*It’s safe to walk. Even alone. Even at night. Even in the slums.
*Watch out for missing manhole covers, though.
*Ugandans are quite concerned about “crime”. By crime, they mean pickpocketing.
*You don’t “pick somebody up”, you “pick somebody”
*You don’t “live” somewhere, you “sit” somewhere
*The family name comes first, the “first name” comes second.
*In Luganda, K is pronounced “ch” when it comes before i or y. (Kira is prounounced “Chira”)
*Ugandans get confused about this when it goes the other way and mispronounce English words as a result: “dochument”, “spechifically”
*Ugandan names are hellish to pronounce
*Everybody is at least bilingual: English and your home language
*Some of the home languages are mutually intelligible, some are as different from each other as English and Chinese.
*After Westgate, Security Theater is totally out of control: expect a cursory, ineffective airport-style screening every time you enter any kind of public space.
*Rush hour is hell. And it’s not “a traffic jam”, it’s “the jam”.
*Boda Bodas (Motorcycle taxis) are the only reasonable way to get around town.
*You can expect to see your life flash before your eyes in one out of every four or five Boda Boda rides.
*Ladies ride Boda Bodas side-saddle, because propriety.
*Uganda has the fastest growing population in the world, and it shows. There is an impossible, riotous number of little kids everywhere.
*Little kids are enthralled by the sight of white people. They *will* point and jump and scream “muzungu! muzungu!” at you.
*African Americans are Muzungus as far as everyone is concerned.
*”Muzungu” really isn’t derogatory.
*There are whole sections of town that cater mostly to muzungus.
*White privilege is out of control. Muzungus get away with all kinds of craziness.
*By the same token, Muzungus get charged 50-100% more than Ugandans for everything, always.
*It’s not so much that they’re hostile towards gay people, it’s that Ugandans are baffled by the whole concept of gay rights.
*Aid really is an industry: there’s a different NGO, donor organization, aid project, microfinance institution or UN body every 300 meters in Kampala.
*A huge proportion of aid projects are almost comically wasteful.
*A few aid projects are well-run and genuinely inspiring
*Every single person in the aid industry is cynical about aid effectiveness.
*Cops expect to be bribed, but a $3 bribe is really quite ok.
*Nobody who isn’t in uniform is allowed to have a gun.
*Getting caught with a gun is the one offence you can’t easily bribe your way out of.
*The exception is Karamoja, where people live from cattle herding and everyone has a rifle.
*Ugandans think of Karamoja the way Westerners think of Africa
*The standard euphemism for a small bribe is “fuel money”
*Ugandan civil servants will never turn up at your NGO training if there isn’t some “fuel money” involved.
*99% of the cars are Toyota
*90% of the Toyotas are second hand cars a Japanese family was driving 5-10 years ago.
*A “taxi” is a minibus. A “private hire” is what you call a taxi.
*The plumbing is hopeless: 9 out of every 10 faucets in the country drip.
*Ugandans think of malaria the way you think of the flu: unpleasant, but not always avoidable and ultimately not that big a deal, really.
*Nile Special is nice beer. Every other brand is sex-on-a-boat.
*If it says “African tea” it’s 99% milk
*Kenyans run the supermarkets
*The roads are surprisingly good, but there aren’t enough of them.
*Wildlife is pretty much confined to the National Parks
*Except monkeys
*Meat has to be cooked all the way through. Blood on a plate? Yuck!
*Lunch is everywhere and always the same: “foods” on the bottom, stew on top.
*”Foods” means “starchy things”. Rice and posho (polenta) are foods.
*Potatoes are “Irish Potatoes”. Sweet potatoes are sweet potatoes. Cassava is yuca. They all count as “foods”.
*Matooke is the King of Foods. Imagine you tried to make a polenta out of savory (not sweet) Bananas. That’s Matooke.
*It’s not a proper meal if there isn’t matooke in there somewhere.
*They’re wusses about chilli peppers/spicy food in general
*Groundnuts are called g-nuts. G-nuts are just peanuts.
*Cowpeas are just peas.
*Even middle class people cook over charcoal fires
*If you’re hungry late at night after drinking, you go for a Rolex: scrambled egg and cabbage inside a chapati.
*Ugandan chapatis are 90% oil.
*Goat is the most popular kind of meat
*All the chickens are free-range, chicken is always lean, and way tastier than the factory raised chicken you’re used to
*Everybody has a cell phone, lots of people use Mobile Money (cell-phone-as-wallet)
*Nobody believes me when I say we don’t have Mobile Money in Canada.
*Everybody watches the English premiere league.
*You don’t call him “Museveni”, you refer to “The President”
*The army basically runs the country
*High ranking politicians have a real knack for dying suddenly of ‘natural causes’ in the weeks before an election.
*Elections are ruinously expensive and idiotically unfair
*Voters expect money in return for their votes
*Pro-government rallies are impossibly rowdy, alcohol-fueled and pretty intimidating
*Opposition rallies typically end up in a volley of tear gas.
*The media is a lot freer than you’d guess: even state-owned media regularly has a go at the government.
*Nobody is allowed to have a go at “The President” directly, though
*The seed is fake
