Staples Street

About 30 seconds in I questioned why I listened to Damen.  My new buddy Damen works in a tiny little office in Central Kampala, impossible to find if you don’t already know him.

Let’s back track a bit.  When leaving my dentist appointment with cleaner teeth than I’ve had in years, my driver was making several phone calls.  At this point, I wished I had been studying Luganda because I hear my name in these conversations but nothing of the content.  John is the same driver I had the first time I came to Kampala.  He is professional, polite, punctual and provider of all things except conversation.  He is oh so quiet all the time, only speaks when he needs information about our destination or when spoken to.  I try to make conversation with him but he seems more interested in quiet and focusing on driving.  Maybe the quiet is nice, helps me listen to the sounds of the city around me.  And although he knows the city much better than I do obviously, I can’t help but think we are sometimes driving in circles, backtracking or just plain lost; maybe it’s just this hilly maze of a city but we do always get there.

Staples Street

We arrive to what I like to call ‘Staples Street’, a straight, long one-way street with shop after shop selling stationary and school supplies.  Paper Place, Staples Street, School City, Homework Hub – I like alliteration and making up names for new places.  When we pull aside next to a row of motorcycle taxis, here known as boda bodas, a tall man is waiting for me – so that’s what those phone calls were about.  John leaves me to go park somewhere and wait for me; I will call him when I’m finished.

This man whose name I can’t recall takes me deeper into the maze.  Scattered between the shops are entrances to buildings with more shops.  We enter one building and ascend the staircase.  It is a dizzying experience on your first go.  Not only are there more stationary shops, others sell laminating services, engravings, book binding and more.  Sprawled out within the open air space, countless women sit together swiftly stamping books, stapling what looks like geometry packets and packing boxes of school textbooks.  It is the week before the school year starts in Uganda and so I wonder if the chaos and scurrying around is in preparation for school to start or if it’s always like this.

No matter, the man takes me up a flight a stairs and back into a small office where I meet Damen, the man who will make stamps for me.  He is polite, greets me with a big smile and takes my order.  The man who brought me here was already gone and I didn’t see him again the rest of the time I was on Paper Ream Road. There is no shopping around for the best price or seeing what the other shops offer; when you know nothing about where you are and know you wouldn’t have found it on your own but were helped by a series of people, you take the deal.  

When Damen tells me the price of the stamp, I don’t really know what to think.  Is it a good deal?  Is he charging me more because I’m a foreigner? Because I’m white?  What’s that conversion rate again because my heart still palpitates every time I hear the word ‘thousand’ even though I know it doesn’t so mean much here.  I gently push with the price asking oh so cautiously, ‘Oh really, I didn’t think it would be so much!  Is that the best price you can give me?’  He politely informs me that is the price and I agree to it.  I’m still trying to convert the price in my head but what difference does it make really?  I don’t know how much it costs to make a stamp in any country that I’ve lived in and I need one here and now in this country. 

We finish our arrangements and I ask for his advice.  I need school supplies.  I research students and schools and I need supplies.  I want a recommendation where the prices are fixed and fair.  He knew exactly where to send me; Damen tells me that’s where he goes.  I slowly leave his office wondering if I will find the place.  I do.

My shop is the one overflowing with customers moving up and down the stairs.  I try to patiently wait in line and wonder if I shouldn’t have listened to Damen. This shop is busy (understatement) and tiny while some others are more spacious, with fewer customers trying to get the attention of the one or shop attendants (Staples City somehow has pretty much all female shop attendants).  Besides, I don’t like to be rushed when shopping (ask my mom!) and I like to touch what I'm buying first, not point to it from afar.  Maybe I should risk getting ripped off at another store.  

It’s at this point that I think of the women who welcomed me into their kraal (village compound) up north and demonstrated to me how they cook when they have food.  When. They. Have. Food.  

Here's what the cooking area of the compound looked like when I arrived.

On that visit last year, I saw no signs of food or nourishment in any hut throughout the compound.  I read last night that the World Food Programme feeds approximately 2/3 of the people in the region where I'm moving.  Besides their land and lifestyle being altered or taken away since the British arrived and all the conflict that has left them with little resources, climate change is real.  The rain is gone.  Imagine someone demonstrating to you how they cook, when they have food.  There's some perspective.

Here the mother at this home demonstrates how the cooking is set up when there is food.

Empty USAID can delivered by the World Food Programme.

Spending more money than necessary or wasting money for my convenience was now so shameful, such a petty thing to get anxious about…a crowded little shop.  I waited like the rest and then purchase the fixed priced items.  As I waited for my items to be boxed up for me, I took a stroll down the street just to check the place out and see if any other stores looked interesting to me.  Damen was right.  Our store was packed; and the others?  Not so much at all really.