Kampala, You Beautiful Mess
god i'm exhausted. been dragging my suitcase through *kampala for three days straight, and i still don’t know if i love this place or if it just hasn’t killed me yet. the humidity is like breathing through a wet sock, but somehow that just makes me want to stay longer. maybe it’s stockholm syndrome, maybe it’s the fact that the guy at Mama's Corner sold me ugali that tasted like my grandmother made it.
it’s currently 17.23°C and feels like someone poured lukewarm soup on my face. perfect, right? if you’re into that kind of thing. i checked my phone for weather updates seventeen times today and every time it just quietly mocked me with 94% humidity. i’ve grown to resent the sea level pressure sitting smug at 1012 hPa, like it didn’t have anything to do with this existential fog i’m currently wading through.
i’m staying in a hostel off makerere road, and my ugandan neighbor bangs on my door at 6am to ask if i want tea. that tea turned into a two-hour conversation about cassava prices and street dogs with anxiety issues. this man should run a podcast. he told me “if you get sick of this place, *entebbe is just a boda ride away.” which is true, but only if ‘sick of this place’ means overstimulated by motorcycles and scent memories of roasting groundnuts.
someone with suspiciously good skin told me that if i'm not eating at Giovanni’s, then i’m doing my stomach a disservice. so obviously i went. twice. the lasagna? life-changing. and slightly illegal, based on what the waiter whispered to the guy in the kitchen. Giovanni himself still lives upstairs, apparently. shows up with tea and dad jokes if you stay after 9.
if you’re not careful, you’ll spend your whole day following drum rhythms from *nakasero market like they’re breadcrumbs through a fever dream. a kid with a smile like a flashlight warned me “oyy, don’t trust the map guy unless you wanna end up in *nansana with a goat.” i have no idea if that’s metaphorical. i’m starting to question everything.
the *seasoned ghost hunters of kampala swear this place has vibes - not just spiritual, but almost literal vibrational interference from all the welding and matatus honking outside your window. the vibe is...unrelenting. which is why despite the grnd_level sitting somewhere around 879 hPa, i can’t quite* get myself to leave. kampala’s not charming. it’s not polite. it’s exhausting and sticky and chaotic. and if i never write another coherent sentence, it’s because i spent my last mental joule arguing with a taxi driver about whether beyoncé or burna boy fits better on his speaker system.
i’m not gonna lie, though. if you’re the kind of person who likes your travel destinations like a punch in the face by reality - with a side of goat-footprint handprints and chai served strong enough to survive in outer space - then this is your sweet spot. for real, don’t sleep on this place. check out what Visiting Uganda has to say about it, but don’t blame me if you end up staying a month.
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