I went to Owino market today hoping to find some fabric to have made into a concert dress and although I came back empty-handed, nevertheless it was quite an experience.
Owino market is the biggest market in Kampala, and it's at the bottom of the hill beyond the Old Taxi Park, where Hiace vans jostle to fill up with passengers so that they can get on their way to their destination. I have no idea how you find which taxi is going where you want to go, or how they get out since they are jammed in nose-to-tail.
I followed my nose through Kampala's busy shopping district to find the market - I'd seen the large grey sloping corrugated steel roofs from the Old Mosque so knew roughly where I was heading. There are two Sikh temples or Gurdwaras nearby, one pink and one cream, and their ornate spires also serve as useful landmarks.
As you go down the hill you pass large multi-story indoor shopping malls - they look a bit institutional with concrete floors and staircases with thick metal railings. Each building houses shops that sell similar wares, so there are several selling electronics all together, and another cluster selling car spares, including tyres. You can enter from one street and then walk through and exit on the street behind. All over Kampala similar types of shop always seem to be clustered together. On one street everyone seemed to be hand-embroidering the long white shirts that I've seen for sale in several Kampala markets.
I got to Owino market about 1pm, which is lunchtime here, and there were ladies scurrying everywhere delivering lunches on china plates to the vendors, with banana leaves on the top to keep the food warm. After lunch the ladies scurried about collecting up the plates and taking them away piled in plastic washing-up bowls.
Although the market is huge, you can't really get lost since the entrance runs up the leftmost edge and the roofed areas run perpendicular, with gullies running along the ground in the gaps between the roofs, for rain and other run-off. You can buy the usual foodstuffs at Owino market; I wandered into the area where they pluck chickens and beat a hasty retreat! There are also stalls selling two foot-long bars of soap - white, brown and bright blue. I saw several stalls selling vessels made from calabashes (gourds) and clay pipes, dried plants, barkcloth and dodgy-looking things preserved in bottles - I'm wondering if they were witch doctors.
There are lots of stalls selling second-hand clothes, which are piled on the floor like a massive jumble sale. They even have stalls that specialize in used bras and nighties...not for me, thanks! In the clothing areas there are banks of women working at sewing machines - it looked like half of them were altering or re-hemming trousers and the other half were making gathered skirts from gaudy cotton fabrics. I couldn't find any fabric that was suitable for a concert dress today - but I'm sure I'll be back.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Grasshoppers
I've been looking out for grasshoppers (the edible kind) ever since I heard about them being a delicacy when I visited the Kasubi Tombs. My colleagues advised me that Nakasero market would be the best place to find fried grasshoppers, and even though it's not currently grasshopper season I was in luck today - possibly thanks to the late rains.
I bought half a containerful and have been snacking on them all afternoon - they are quite nice - crisp fried and savory, like pork scratchings. The legs and wings are removed before cooking and you just munch the whole body.
Nakasero Market is housed in a roofless red building dated 1927 with only two narrow entrances, a little like the old Covent Garden market. Inside the vendors are organized into different sections; as you enter there are stalls selling goat and pork meat along the first row, with neat lines of pigs' trotters hanging from the rafters. Next come stalls with large open hessian sacks filled with rice, fresh shelled beans and peas in hues from pale speckled pink to green, lentils, spices - cumin seeds and star anise - and sugar, as well as different kinds of ground and roasted "g-nuts" or peanuts, which are cooked into a sauce to go over rice.
In the center are the fruit and vegetable stalls, with the usual matoke, bananas, tomatoes, and the most enormous avocados I have ever seen (I bought one which must weigh a pound and a half!). At the left end ladies were cooking up rice and matoke and different sauces for take-out lunches, and at the top were the fishmongers with fresh and dried tilapia, and also chickens that had been freshly killed, drawn, beheaded and plucked - they looked pretty appetising until I noticed that the bloodly carcases were being washed in a tank of not-so-clean water.
While I am not brave enough to try a whole dried tilapia, I did buy some dried whitebait - they caught my eye while I was waiting for change for the tomatoes I bought, and since change was not forthcoming I took it in fishy currency instead. I'm thinking of frying them with eggs and tomatoes for breakfast.
The grasshoppers may have had the last word - I got a bit of a nasty surprise in the pool later in the day when I found that a huge dead locust had somehow floated unseen into the top of my swimsuit...ugh!
