On
Thursday my bed was being delivered so I needed some more shillings in order to
pay the carpenter while making sure I could still pay for my commute, so on
Wednesday I caught a boda to Freedom City. The Ugandans have such great names
for their shopping malls: Oasis, Garden City and Freedom City to name the three
I know about in Kampala. As far as I could tell, Freedom City is a great place
to find Kampala’s middle class. The stores sell modern electronics, high end
shoes and the latest western fashions (well as far as I can tell…clearly I’m no
expert on fashion). Despite the pricey items, I was the only mzungu there and
the wealthier class of South Asians in Uganda was also not present which is why
I would classify the customers as middle class. For better or for worse the
upper class are almost all foreigners, political elites and Asian descendant
Ugandans like those whose families were originally from India.
After
getting my shillings I decided to take the opportunity to eat something other
than the Ugandan food at and near the office or the food I cook at home. I
first option I found a take-a-way which best translates as a Ugandan restaurant
that’s prepared to give you a to-go plate. The next was a fried chicken place
that sounded better, but still not quite what I was in the mood for. It looked
like a local or at least regional chain, but they clearly had studied fast food
joints in the west: bright colors and full color menus with pictures of their
various value meal combos. Like other western inspired restaurant, though, as
well as chicken they also sold pizza. I mean,
why not? I wandered a bit more and went up some stairs to a still under construction
portion of the mall. Half of the floor was a construction area, but the half I
found had a restaurant set right in the atrium of the mall adjacent to a “kidz
corner” where there was a play area as well as a small swimming pool. The
manager greeted me warmly and I asked to look at a menu. A lot of western
dishes: hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, pizzas (of course) among other items. I
didn’t want to spend too much and settled on a hamburger.
I took
my seat. You’d think a hamburger should only take a few minutes when a
restaurant is empty, you’d be wrong. In Uganda patience is more than a virtue,
it’s a necessity. Which was alright by me, I read and took in the scene. In
this restaurant they had a multiple flat screen TVs, almost all on the same
channel. When I sat down they were playing Nat Geo Wild showing scenes of the
African safari. Times like these, it’s hard not thinking about my African
studies classes and how many Americans almost immediately think of scenes of
the safari when thinking about the safari. Not long after getting lost in those
thoughts, they changed the channel .They turned to E! in time to catch the E!
Entertainment News. Perhaps this was their caricature of our culture: white
people doing reckless shit, but becoming ever more famous for it. We went from
their safari to ours.
Between
the fried chicken restaurant and this continental restaurant (what I think they
call American/European dishes) I also starting to wonder if income made
Ugandans or anyone better off nutritionally. Ugandan food is very starchy often
some combination of potatoes, sweet potatoes, yam, posho (a porridge made from
corn meal) with a sauce or a few sauces made from g-nuts (groundnuts, their
name for peanuts), a meat broth or a sauce made from beans that have been
cooked down. Occasionally you also get some highly boiled vegetables. The diet
is great at filling you up cheaply and based on only a few staples, but—as the
project I’m working on this summer is trying to address—the diet does not do a
very good job getting people micronutrient. Micronutrients are things like
vitamins and minerals that may not be necessary to keep you alive in the short
term, but a lack of them will make you really sick or kill you if deprived too
long.
As
middle class Ugandans go out to eat more at restaurants like those in Freedom
City, the menus look as if they are eating traditional dishes or eating meat,
cheese and carb centric dishes like hamburgers or pizza. I can’t say with
certainty, but from my limited observations I wonder if eating like Americans
in this less than ideal way is part of living the middle class dream in Uganda.
Except for establishments catering to expats, I never see salads or vegetable
dishes offered on menus. So I keep pondering why money doesn’t promote better
dietary choices and if so what can be done to change that? That and whether
these observations are correct!
