Image: Park behind CJs in Kawokya, Kampala. Photo: Owere Moses (2018)
I’ve lived in a lot of towns. In Mbale, when I was a kid, it was possible to walk from our government house in Indian quarters cross the street, and go to school with a bunch of other kids from that neighbourhood. That neighbourhood was a blend of Ugandans, Arabs and Indians. After school, all kids heading in the general direction of Indian quarters, some 6–8 kids in all, could head back home at leisure.
There was this Lions’ children’s park along the route. It had the standard issue play equipment in that park: a slide set bearing the effects of wearing by rust, with a big hole in the middle of the slide. One had to cleverly manoeuvre that slide otherwise, one’s uniform could get caught against the holes’ edges, and then one would not have a proper explanation when ones’ mother caned her in front of her friends- who she figured should watch as I got disciplined, because, if we played together, they should watch as I got disciplined. Terego parents’ logic! That playground also had a set of monkey bars, a climbing set, see-saws, and two swing sets with some of the swings turned over and locked with a padlock, and the remaining functional ones, dangerous looking, but being young, we couldn’t resist the urge to play. These were clamped at one end of a large field where we played kwepena till late afternoon, and remembered our mothers and ran home. At home we bathed and then proceeded to play some more on the tarmacked street that went through the neighbourhood.
It was not that we could not be taken to school on a bicycle- most of our parents had no cars by then, and bicycles were the main means of transportation- it’s that it was okay for the mothers to send their kids off to school that way. It was safe.
Arua. My childhood memories of Arua, involve fetching water from a borehole about 100m from our house. Getting distracted by the rocks opposite the stream. Crossing, this shady log bridge to get to that other side, with the rocks and the eucalyptus forests. I remember sitting on the rocks with my siblings, and watching as a woman occasionally squatted and eased herself at the edge of the path, much to the embarrassment of us watching, but not her, apparently.
Also Arua district. Terego. In the earlier phases of my life, I hated going to Terego. I’m a true millennial. Born and bred. Saturday mornings, I woke up at 7am to watch cartoons on Lighthouse TV, and on WBS: Jem and the Holograms, Totally Spies, Power rangers, Sheep in the big city. Before the Kardashians began shaping ideas of what fabulous was, I already knew that the ultimate goal was to be cool, to have flashy clothes, and to be a rock star. That or be a spy. I do not know what I am doing on this architecture path, my childhood idols must be disappointed. Terego for me was a place where we had to fetch water and the church service lasted 4 hours.
As an adult millennial, I started to like to go to Terego. It was a place to unwind. I hated the poor cell phone service, but every holiday there was a fun family affair, and I had just started to get an appreciation of my heritage.
Then I started to date.
And the dislike I had for Terego grew even more, because Terego meant I could not WhatsApp the guy I was seeing…
This article is supposed to be about that part.
In Entebbe, a broke teenager can date. There were the Botanical gardens. Immaculately designed. It had these niches where a couple could spend some time, just lying to themselves [read: in deep conversation with one another], it was private. It was beautiful. From between the trees, one could have a view of the lake, seated on those concrete benches as they sipped their Krushers® (milkshakes) from KFC and ate pizza from the nearby mall. The lake was also a bonus. Anyone could sit by the beach and just talk.
After I went to university, the broke dating concept would not suffice. I wanted something more fabulous (remember the Kardashians? Yeah! They shape opinions while you watch and mock them for ‘you will never turn out to be like them’). I wanted to have the option to switch it up, to eat out at nice restaurants, not just talk. Then, Entebbe had really nice spots to go to. If one didn’t want to go to the mall, there were lots of beaches. And if that still wasn’t doing it, along the street heading to the airport, there are lots of nice little places- Andy’s for example has the best pizza I’ve had in all 24 years of my life, and Anna’s corner, showed movies on a wall outdoors on Fridays, right next to the basketball court where guys played. So, you know, views everywhere.
There was something for every kind of couple in Entebbe. It was even possible to walk home with one’s significant other, and not feel so insecure. That was before the current security nightmare though. Now romance on the side of streets is just madness.
In Kampala on the other hand, I don’t get it. At the university, people visited each other’s hostel and university hall rooms. We went to the mall, watched movies. Ate at restaurants. Dating in Kampala seems like one has to have a thing to do: like an activity to do. A couple has to go eat out, or to watch a movie, go for paintball, or watch live band, or go to parties, or go to another town altogether to go zip lining, or take a boat cruise… I’m exhausted even writing this. The option Entebbe or Jinja people have to do nothing while dating is not there in Kampala. After a while, visiting each other’s homes’ becomes old.
And a couple can’t just walk on the road, being googly eyed, acknowledging the twinkle in the other’s eye. No. The dust or the boda-boda riders zooming past would not allow for such foolishness. I blame Kampala, the place, for the lack of romance in Kampala bred people. Spontaneity is risky at best. Stupid is what it is. Walking on the street, even a quaint one like Kira road along the museum, is a Game of Wits, there’s a rush to get somewhere- anywhere! Away from the traffic, away from the other people sharing the streets.
