Kampala

The city drapes itself over hills and small valleys, covering them in patches of rust-coloured metal roofs, dusty soccer fields, and green lawns. Its roads circulate in loops and branches, fading outwards into towns where young children plod alongside, carrying the day’s water on their heads in yellow plastic gas jugs. Universal primary education means that those able to afford uniforms, pens, paper, and books, will spend the next few hours at school. The other forty percent will help their parents in houses and fields, collecting firewood, and playing at the side of roads that slowly spiral back into the city.

Soccer Field

Children with branches rolling used bicycle tires along the dirt road gradually give way to Matatus, fourteen passenger minivans that race with reckless disregard for obstacles and each other into the city’s heart, a sea of white metal, where all routes converge. Here ordered chaos reigns. The unwary find themselves startled and sandwiched between white behemoths while vendors hawk their wares, oblivious to the chaos, as they gracefully weave through the whirling traffic.

Central Taxi Park

Along the sides of the park, stretching throughout the downtown core, street vendors recline next to mats covered in cuff links, prayer books, wallets, and bibles. Next to them are newspapers, weighted down with shards of broken glass to keep them from escaping in the breeze. The New Vision proudly proclaims the government’s accomplishments. The Daily Monitor decries its excesses. The Red Pepper falls back on Freud, selling the latest crimes, collisions, and scandals with only the most graphic photos that can be found to illustrate them. The truth lies somewhere in between. No one seems certain what it is but it makes for lively discussion.

Never empty, conductors attract new passengers to the minivan taxis, proclaiming their destinations in a chant: Kamwokya Ntinda Bokoto, Kamwokya Ntinda Bokoto, Kamwokya Ntinda Bokoto. As the tarmac arteries leave the city’s heart, its few towering buildings give way to smaller blocks of flats. Motorcycles and Matatus circulate through the routes, carrying passengers at breakneck speeds in chaotic flows where signaling is optional. Sometimes necks are broken. More often it is legs, arms, and hips.

For these unlucky many, the destination is Mulago, the country’s largest hospital. Here wounds are tended and illnesses treated with whatever supplies are available. Between its large central building and outlying clinics, the hospital covers a hillside. Spread out on the grass between the cilincs, visitors wash laundry in plastic buckets, leaving clothes to dry on the lawn.

The Grounds at Mulago

Storks, ungainly, awkward, and even ugly on the ground, swoop gracefully through the sky overhead. To them the hospital must seem a small sea of bed sheets dotted by red-roofed clinics. Some of these birds will stop to land less than a kilometer away near our house, attracted by the prospect of a quick snack at the garbage pile generated by our buildings.

Storks near our Flat

At the end of the day we follow the same route on the ground, returning to an apartment in this anonymous block of brown flats. Peopled by Ugandans, South Asians, and even the occasional white foreigner, it’s an open, friendly, and welcoming community.

Our Flat

This evening we’ll walk up the hill, along the wooden shops that line the road outside. At the top is the hotel from which we access the Internet. On the way back down the sun will have set. With no power tonight, the road will be left in darkness, creating an effect I have seen in no other city on Earth. Buildings powered on distant hillsides will shine in small patches of light as they salute a vast field of stars above.

The Dark Continent

The first thing noticeable when flying over Toronto by night is a vast patchwork quilt of lights, twinkling in grids and swirls, condensing into the heart of downtown, and fading into distant farmland. Flying over Dubai in the daytime, I had been greeted by a city rising out of endless sand dunes to confront a tranquil sea. From the moment the captain had announced our descent over Entebbe, I had been eagerly peering out the window, awaiting my first sight of the sparklings lights that would outline my new home.

The first thing noticeable when landing in Entebbe at night is that nothing is noticeable at all. There was neither the vast Ugandan landscape, nor the sparseness of the airport. In fact, until the moment the plane touched down on the runway, I remained in that same position, peering out the window, wondering when the cloud cover would part. It took me a moment to register that the bumps I’d felt were the plane landing and that the few small rectangular lights I saw approaching us were the main airport building.

My classmate, Amna, and I were met at the airport by Fred, our driver for the thirty-two kilometer journey into the capital, Kampala. It was around the tenth kilometer that I became aware of the street lights. They were along the meridian in the middle of the road, looking much as they do anywhere on Earth, with one important exception. Not a single one of them was on.

Kampala is a city of contrasts. Populated by apartments and villas along its main streets and hilltops, the bulk of its citizens live in metal-roofed shacks. It contains the potential for nearly every modern convenience. There are restaurants serving everything French to Indian cuisine, a bowling alley, movie theatres playing the latest Hollywood blockbusters, and street vendors selling roasted maize. There are large illuminated billboards and traffic lights that drivers mostly ignore. One can only partially blame the drivers though as half the time, the lights are not on.

Power generation here is unable to meet the city’s demand. The result is a series of scheduled rolling blackouts throughout the area that from what I understand are becoming more, rather than less, frequent. Imagine the effect on a small business office, government department, or even budding young restaurant when refrigerators, computers, and lights are only operational every other day.

Amna and I will be here over the coming weeks, learning everything we can about how medicine is practiced in Uganda. Having arrived here only ten days ago, it’s still a novelty for me to live by candlelight every second night. For the hospital workers, government employees, and budding Ugandan entrepreneurs, I can only imagine the frustration.

Last week we began shadowing Mulago hospital’s orthopaedic residents as they made rounds through the casualty wards. There are diseases and injuries here that one would never see back home. Most of them we would consider unnecessary and preventable. The doctors here, with knowledge, textbooks, and communications from Europe, North America, Australia, and Asia are aware of it. They’re also disturbingly matter of fact about it. “Come here. Have a look at this. In your country this infection would have been caught in the early stages. Here it has progressed for six months before the boy’s family decided to send him for treatment.”

The children are perhaps the most surprising, both tough and resilient. We saw a boy last week. The middle third of the bone in his lower-right leg was completely exposed from an open fracture linked to infection. He barely flinched as the doctors removed his bandage to probe the wound. He moaned slightly once or twice. After several minutes, I think I saw a single tear from the pain. There was another young boy the following day in the admissions ward. He couldn’t have been more than five years old. He smiled ear to ear when he saw the strange white people arrive. His right leg had been amputated the previous day.

The people here are some of the friendliest I have seen anywhere. There is a warmth to them that is sometimes guarded but very genuine. I’m wondering how much of it comes from their faith. Every small minivan bus sports a sign with slogans from “God makes wealth,” to “Jesus saves.”

For now, just a short note to let you all know that I’ve arrived safely and to apologise for the long delay in restarting my posts. Though there’s much to tell, I once again find myself in the process of trying to think my way around a new country, context, and culture. Pictures, anecdotes, and thoughts will hopefully start to flow again once I’ve begun to work out how best to convey the experiences here. For those who would like to be in contact, please don’t hesitate to send an e-mail or post a comment to the blog. We’ve purchased a cell phone and can also be reached at 011-256-71-206-1040. The time difference is seven hours.

I hope this finds you all well. Misnamed though it now is, welcome back to the blog.

Map of Uganda