I bought half a containerful and have been snacking on them all afternoon - they are quite nice - crisp fried and savory, like pork scratchings. The legs and wings are removed before cooking and you just munch the whole body.
Nakasero Market is housed in a roofless red building dated 1927 with only two narrow entrances, a little like the old Covent Garden market. Inside the vendors are organized into different sections; as you enter there are stalls selling goat and pork meat along the first row, with neat lines of pigs' trotters hanging from the rafters. Next come stalls with large open hessian sacks filled with rice, fresh shelled beans and peas in hues from pale speckled pink to green, lentils, spices - cumin seeds and star anise - and sugar, as well as different kinds of ground and roasted "g-nuts" or peanuts, which are cooked into a sauce to go over rice.
In the center are the fruit and vegetable stalls, with the usual matoke, bananas, tomatoes, and the most enormous avocados I have ever seen (I bought one which must weigh a pound and a half!). At the left end ladies were cooking up rice and matoke and different sauces for take-out lunches, and at the top were the fishmongers with fresh and dried tilapia, and also chickens that had been freshly killed, drawn, beheaded and plucked - they looked pretty appetising until I noticed that the bloodly carcases were being washed in a tank of not-so-clean water.
While I am not brave enough to try a whole dried tilapia, I did buy some dried whitebait - they caught my eye while I was waiting for change for the tomatoes I bought, and since change was not forthcoming I took it in fishy currency instead. I'm thinking of frying them with eggs and tomatoes for breakfast.
African Crafts Market
Behind the National Theatre is a permanent market for African crafts. Today it was overrun with Irish tourists and it was quite a tourist trap; most of the carved wooden animals come from Kenya and the large round faced primitive masks and malachite beads and carvings actually come from Congo. The batiks and beads were not up to the same quality that I've found in other places like the LaBa craft fair and the IDI clinic art stall.
I did find a few treasures that I am fairly confident are genuine Ugandan, and that I haven't seen anywhere else. The Ndere Dance troupe wear cowrie shells in their headdresses and belts (in pre-colonial times cowries were used as currency here) and I found this cowrie shell belt which will come in handy in cinching in my trousers and shorts as I've lost some weight here with all the walking and the healthy diet. The beads are from the IDI clinic.
These pots are handmade at the Mukisa Mpewo Clay Works, a women's project. The pots are fired twice, once to biscuit and then re-fired to black using a wood-fired kiln. They are slightly porous; the one shaped like a calabash is a traditional beer-drinking vessel, and the porosity keeps the content cool through evaporation. The mug has a lovely patina from the firing process.
I did find a few treasures that I am fairly confident are genuine Ugandan, and that I haven't seen anywhere else. The Ndere Dance troupe wear cowrie shells in their headdresses and belts (in pre-colonial times cowries were used as currency here) and I found this cowrie shell belt which will come in handy in cinching in my trousers and shorts as I've lost some weight here with all the walking and the healthy diet. The beads are from the IDI clinic.
These pots are handmade at the Mukisa Mpewo Clay Works, a women's project. The pots are fired twice, once to biscuit and then re-fired to black using a wood-fired kiln. They are slightly porous; the one shaped like a calabash is a traditional beer-drinking vessel, and the porosity keeps the content cool through evaporation. The mug has a lovely patina from the firing process.
The pedaling peddler
Can you imagine a bicycle loaded six feet high with a peddler's wares? One passed me this morning - the rear shelf was carefully loaded up with brightly colored plastic tubs and bowls tied along the handles of half a dozen brooms, their multicolored bristles sticking vertically up into the air like an exotic dancer's feathered headdress, with silver-coated cake boards dangling either side of the rear mudguard.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Bats
Yes, there are bats in Kampala - I saw them flapping across the sunset sky from Jeff's balcony in Kisementi before last night's dinner party.
'nuff said.
'nuff said.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Baha'i and Butterflies
Saturday's inclement weather kept me cooped up in the kitchen for most of the day, so I changed my plans and set out on my ten mile roundtrip hike to the Baha'i temple on Sunday. "You footed it all the way?" asked an incredulous Robert when I stopped at Kamwokya market on the way back, for a lesson in how to butcher a kid goat. Kampala is relatively quiet on a Sunday morning - everyone seems to be getting their car washed after the week's heavy rains and muddy roads, and on the hilltops you can hear music floating up from the pentecostal churches in the valleys.
