Welcome to Kampala

When technology is working, it's like having the world at your fingertips. When technology doesn't work, it’s a really expensive and not all that attractive paperweight. Yesterday my technology was a paperweight and I wanted to chuck it out the window. Today though, it's back in the game.  And I now know that you can indeed have wireless internet in Uganda on any device. All you need is the right gear. For me it was a SIM card from the MTN network, air time credits equivalent to a gigabyte of data for about $18, and my baby...the iPhone. I just couldn’t leave it at home. It’s now both a phone and a wifi hotspot.  My laptop and tablet run off of it. And here in Kampala the wireless internet is pretty fast - as fast as what I’ve experienced in Dublin and the US anyway.

Which makes me wonder...with all the necessary infrastructure in place, are Ugandans tech savvy? Or because $18 is a lot of money for this country, is there still a digital divide?  Over the past few days I've done a bit of unofficial investigation, and what I've found is...mixed. Today I was having lunch with one of my colleagues at CDRN, Loy. Loy is the Administrative Assistant, and her husband is an Electrical Engineer with a beverage processing company here in Kampala. They have five children, four of which are still at home, and the two eldest  sons (one in university and the other about to start university) are typical millennials...they know all about technology and use it as part of their everyday lives. Loy and her husband though use their phones for talking and text and not much else. It's hard to say whether this tracks with the developed world,because many of the people I know are tech savvy, but many of the people I know also happen to work in technology so it's likely a biased sample. And speaking of samples, this is only one middle class family in Kampala. That can't be extrapolated to the rest of Uganda. This is something I’m going to have to suss out this summer as part of the research that I’m doing for CDRN in Kampala.

After a long overnight flight I finally arrived here Friday morning. What an incredible place. It is very different from anything I’ve experienced before.  It is, in some respects, beautiful. From my guest house you can see the red clay tile roofs of houses dotting the hillsides.   Exotic birds call out to each other from the tops of palm trees. It’s very green and lush. But it’s also chaotic and the air is hazy with pollution.

 

We drove from the airport to CDRN through mostly light traffic, with boda boda (motorcycle taxis) weaving in and out around us, dodging people walking on the side of the road. There were no traffic lights and there were no crosswalks, everyone just moved together from place to place, trying to stay out of each others’ way.  As we drove along we passed open air markets that sold practically everything, and every third stand was either a MTN or Orange mobile shop. Topping up cell phones here appears to be a big, but highly distributed business. Take Kenny for example. He works at my guest house but he's also one of the many mobile entrepreneurs here in Kampala who purchase air time minutes from the company at a volume discount and then sell them to the public at market price. He says he loves it because it's "fast cash" supplementing the monthly salary he gets for his guest house work. Kenny's dream is to open a mobile shop - and then after it takes off, to travel the world.

The best part of the experience so far has been the people. Margaret and Cox from CDRN greeted me at the airport with smiles of welcome. They pointed out the different districts in Kampala as we drove - Cox had Ugandan music playing in the background. It was beautiful. 

The worst part of the experience so far is the burning garbage. There really is no trash pickup in Kampala and so all trash is burned. And between the bottled beverages that many people consume and the plastic bags, that’s a lot of burning plastic. Burning plastic smells horrible, but worse yet it has terrible health effects.  It can increase the rate of heart disease, aggravate respiratory ailments, cause rashes, nausea and headaches. It can damage the nervous system, reproductive system, kidneys and liver. It hangs in the air like a thick fog until the rain washes it into the ground and the water system. There is one entrepreneur in Kampala who is beginning to collect plastic bottles for recycling, but I wonder, why aren't Coca-Cola and the other multinational beverage corporations taking responsibility for the environmental nightmare they're contributing to? Why isn't the Ugandan government providing recycling facilities? Do people know the damage that burning plastic does, and if so, why aren't they demanding a solution? I don’t know. That’s another thing I’ll try to suss out from CDRN this summer. This is what they do...citizen engagement.

The staff at CDRN are treating me like a part of their family, and I am grateful to them for it, particularly these first few days while I'm still adjusting to life here in Kampala. They shrug it off and tell me that this is just how guests are supposed to be treated. I love that – I wish that same ethic existed everywhere. Imagine what a welcoming world it would be.