Photo Field Trip

Last Friday, I decided that it was time to get out of the house and go on another photo field trip.  My photographer friend and night guard, Grace, planned an afternoon of photography downtown that totally made my day!

When we left the house, I only knew that we were headed toward the center of Kampala, but I had no clue as to where we were actually going.  We waited on Tank Hill Road for a taxi (I knew it would be good if we were taking a taxi downtown), but after several full taxis passed us by, we decided to take boda bodas.  Grace negotiated with the drivers in Luganda, so I had no clue that he had already decided a price.  I hopped on and off we sped…literally, sped! I looked back a couple of times as we buzzed along through traffic, and I couldn’t see Grace’s boda anywhere.  As we neared downtown and the streets got narrower and more crowded, I wondered where on EARTH I was going!

After several turns that led me deeper and deeper into a locals-only part of town, my driver stopped and announced that we were “there.”  Where was there? On a very crowded street corner in which I was clearly the ONLY mzungu anywhere in sight! I turned around and looked for Grace…nowhere.  I decided that I was not getting off of the boda until Grace arrived.  I am adventurous (hence the boda and the unknown destination), but I’m not stupid enough to get off and stand there completely alone in a part of town that I clearly didn’t belong.  After a moment, Grace arrived and we paid our drivers.  I paid 4,000 ugx even though Grace negotiated for 3,000…I informed him that I DON’T SPEAK LUGANDAN, so HOW would I have known that?!?

We left the street and went into this shopping mall-type building.  There were shops and masses of people, but to call it a mall insinuates that there was some kind of order, and there was NOT.  We walked up several flights of stairs, I ignored many people who shouted “MZUNGU” at me as we walked, and finally we stopped in this little hair shop.  I met several of Grace’s siblings, and then we moved on up several more flights of stairs.  Finally, we walked all the way to the back of the top floor, and there was a VIEW!

When I saw this, I gasped; definitely not like one would gasp upon seeing gorgeous mountains or the Eiffel Tower, but more in a, “Oh, this is SO African!” kind of way.  See for yourself…

The Taxi Park…

Does it look like chaos? Yeah, that’s because it is!

The men on top of this building were washing stolen bags to sell in the market.  Makes you think twice before buying a “second hand” bag! OH, and the irony was that just below this rooftop on the street was a police station.

I know it seems nutty, but I LOVED this photo field trip!!

The boda boda trip home was a little more interesting than the ride downtown even.  My boda driver made a very poor judgement call, and we ended up colliding head-on (at a low-ish speeds) with another boda boda as the drivers tried to negotiate a narrow strip of road between two massive potholes! Luckily, it was just shocking and no one was injured!