We are millennials. We work in coffee shops. We shop online. Our main form of entertainment is based on swiping and scrolling at memes. We dress based on the latest trends. We aspire to have ten thousand followers on Instagram. This is Africa, yes. But the mostly middle class millennial generation in the city will act like TV.
This is the generation where the idea of the global village has sunk in. So, obviously, dating, in Kampala will be like the global scene.
I looked closely at one of the public green spaces the city has to offer; the park behind City Oil at Kamwokya. It is beautiful. Ironically, it is fenced off, but I wouldn’t go there with my boyfriend to spend the afternoon. I would go with a group of friends for a picnic, maybe. But not to have a deep conversation [read: lie] to a person of the opposite sex. See with dating, it requires privacy. And this is something many public spaces have neglected to provide. There is no sense of intimacy here, which is what such spaces should provide. The two large gazebos that can seat about 20 people at a time are too large.
Image: One of the gazebos at the park. Photo: Owere Moses (2018)
When you have a green park in the middle of a city, right next to an On-the-go® cart (sells take-away hotdogs and submarines at an affordable rate), people will want to go and sit among the trees and eat their hotdogs! Why not provide obvious access to the space? Why not provide some landscaping furniture for people to rest in the city?
If the idea for the park was to create an aura where only middle class people could go, and no homeless people, or idlers could, then it’s a win for design. One would not pass by Javas Café, by the nice SUVs, walk confidently by the smartly dressed people one can see through the large shiny freshly cleaned windows to the park, just to sleep. Surely, one must think there is a tax to exist in such a space! So, on this one, I will leave my thoughts at that, although I think public spaces should be that: public.
Designers should consider that in the city, breaks are welcome every few moments. There are no places to just sit and read a book. Even the parks leave you feeling watched, which makes them too uncomfortable to use. In the same way there is an importance to providing playgrounds in every place where people live, there should be a place where people can just go to do nothing. Just to sit and listen to your iPod as you think. Or to tell your girlfriend how stressed you are as you share a pack of banana crisps.
As designers we should create more of these spaces to do nothing. In public buildings, at a planning level, in the apartments that are coming up at an alarming rate. The spaces we create direct the narrative for the people that live there. Millennials work longer hours. They live in their apartments. All because, the city is ‘finished’- every space requires that one is engaging in a purposeful activity there. And quickly! Places where when the concept for a project has refused to click, just shut down the pc and just take a stroll; ‘just’ spaces, or ‘do nothing’ spaces are something I wish we could all become conscious of.
Millennials have already started to sound like TV people, except, for TV people, their towns have nicely planned public spaces. Take Central park, in New York for example. In between episodes of Suits, we see working people taking a break from their work, to eat packed lunches while seated on benches outside their offices. While we have adopted the modern office building, we took only the main part of the building (apparently the office) and forgot the people that use the office.
Look at any Ugandan office building: Kalamu house, Uganda House, NIC building for example, there is no space to just breathe. If the idea of outdoor spaces at the fronts of the offices is too hard to implement as a public social space, then what of rooftops? Lounges? One has to sit in their office, till the end of day and then sit in the taxi, and then go home to their two-bedroom rental in Kyaliwajjala with a paved parking and high wall fences with Ssekanyola barbed-wiring at the top, and then the routine repeats itself the next day.
We are the generation stuck copying TV lifestyles in cities that don’t support them. With the internet and TV, we see how everyone else lives, and we want to do that. Why not? Even the buildings, and landscaping projects we see coming up mimic those experiences. But not quite. We have the TV skyscrapers, but not the TV Central Parks where we can go take a jog in the morning. We aren’t allowed to feel frustrated from the office, and just take a walk, sit by the street and eat a rolex.
We have created spaces with high real estate values, but forgotten that most of the people using these spaces would rather have a snack for lunch if they can save a little money doing this, instead of eating in the building restaurant that charges Ugx 7,000 a plate for all-food-groundnuts. Design can allow for informal snack bars just off the streets. Why don’t we do more of that? Why doesn’t Kampala as a whole consider the struggle of making it in the city?
If we are going to copy, let’s do it well. The next time we watch a popular TV series, let’s have a pen and paper, and note the subtle activities going on in the background. It should be possible to live as a millennial in this city. There should be an option to walk from work, to enjoy the ground. To be a dramatic bookworm that for no apparent reason enjoys sitting outdoors under tree shade and reading her Memoirs of a Geisha. To walk back from dates, and not have to take an Uber.
It should be okay to be in love in this city. It should be safe to be in love in this city.
Or maybe I’m dating the wrong men. And we should all own cars.
This article was originally run in the Architecture Uganda Journal, a Uganda Society of Architects' publication.
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