The Various, Curious and Spurious – Sex and Food

In this series of posts I have decided to bundle together some of the random flavours of Uganda. This practice will be entirely at odds with the modern socio-anthropological practice, which abhors pointing fingers at other cultures’ curios and idiosyncrasies and prefers to look at them as comprehensive, self-explanatory systems, where nothing is ‘weird’, just yet not understood. Good for them. I will nevertheless revert to pre-Bronislaw Malinowski techniques of those good old fashioned nineteenth century armchair anthropologists who found utmost pleasure in trying to make sense of the quirkier, more colourful and unusual aspects of ‘exotic cultures’. With all due respect, that just makes for a better read than Levi-Strauss.

This is a rather eclectic combination of facts, images and impressions that have surprised, intrigued or amused me during my travels. While some of them are peculiar to Uganda, others I have observed Africa-wide and others are just non-European. But they all make Uganda a colourful, fascinating and perplexing place.

Relationships

The Saturday editions of the two main newspapers, the government New Vision and the independent Daily Monitor, have a rather sizeable agony aunt and matchmaking inserts. These make for a fascinating read.

Firstly, white is still in demand. For example, in the recent issue out of 23 ladies 11 were searching for a white man, out of which two requested that he be wealthy too. The guys were less fussy, only 6 out of 40 wanted a ‘beautiful white lady for love’. Secondly, most of the posts contain a note that HIV test is a must. Not so surprising when one considers, that despite commendable government and NGO efforts (on the Kenyan-Ugandan boarder there is a free condom-dispenser, although I do wonder why there) still over 6.5% of Ugandans are thought to be HIV positive. This also explains, why there are three categories of match-adds ‘man seeks woman’, ‘woman seeks man’ and ‘HIV positive’. ‘Man seeks man’ does not feature but that should not surprise you if you recall that Uganda made headlines worldwide with its attitude to homosexuals not that long ago. Lastly, the adds also often contain tribal affiliation requirement, for example Acholi, Langi or Mukiga; more often so than religious, although adjective ‘God-fearing’ is used in many.

This is a subject meriting its separate entry but it is worth noting that Uganda (and Kenya) has a striking number of single mothers. This problem has been raised by many women with whom I have spoken and their explanation is usually poverty and the fact there are more women than man out there. If there is a husband, the families are usually large (the record so far was a man who claimed to have 24 kids with 3 wives, second came a policeman with 12 kids with one wife) but I have also spoken to many girls of my age struggling to make-do while also caring for one or two love-children. Ugandan law provides for them in theory but in practice tracking a run-away dad is next to impossible, in particular if he has enough money to pay bribes. As in many developing societies, boys are still preferred to girls, the explanation given being that the girl leaves the household (i.e. supports her husbands parents in their old age) and usually brings a lesser return on educational investment (women earn less, especially if they have children). Sadly, many women seem to be convinced that, given the large number of NGOs dealing with orphans, their children would be better off without any parents.

Bus Rides and Hawkers

I love riding buses and matatus, despite their smelliness, hard seats, crowds and long waiting times, for two reasons: the views and bus-stop hawkers. Not much to be said about the views in general (they are pretty) but the hawkers are fascinating. Whenever a vehicle pulls up en route to let people off or on, its sides get flooded with a throng of sellers trying to reach its windows and offer their wares to the passengers sitting within. They mostly sell food, although other articles, like watches, belts, perfume and live chicken also feature. The nicest thing about them is that the hawkers are not aggressive or persistent in the slightest, a polite ‘no, thank you’, or even a smile and headshake is enough to make them turn their attention elsewhere. Given the fierce competition between them (there are usually many people selling the same thing) this is rather surprising. It makes me wonder if the profits, at least in some villages, are not shared somehow or if there is not a rotation system in place.

In any case, travelling on an African bus is like being in a moving restaurant. You don’t have to move from your seat to be able to enjoy refreshments and local tastes. You can start the journey by stocking on biscuits, water and chewing gum, which local boys carry on their shoulders in cardboard boxes. The drinks are usually nice and cold but you should always check if the seal is unbroken. As you stuff yourself with cookies, you might want something more watery – that’s when you could reach out for fruit which is sold either as fruit salad on trays (watermelon, papaya, avocado, durian and carrots (don’t ask me why carrots)) or separately (good luck fitting a durian through those little windows). After a couple of hours its time for something more substantial: there are chucks of meat on a stick (goat, beef, liver (yuck!) and chicken), roast sweet-corn (my favourite), roast bananas (one of the basic staples), chapattis (pancakes) or roasted cassava. Should you feel that has not been sufficient, you can always fill up on deep-fried locusts, peanuts and pumpkin seeds, or popcorn. There are also muffins, banana doughnuts (yummy) or mandazis for dessert.

Stuffing yourself too much however might not be advisable as there are usually no toilet breaks and if there are the bus just stops on the side of the road and both men and women squirt in the plain view (you are lucky if there are bushes). Instead, you can always buy that live chicken (usually three in a bunch tied by their legs) for later.

