….Everything else is a throwback to earlier times. I am often reminded of the life my grandmother lived when she was a young girl in 1930s Poland. Ugandans that are not wealthy, the majority—those without two-story homes and big fancy Mercedes Benz’s—use tools to clean and cook similar to those grandma likely used in the “old town.” The main type of work is sustenance farming, cleaning, and running a small roadside business. After work women sit on the roadside selling maize on the cob slowly roasted over a coal fire. Commuters sitting in “the jam” place their order from the car (think taxi driver buying a pretzel just outside the Lincoln Tunnel). Other times people walking home on the roadside will stop for a fresh roasted ear. It’s interesting to see how the two worlds (those with cars and driveways vs. those who survive without electricity or running water) intersect. The class-divide, although in existence throughout the world, seems more apparent here. I heard someone say that life in Africa is “life in the raw” and we both now have a very clear picture of what that means. I’m reminded of this phrase often, especially when I walk by dwellings with no privacy: where cooking, bathing, laughing, eating and general living are done essentially in public.
Instruments are seemingly impromptu. Brooms consist of a bunch of straw tied together at the end. Every once in a while a stick is attached to the bundle, but most everyone else I see with the broom, bends at the waist to sweep, sweep, sweep the dust that never seems to go away. Mops are ad hoc too. In the big center-of-town shopping center, much of mall promenade area is outside, covered by an overhang. After it downpours—as it often does for a few minutes every day this time of year—the mall staff is out with squeegees that have an old towel draped over the rubber blade, pushing it around the floor and wringing it over a bucket. I think I’ve seen them clean the floor with soapy water in much the same fashion.
How do I open this can of tuna that I brought 7,000 miles to my kitchen in Kampala? Well, that dull knife used to peel carrots and apples, yeah, that one over there, point it straight down into the inside rim of the can and bang on the butt of the handle. Move it over a centimeter or two and repeat, all the way around the can. Tuna never tasted so good when the work to open it is so palm-numbing. (Editor’s Note: In order to facilitate more quantities of tuna, I broke down and bought a can opener for $1.50.)
Grandma always had a way of getting the grass stains out of my jeans, and was the woman to turn to in order to get the good silverware polished and looking great for the holidays. Now, when I scrub the heck out of my socks and other clothing, I realize that this is a much more efficient way to get those pesky stains out, at least to be certain they come out. Sure there is Tide and Tide with Bleach, GM performs studies and experiments and spends millions of dollars to find the best way for their state-of-the-art machines to get those stains out without elbow grease, but from the looks of my sparkling clean tennis shorts, there is nothing quite like a bar of soap and some knuckle rubbing. It’s too bad I have the cuts on my hands to prove it.
