Uganda Trip 2019 – Episode 8:
Kampala – Uganda’s Capital
Pricky was so kind to invite me to her home for the last night I stayed in Uganda. She lives in Kampala – Uganda’s capital – and works at the local Statistics Bureau, which we briefly visited.
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Upon arrival on Friday, Pricky showed me around in the capital. It was quite overwhelming! So many people and so much pollution! What I found interesting, is that, while outside the capital I was looked at and called “Mzungu”, here people additionally tried to touch me our my hair on the street. I didn’t find that, nor the crowdedness disturbing, although I think that’s because I knew it’s only going to be one day and I approached that more with my curiosity than a need of convenience.
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Yet again, Pricky kindly assisted me in a final African outfit shopping tour, where we both bought the same dress 🙂 . One of my dresses was adapted to my body right there by la lady with a sewing machine. Actually, the shopping tour was really painful, since I had caught a stomach bug just a couple of days before (I still don’t know how). This caused me having to run to the toilet unpredictably and at the most inconvenient places. So it happened that I felt I couldn’t hold it back the middle of the shopping trip in malls that weren’t equipped with public toilets like I am used to from “Western” ones. I told Pricky about the urgency and she asked the vendors, who luckily pointed us toward a staff toilet. This was kind of like a little hole in the wall, no lights and really dirty. Of course also with no toilet paper. I was so relieved that I didn’t need to poo in my pants, which is why I didn’t bother about the circumstances though! And thankfully I had enough tissues with me!
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We drove through Kampala again on Boda bodas. And I bought some limes on the market which were less than 50 Cents for 10 pieces!
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Pricky’s husband was on a business trip, but I was lucky enough to meet her kids. She also had a guard for her house, which apparently was quite normal for comparatively well-paid people in Kampala.
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On Saturday morning, we drove to her mom and ate lunch together with her family (kids, mom, sisters). I felt so incredibly blessed to be introduced to so many aspects about Ugandans’ daily lives!
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Pricky took me to the airport, where I met some other summer school participants for taking the same flight home. Rogers came too to say Good Bye, and so Pricky him and me hugged for a long time! Thank you again for making these two weeks such a wonderful experience! Your kindness and openness was very inspiring!
Luckily, I flew back via Vienna (my home town), so I could eat some Punschkrapfen, an Austrian dessert, and finally drink some good coffee (potentially imported from Africa haha!). I was also lucky in the sense that my long haul flights included two suitcases, so I could easily stuff all my new outfits into my baggage allowance.
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Thank you for reading my Uganda stories – I hope you could get a little sense of how inspiring this trip was for me! In fact, I was really sad to leave …
Navigate through the Table of Contents to read earlier episodes of this Uganda trip:
Table of Contents
- Prologue & Epilogue
- 29hrs from Berlin to Masaka
- First lecture & Shopping in Masaka
- Food & Drinks
- Ugandan Steam Bath & BBQ
- Off to Ssese islands
- A Nature Walk on Ssese Islands
- African Braids
- Kampala – Uganda’s Capital
Written by Julia Heuritsch | Last edited: 15th July 2022