There's so many big things to try and write about, but right now I will try and answer some simple questions.
What's the weather like?
Pleasantly hot, I would say. It is slightly humid; just enough that you don't need much lotion but not so much that the air is thick. It is certainly more hot than cool when walking around, and the middle of the day or walking around one can get kind of uncomfortable. But the mornings and evenings are quite pleasant, and the constant breeze off the lake is very pleasant.
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What's the food like?
When we've eaten at a restaurant, the menu seems to read something like:
chicken
chicken stew
goat meat\meat, 1 kg
beef meat, 1/4 kg
and so on and so forth, through a few different meats. All of these things seem to come with chips, and perhaps a garnish of vegetables. Perhaps rice might also be listed, but isn't actually available. There might be a few Indian dishes as well. Small roadside stands sell chapatis, which I think are tortilla-like with eggs inside, although Emerson didn't think we should order one so I don't know, little bags of popcorn, and highly sweetened and flavored and colored yoghurt that you drink out of the bag. For breakfast, people seem to eat very square white bread, with jam or plain dipped in tea.
What about shopping?
There are a few areas along the long Ggaba Road that seem to be commercial centers (and then long stretches with not much). There will be 20 or 50 small shops bunched together, with maybe a supermarket in the middle. The shops are between 4 feet and 12 feet square, and are made of everything between a concrete block with holes for several shops, or little sheds made of tin, and some have an iron grate over the entrance so you do business in special holes in the grate. They sell all kinds of things: vegetables, phone cards, hair styling, internet, plastic boxes, dresses, soda, dairy, bread, tools, snacks, etc. The "supermarket" near our house has a sign with a charming family happily pushing a shopping cart through an aisle stocked with many colorful things, which obviously is not the supermarket in question because a shopping cart would not fit inside. There are about four aisles of things, with other goods around the edges. It seems like the supermarket is the place to buy things that are not fresh, like rice and salt and jam and laundry powder.
How do you get around?
The option that is most easily presented to us is to have someone call a car and driver, but since that costs about $40 I am trying to not do that more than necessary! It does not actually seem that necessary. Many people take the "boda-bodas," which are little motorcycle scooters, but so far I think that is one step beyond my safety radar. This side of town is called Gaba Road, which is very accurate, as it is one long road, with only a couple of branches off of it which are large enough for cars. Shared taxis, or mini-busses, run up and down this road. There might be some subtlety to how these run, but it seems like if you stand on the side of the street in the direction which you are going, the minibus that comes along is also going in that direction. A "conductor" yells out "where you go?" and if you answer, you can get on the bus (if you don't answer, you're probably walking). We rode the bus at rush hour, and it was crowded but badly; there were probably 4 people sitting in a row designed for 3, but everyone's bum was in contact with the seat and no one was standing or hanging out the doorway or off the bumper. But from here we can walk to most of the normal places we've been going so far.
What is walking like?
Ggaba Road is paved, but none of the other roads are, although sometimes there will be a random block of cobblestones or something. The roads are all orange dirt, pitted with deep channels where the water would drain down, which sometimes is at the edge of the road and sometimes isn't. Cars, motorcycles and bicycles all go by (as fast as possible, which luckily is not very fast), but most of the traffic is on foot. Everyone walks as though they were gently floating through a lake of molasses... in other words, they walk at the pace they would if holding their two-year-old's hand, or carrying a large load on their head, even when there are no small children or stacks of firewood attached.
How do you communicate?
English is the official language of the country, and almost everyone seems to speak at least a little. The roadside stand propetiers might only know a few words, but even there I haven't met anyone who has held up fingers to indicate numbers or something like that. Most people seem to have a conversational grasp of the language, and many of them speak English quite fluently. In fact, I am surprised that often I hear groups of Ugandans, such as the various men installing our washing machine, speaking to each other in English rather than Luganda -- even though at other times they are speaking Luganda, so apparently they all know that language too. It seems like many people have come to Kampala from the countryside, where many different languages are spoken, so either English or Luganda is a second language to many of them, so they switch back and forth.
What do you mean by "English"?
Aha, that is the real question. It is kind of related to British English, like that the trunk of the car is called a boot. It is kind of not related to anything else that I might have heard. Not only is the accent dramatically different, but also the grammar is slightly changed around, and there are words that are different from either British or American English. AND they all mumble and speak softly.
What are the people like?
Well, first of all I think they are very beautiful. I don't know if that's a stereotyping observation, but sometimes I just want to stare at all the people going past because their features are so striking and their hair is so fascinating and their skin is so smooth and lovely. They are also very friendly. First of all, there are things like calling out "hello Bay-bee! How you doing today?" as we go by all the time, and the little children who cry "hello, mzungo, hello mzungo, helloz mzungo" until it is time to cry "bye mzungo! bye mzungo!" instead. (Emerson is bay-bee all day long; I am sometimes ma'am, but sometimes people address me as mama, as I obviously am one! Mzungo means "white person.") But there is also another layer of friendliness: the waiter who asks genuinely interested questions about Emerson's legos, or the man with the boat who offers us a ride and then tells us about his house across the lake.
What about those really annoying things, like cigarette smoke and ogling men?
These actually haven't been nearly as bad as I had expected. I occasionally smell cigarette smoke, and obviously since all the buildings are pretty open the smell gets around, but people aren't sitting around on street corners or in restaurants smoking all day long. Unfortunately, someone near our bedroom does light up in the evening. Yuck. As for the ogling, rude stares and catcalls, I have only gotten the hint of a stare and nothing more. Fellow female travelers, if you come here and do not encounter such a pleasant result, it's probably because you've forgotten to go everywhere holding the hand of a small child.
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