The Slums of Kampala

Kampala has many slum neighborhoods. The morning after our arrival I walked outside our very cool, very expensive fake-rustic motel room to look down the hill into a slum neighborhood. The first thing that crossed my mind was that Kampala must not have much by the way of zoning laws. I've since learned that zoning laws are non-existent.

The sociologist in me really really wanted to go into the slums. The responsible guardian-type of a now 13 year old, thought it might not be the best idea to do by myself.

It took a while but I finally had an offer for a tour of the slums. Henry, Bry'Chell's school mate lives by one of the slums--his mother has a small hotel on the edge of the slums by Nsambya (the Kampala neighborhood where the American Embassy is located).

Bry'Chell and I were invited to stay at the hotel and Henry offered to show us around the slum. Bry'Chell was less interested in this little adventure than I was. (What else is new.) I agreed to let her stay home and I received the grand tour.

This isn't a slum like the projects of Chicago, or even Watts in south central L.A. The closest thing in my experience is the areas on the edge of Tijuana.

While I was only in one slum, the pattern is similar. Slum neighborhoods are often where poor families moving from rural areas first locate. Rents are cheap--you can find a one-room place for about 10,000 Ugandan schillings a month (about $5), slightly better housing for 20,000. These are not the better places in the slums. Even the slums have levels of housing.

The sights of the slums are not the most obvious characteristic--rather it's the smell. That they have in common the with projects in Chicago, although there's a greater variety of smells in the Kampala slums. Not only are there human smells, there are also animal smells.

Of course, there's the open sewage smell, but there's also the smell of cattle and goats kept in very confined quarters.

There are cooking smells. Most cooking seems to be done on the ubiquitous charcoal stoves that are outside every compound. The food smelled good, but I was a bit concerned about the proximity of open sewers.

During the rainy season, the water washes through the neighborhood, flooding latrines (outhouses) and homes, mixing rain water with sewage and making an all-round unhealthy mix of liquids.

Usually I wear sandals. For the slums I wore gym shoes.

Henry did a great job of showing me the neighborhood. Like any other neighborhood, the kids are curious about me--there's all the bye-muzungu stuff, but these kids seemed to have a greater need to touch me. I'm not sure what that was about, but I try to be friendly to the children so I shook many grubby little hands. In many ways the slum kids were dressed better than the rural kids--well, except for those running around naked.

I stayed at Henry's mom's hotel. It's a small fenced-in compound with several rooms that open into a dirt courtyard. Henry's mom is in the process of adding some rooms in the middle of the courtyard. The rooms are simple but clean. The hospitality was great. His mom is a good cook. I think I had the best matooke with g-nut sauce that I've ever had.

The rooms were not self contained, meaning there was no bathroom in the room. However, the latrines were clean--no smell at all and the bathing facilities, while spartan, were clean and they heated water so I could have a warm bath. Again, this is the bath-in-a-basin type bath. The water was warm and I got clean. That's all I ask.

This is my own personal weirdness, but I found the slums as interesting as many of the more touristy sights we've been to see.