A polygamy talk and rolling to Kampala

On August 1st, 2009  I rolled to Kampala. On the day before I was awaiting for an opportunity to visit a local orphanage in Jinga. It fell through. I hung out with a few local women at their street vendor booths where very limited veggie and a couple of bunches of banana were lying for sale. There were no customers. Women and their kids were hanging out by the roadside. A few cooking pots were sitting over the wood fire. They can't afford charcoal for fire. Wood fire is slow and it took half day to cook Ugali in the pot. But they were not in a hurry. I chatted with one of the women who is quite open about her life, a typical Muslim African woman's life. Her husband is working in Kampala and comes home once a year or every other year. Her husband has other wives and he sends money to support her and her kids. The Muslim tradition is man should have four wives. All the women have the same story- husband working in Kampala and living with other wives and kids. They raise their kids on their own and supplement the family income by selling some self grown veggies and fruits.
I moved on to my next stop in Uganda- the capital city "Kampala". Kampala is a modern and "confident" city. I stayed at Red Chilli Hostel by mistake. Red Chilli seemed a fully packed summer camp where young students from UK and volunteers and travelers rushed in and out. I was not very interested in any of the tours they offered, let alone they were fully booked anyway. Instead I spent a day in the city, joining locals at a local favorite eatery spot "Antonio's" for lunch, shopping at a local clothing store for a summer dress and having the best fish curry at Haandi. Haandi's fish curries are truly divine and I haven't found better fish curry  else where since then.


There are a lot of "Bozugo" (white people) in the city. Most of them are involved in  some NGO projects. As much as I have a very different view on the volunteering work in Africa, I thought I should probably have some such experience on my own to justify my opinion. Also I would like to stay somewhere for a bit longer on my next stop.  I was on the look out for this type of opportunity.