This is a real city

When I came back to Gulu from Kitgum, Gulu felt congested and urban and busy.  Four days later when I traveled to Kampala, it was almost too much for me.  Kampala has about 2 million people, but in an unplanned and developing city with very few traffic regulations, 2 million can be much more intimidating.  Population is also really hard to judge because the last census was in 2000, and they keep trying to do another one but there’s never funding, so the population could be much higher. 

Kampala traffic

This is also the first time I’ve really spent outside of Acholiland, which means that I no longer speak the local language or understand the local culture.  Kampala is in an ethnically Buganda area, and Uganda was actually named Uganda because the Queen of England misread some colonial correspondence and read Buganda as Uganda, so people are fond of saying that Uganda is a historical mistake.  I guess the fact that the entire country was named after a small part of it is just part of the enduring colonial heritage. 

Since we’re here in Kampala, we have visited Bugandan Parliament and the Bugandan King’s Palace.  It’s really interesting to listen to tour guides because they tell a slightly different version of history than Acholis do, and just a few minutes into conversation you can tell that people here first identify with their ethnic group, then as an African, and only later as a Ugandan.  

The only Rolls Royce in Uganda...at the Bugandan Palace