The Baha'i temple in Kampala is the central temple for Africa, like the other continental centers in Chicago and Germany. There's a smaller Baha'i temple of Uganda right next door. The central temple is a nonagonal building built in the 1950's and set in beautiful gardens atop Kikaya Hill. I happened to arrive in time for the weekly service at 10:30. All nine sets of wooden doors are opened during the service so that you can look out on all of creation outside. The inside of the dome is painted pale turquoise and the interior walls are pale green with blue and green stained glass windows. The service consisted of a series of readings from Baha'i scriptures as well as the Koran and the Bible (Baha'i is an inclusive faith) - today's subject was meditation. The choir sat in the center of the temple and sang in between the readings - the sound was gorgeous, their voices blending and echoing up into the dome like a human organ.
While I was waiting for the service to begin I walked in the gardens, which were full of butterflies. Here are my best butterfly pictures for you to enjoy.
Baha'i is a relatively new religion created in the 1850's by Persian mystic Baha'u'llah. Here's a quote from one of the readings at today's service:
'Through the meditative faculty inventions are made possible, colossal undertakings are carried out; through it governments can run smoothly...Nevertheless some thoughts are useless to man; they are like waves moving in the sea without result. But if the faculty of meditation is bathed in the inner light and characterized with divine attributes, the results will be confirmed. The meditative faculty is akin to the mirror. If you turn the mirror of your spirit heavenwards, the heavenly constellations and the rays of the sun of reality will be reflected in your heart, and the virtues of the Kingdom will be obtained. May we indeed become mirrors reflecting the heavenly realities, and may we become so pure as to reflect the stars of heaven.'
The Baha'i temple in Kampala is the central temple for Africa, like the other continental centers in Chicago and Germany. There's a smaller Baha'i temple of Uganda right next door. The central temple is a nonagonal building built in the 1950's and set in beautiful gardens atop Kikaya Hill. I happened to arrive in time for the weekly service at 10:30. All nine sets of wooden doors are opened during the service so that you can look out on all of creation outside. The inside of the dome is painted pale turquoise and the interior walls are pale green with blue and green stained glass windows. The service consisted of a series of readings from Baha'i scriptures as well as the Koran and the Bible (Baha'i is an inclusive faith) - today's subject was meditation. The choir sat in the center of the temple and sang in between the readings - the sound was gorgeous, their voices blending and echoing up into the dome like a human organ.
While I was waiting for the service to begin I walked in the gardens, which were full of butterflies. Here are my best butterfly pictures for you to enjoy.
Baha'i is a relatively new religion created in the 1850's by Persian mystic Baha'u'llah. Here's a quote from one of the readings at today's service:
'Through the meditative faculty inventions are made possible, colossal undertakings are carried out; through it governments can run smoothly...Nevertheless some thoughts are useless to man; they are like waves moving in the sea without result. But if the faculty of meditation is bathed in the inner light and characterized with divine attributes, the results will be confirmed. The meditative faculty is akin to the mirror. If you turn the mirror of your spirit heavenwards, the heavenly constellations and the rays of the sun of reality will be reflected in your heart, and the virtues of the Kingdom will be obtained. May we indeed become mirrors reflecting the heavenly realities, and may we become so pure as to reflect the stars of heaven.'
Pollution
Walking around Kampala it's hard not to notice the air pollution. People light small smoky bonfires everywhere to burn their trash and garden waste, and there are no smog controls on the vehicles that clog the roads - buses and lorries belch out choking black fumes.
While people drop a lot of litter, there is an army of women that sweep the streets with hand-held reed brushes, as well as cleaning crews that seem to spend their life scrubbing the red mud off entryways and stairs. There's not a lot of industry in Kampala so I haven't seen any chemical pollution, but I've yet to see much of the country beyond the city.
While people drop a lot of litter, there is an army of women that sweep the streets with hand-held reed brushes, as well as cleaning crews that seem to spend their life scrubbing the red mud off entryways and stairs. There's not a lot of industry in Kampala so I haven't seen any chemical pollution, but I've yet to see much of the country beyond the city.
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