African Christmas Carol II

The list of selfless, kind acts bestowed upon me by Africans and Mzungus alike continues:

18. A very special mention needs to be made of Chris in Juba, a manager of one of the campsites. The campsites in Juba are not actually for camping as it turns out (but for self-contained permanent tents), so it was only thanks to him bending the rules that I could stay there for a fraction of the usual price (which is extortionate) in my own tent. Not only that, for the 5 days I was there he shared his food with me (matooke!), bought me sodas, allowed me to drive his car (admittedly he just did not like to drive himself and had to) and showed me the town. He treated me more like a daughter and a friend than a paying guest and I hope we will remain friends for a long time.

19. Juba is full of friendly people and another such couple were the charming Ethiopians who were working in a stone quarry at the foot of the Juba J’bel. When I wandered onto their yard trying to find the way up the mountain they not only opened the locked back door for me to shorten my way but also invited me to tea should I make it back from the top in one piece. I did, and the tea, hot and sweet, was a much appreciated gift. As was their company and stories of Juba they shared.

20. To get to the said quarry I had to walk a rather long way from the edge of Juba in blistering sun. I thought I did not mind the walk until I felt quite dizzy and light-headed. Luckily, in the very same moment a car pulled up and a busines-like looking Egyptian enquired with bewilderment and disbelief as to the purpose of my ambling on the side of the road. Although he could not believe I just want to climb a mountain, and especially in that heat, he offered me a lift to the foot of it – even though he was much more convinced I should be going back to where I came from (and that means my hotel not Europe).

21. Thanks to another small but very touching gesture I obtained a pillow from a fellow-traveller. Hamish (his hat pictured), a New Zealander, was leaving for his green island; his tent disappeared from the Mombasa backpackers silently in the middle of the night and all that was left of Hamish was a pillow carefully balanced on the top of my tent. It served me faithfully for over 5 weeks!

22. In a matatu in Juba a lady who I smiled at apologetically (I was very dirty for climbing from the hill and was afraid I will get her spick and span clothes soiled) paid the fare for me before I could realise and protest. She too told me it is silly and of no practical value to hike up the hill.

23. Even thought I have already made an aggregated mention of those nice people who gave me lifts in their means of transport, Khalid and Saddam need to be mentioned separately. They have not only given me a lift, but also, as I recount in the previous post, paid for my hotel, fed me in a local restaurant and then went on a detour to put me safely on a boat to Lamu. And all that while telling me lots of interesting things about Kenya and its construction business.

24. On the very same matatu that saw me fighting with my hair I was given, by a different lady, a bottle of water. She was buying one for herself and only thought it natural to buy one for me too.

25. and 26. Food sharing is a strong social obligation in East Africa. I was told a story of a big man who was rich and powerful but who was one day seen eating at a restaurant on his own – he did not invite those passing by to come and eat with him and from that day on lost his influence and his riches dwindled as he was no longer a trusted businessman. In Africa one either eats surreptitiously in one’s own hut or out in the open but then communally. Yet the prevalence of this social convention does not belittle the niceness of the many sharing gestures. Two instances are most vivid in my mind; the first was the sharing-game I played with a lady sitting next to me on a bus from Kabale to Kampala. I offered her a packet of biscuits, then she bought me a maize, I offered to buy her soda and she shared her peanuts. Then she bought a packet of fried locusts, which I shared only symbolically, claiming after two of the crunchy-munchies that I am already absolutely stuffed.
The second kind gesture occurred when I was lying half-dead from heat-exhaustion on a mattress in Soricho. A young, obviously very poor, couple came into my hut to also seek shade and sat down to lunch. On seeing that I am awake they edged closer shyily and laid the black plastic bag from which they were eating out in front of me. It is hard to describe how meagre both in quantity (hardly enough for the two of them) and in quality (crumbles of injera bread with few stringy pieces of goat-meat mixed in) their lunch was but they shared it with a glad heart nevertheless. I did not want to offend them by declining to part-take; I ate just a couple of mouthfuls and offered them biscuits I found in my pocket as my contribution.

27. I was often beckoned to sit down with people eating in local street-side kitchens but I usually declined. In Mbale however, I accepted an invitation to join a group of local men drinking at a big table. I would normally avoid such gatherings but I had just bought some food at the stalls and was looking in vain for a place to sit with my prized chicken and fries. Theirs was the only option. I naturally offered them my food but they declined. Instead they ordered me a drink and then another and then yet another and then insisted these are on them. They were admittedly quite drunk and eager to have a listener who wants to hear more about their views on local politics but this does not make their gift of beer any less kind-hearted.

29. Bill, a walking embodiment of traditional American values and dreams and a true son of the North-West Coast, brought a smile to my face when he expressed his sincere concern about my access to washing facilities. Convinced that as a backpacker I probably have to go around covered with mud due to lack of any decent showers (while I was walking around covered in mud out of my own free will) he offered me the use of the Serena Hotel luxury amenities (swimming pool!) after my Murchinson Falls trek. He also treated me to dinner in a lovely restaurant of the like I had no idea existed in Kampala and made sure I go back to my lavatorily-challenged backpackers hostel in a taxi rather than a boda-boda; alighting from a huge, black, shiny BMW with tinted windows and crawling into my tiny, muddy tent felt surreal and incongruent but I was touched by Bill’s, only slightly excessive, concern.