Exploring Kampala

I had expected to be helping out at Pastor Paul’s orphanage during my time here, but I am not needed.  This has left me with nothing to do for the whole time I am waiting for my new passport.  The pastor and his wife are too busy to show me the town, so I decided to start looking around by myself.  As far as I know there is no organised tourist route in Kampala, so I had no idea where to begin.  I had been recommended by an American friend to go to a particular shopping mall in town which has an excellent bookshop, called Garden City Mall, so I decided to make that my starting point.  I walked down to the main road and hailed a boda.

Boda drivers waiting for customers

It was quite a long trip and certainly the most hair-raising so far.  To those of you who are thrill-seeking theme park fans, you would love bodas, particularly in Kampala.  We dodged all over the place, within centimetres of other fast moving bodas and other traffic.  I was looking around the whole time, trying to spot landmarks to remember the route and gradually get my bearings.  This is very difficult as the town is built on hills which are very similar in shape and height and with similar buildings for the most part.

We eventually arrived at Garden City, which is right in the centre of town near the government buildings and up-market hotels.  It is a slice of Western life, including Pizza Hut and various other chains.  I saw more westerners than I have seen in my whole time in Uganda or South Sudan so far, all presumably homesick for a bit of western civilisation.  I can’t say I feel the same.  I have no hankerings in that direction at all, which is just as well as the prices are way beyond my means.

The bookshop was very good.  It is similar to Waterstones but with a very large religious section.  I could see why my missionary friends like it.  I spent a long time browsing and then bought a very cheap guide to Kampala and a mathematics text book to take back for my class in Nimule.  As I was not expecting to teach maths when I came, I only brought English books with me, so this will fill a very necessary gap.  Although the shops and restaurants in the shopping mall are too pricey for me, it is a very useful place to know about for the rest of my time here as it has toilets.  Generally, public toilets are very hard to come by and extremely unhygienic, so this is a very important thing to know about.

I sat and looked at the guide and saw that lower down the hill there are cheap eating placesI found a very nice café serving a variety of local dishes and chose a beef pilau.  It came with a delicious but rich sauce in a side bowl.  It was a very good, but heavy meal.  .  I decided to take another boda and visit the Catholic Cathedral after lunch.  

The cathedral was built by French missionaries in the Romanesque style and is the largest church I have seen in Africa so far.  The missionaries were invited to come by the king of the Buganda tribe, the majority tribe of southern Uganda.  Many died on their way here.  A guide took me around.  He told me the terrible story of the UgandanMartyrs whose history is very much linked to the local area.  

Catholic Cathedral

Original Epistle, present from the Pope

I walked around the outside of the Cathedral and found a small handwritten sign pointing to the Cathedral Museum.  I am so glad I spotted it, as it was very easy to miss.  The museum is small but fascinating.  I highly recommend it to anyone visiting Kampala.  It is essential to be guided around as the displays are chaotic and everything needs explanation.  It is the most disorganised museum I have ever visited, more like somebody’s lumber room than anything else.  The items range from complete trivia to really serious treasures.  There are vestments worn by Pope Paul VI on his visit, a half-finished bottle of coke drunk by Pope (now Saint) John Paul II and many, many more things.  To me the prize of the collection was a present from St John Paul II of an original parchment copy of one of St Peter’s epistles.  What a generous gift!  It says a lot about the importance of his visit.  If Popes make a habit of giving away such important treasures, there will be nothing of value left in the Vatican.

The next day I visited the Kasubi Tombs (tombs of the royal family of the Buganda) and the Anglican Cathedral.  This was pot luck, as I had boarded my first Kampala minibus with no idea where I would end up.  My plan to get off when I saw something interesting paid off when I saw the Cathedral looming above the road.  The guide book very misleadingly said that they were close together, but in fact they are a couple of kilometres apart, requiring another boda.  The Anglican Cathedral was closed due to major restoration work in the interior, so I was only able to see the outside.  Like the Catholic Cathedral it is built at the top of a hill with fantastic views.  

Ceremonial Drum store made of reeds

The royal family of the Buganda are still very much alive and a source of great pride to their tribe.  Their Kabaka (king) has his own government and runs a country within a country.  He even has his own police force.  The tombs are listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.  A few years ago there was a catastrophic fire which claimed the most important of the tombs, that of the Kabakas themselves.  Under supervision from UNESCO and with international funds, it is being completely rebuilt.  The other buildings are equally fascinating though.  I entered through the Guard House, which is beautifully made of reeds and thatch.  Next to it is a Drum Hut, where the ceremonial drums are kept.  In the grounds is a cemetery for royal relatives, looking much like any western cemetery.  Traditionally widows of previous Kabakas live here and look after the tombs.  Past generations of Kabakas were polygamous, so there are many widows.  I saw several of these women and their extended families who also live there.  They grow crops in the same compound to support themselves.  My guide showed me an exhibition of traditional pictures, done on paper made from sheets of fig tree bark.  If I were a tourist, they would have made excellent presents.

I ate lunch in the Catholic Cathedral café before relaxing in a shady spot in the grounds.  It was the hottest day since I came to Kampala and I had been fooled by the weather of the past week into expecting cloud cover.  I got badly burnt as I had left my hat and suncream behind.  I won’t make that mistake again.

There are still more places to visit, which I will do over the next few days.  I must definitely visit Lake Victoria and the National Museum.  I am saving the National Museum till last as it is right next to the British High Commission where I will be fetching my passport.