Uganda Time

When I go out to eat, I get impatient if I have to wait more than 15-20 minutes for my food to arrive after ordering. Suffice it to say being here is teaching me whole new levels of patience. On the whole, Ugandan food is quite good and very inexpensive (10000 Ushs for 1 meal = $5.00), consisting of a small amount of protein, either fish, chicken or goat, combined with a large amount of starch, either rice or matoke. There are plenty of restaurants in Mbarara to try, including a great Indian restaurant downtown. After placing your order however, you get to wait……

An hour and a half later, at least in one instance, your food may arrive. This is of course assuming that they have what you ordered. If they do not, you may sit there for quite some time wondering hungrily when your food will come, when you finally reach the breaking point and flag down a waiter to ask, he tells you they did not have what you ordered. Apparently they don’t want to inconvenience you by telling you this; they would rather have you sit and enjoy your conversation, all the while your stomach is growing more and more angry.

This has been a great opportunity for socializing, but I have learned to eat a small snack prior to going out to eat. Dining out is a protracted affair, taking some time to walk into town while dodging boda bodas. The drivers have a limited sense of traffic safety laws, and a flagrant disregard for integrity of life or limb. Walking into town at night can be a harrowing experience. There are very few streetlights in Mbarara, and the ambient light of town is not sufficient to light your path, so it gets very dark at night. You often can’t see the bodas barreling down the road, since some of them do not ride with their lights on. Also, they may or may not have their motors on when coasting down a hill. And I have been told that some drivers are not exactly what I would call sober… All this means that you could be blithely walking down a hill into town only to have a silent but deadly boda careening down behind you, and you may not know until you hear the shrill beep of the horn, causing you to jump instinctively across the ditch at the side of the road to the shoulder of the road. Add to this potholes that are (I am not exaggerating) two feet in each dimension, which are also very difficult to see at night, and you have the makings of an interesting night.

At least I got the phone problem fixed…