So I forgot to tell you the curtain saga. Yesterday we went to Nakasero market which is a hub of activity here in Kampala. There is a little mall of 3 floors that all contain some type of material stores like making curtains or wedding clothes or school uniforms. We needed one set of curtains made and curtain rod and hooks. Seems simple enough but nothing involving shopping is simple here. Hannington went with us at first so we could get a good price. This is a struggle because people always argue about the price when they see us. We picked a fabric we liked for curtains that would go with the others I brought. We argued about the price of the material. When that was settled we argued about the price of the rods. She told us they came in 20 feet length so I calculated and ordered 2. They bring them whole and then cut them with a saw while you wait. We asked how much it would cost to make us a 2 panel curtain. They wanted $6 to make it. Who could argue with that? We told them we wanted it in an hour so off they went to sew it. Of course first it took us 20 minutes to figure out the size from inches to meters. Once all that was settled Angela and I went shopping at all the stores on all three levels looking for a pretty material for our school uniform skirts. It was so hot in there! We could not find anything that was cotton, pretty and matched our shirts or that they had enough of. We were looking to buy 200 meters. We kept checking back at our curtain shop and then they were done. It was actually the right size which was a bonus. They brought the poles. Angela supervised the cutting to make sure they were not cut short. We needed four 7 footers and 2 four footers. It did not work out so they measured again. It turns out that the poles were only 16 and a half feet long, not 20 like she said. Let the arguing begin. She told us that we needed to buy another pole. I pointed out it was her mistake so we should not have to buy another big pole. We called Hannington and he was on his way so we waited more and finally he arrived to take over the arguing. We were starving so I took out a bag of trail mix and we passed it around. I gave the rest of the bag to the lady arguing. She ate it while they bantered. Finally we agreed to buy half a pole at a discounted price. Then all of the sudden she is all smiles and gives me her card, tells us to come again like it was a wonderful shopping experience. Bargaining sure takes it out of me but it is fun sometimes too. We were there about 3 hours at least with half of that time spent bargaining. When I got up in Kampala at the hotel the next day I took another shower and stayed in there for 30 minutes at least. I think I probably got all the dirt off. We watched more tv in the morning waiting for our ride. We got kind of late start. We decided that if we went with Hannington we would just be sitting in the car all day while we escorted the truck to pick up all the stuff we were buying so we had Hann drop us off at the mall. It felt almost normal except for the oppressive heat in every store. We did some price checking, couldn’t really buy anything since we didn’t have the car yet to put things in. We had lunch at the food court. It is an outdoor type place that is covered but the walls are open to the golf course below. We sat by the wall and ordered garlic Naan bread. It was delicious. Then we had a chicken pizza. The food court had a moth invasion. You could see probably thousands on the white paint in the ceiling rafters. I’ve never seen that there before. They were all the same kind of moth. It would be creepy if they all took off at once. It makes me think of the old Birds movie. We went to every store on every level and wandered. We did this for about 5 hours. At one point I bought a book and we went inside a restaurant that caters to foreigners or the wealthy and ordered cold water and apple pie and read our books. When Han came he gave us a heads up so we could start our shopping. He got there when we were just finishing. We loaded the car. He had a terrible day. At one furniture store they made him wait 2 hours to bring him 4 plastic chairs. That is the snail’s pace I was referring to. We still had two more stores to stop at and to get a refill on our propane bottle. We shopped in a hurry so we could get to Nansana before dark to buy our produce. We stay in the car for this so Hann can get “black people” prices. If they see us then the price changes to “white people” prices. Unfortunately guys do not shop for produce like girls do in my opinion. So some stuff is not the freshest or firmest. I do like to squeeze my fruits and vegies before I buy them. He was so tired I don’t think he cared. Driving around in the dark is even scarier than driving around in the day. Why there are not more fatalities is a mystery. There are no street lights normally. You can see fires alongside the road from people selling dinner. The streets are full of people coming home from work, getting dinner or socializing. When a car is coming toward you and people are crossing the street, sometimes too leisurely for my tastes, you can see their silhouette and I hold my breath wanting to yell “HURRY!” I haven’t seen anyone flattened yet but it would not surprise me in the least. Yesterday evening when we were on our way to the hotel, Angela and Hannington both saw a lady walking on the road disappear. She didn’t see the big hole and fell right in. I missed it. Many people here should not be driving at all. So many of the Boda Boda drivers are crazy and the pedestrians crossing the streets with no crosswalks is another nail biter. Some of the things we hear Hannington say every trip: “Today that one meets Jesus”, “There will be blood”, “This one wants to meet his maker”, etc. Maybe I should count how many times he says stuff like that so you can get an idea of how the traffic is. We didn’t get back to Nabisooto until almost 9pm. We unloaded and went to bed.
Posted on: Sun, 06 Apr 2014 17:06:32 +0000
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