One of the best ways to get insight into a culture is through its street food. And currently here in Kampala, Uganda, what you discover can leave a bad taste in your mouth.
Food here is eaten sitting down rather than on the go, and roughly 95 percent of the local fare is based on cheap, nutrient-deficient carbohydrates such as cassava or posho, a finely ground maize flour cooked into a thick, white paste and eaten with peas or beans. Even Uganda’s national food, matoke, a variety of banana cooked in its own leaves over charcoal and then mashed and served with a sauce made from ground peanuts (called “gnuts”), is rarely served with protein, although sometimes you can get it with a small amount of bony meat cooked in a watery stew. But there is one notable exception to this rule: the Rolex. While the Swiss watch of that name may be a status symbol for the rich and powerful in the West, a Rolex here is a decidedly different thing.
Rolex, translated from the local language, means “rolled eggs.” It is essentially an omelet rolled up in a chapati, an Indian flatbread that, when made correctly, has flakey layers like a croissant. The Rolex was the brainchild of a resourceful entrepreneur who set up a stand to feed hungry students at Makerere University, also known as the “Harvard of East Africa.” Until recently — more on that later — you could easily pull up to one of the thousands of Rolex carts that lined every thoroughfare and watch as a nimble-fingered Rolex man (only men make Rolex for some reason) cracked two eggs into a plastic mug and cut in shredded cabbage, tomato and red onion with a rusty knife. He would then cook the omelet on a charcoal stove with an iron plate resting precariously on top. When the omelet had browned on both sides, he would roll it up in the chapati like a burrito before depositing it in a small plastic bag for the ravenous customer — all for a mere 1,500 Ugandan shillings (less than 40 cents).
It may not sound like much, but to the tens of thousands of students on a meager budget, or the expats with nary a fast-food option for miles, the Rolex is the hot, fresh and filling snack that dreams are made of. Its simple concept in this city’s protein-deprived, carbohydrate-laden street food landscape caught on like wildfire.
“It may not sound like much, but to the tens of thousands of students on a meager budget, or the expats with nary a fast-food option for miles, the Rolex is the hot, fresh and filling snack that dreams are made of.”
Kampala, like most other sub-Saharan African cities, has grown exponentially over the past few decades with little to no infrastructure improvements to bear the load. As the middle class has swelled, so has the number of cars and traffic. During the rainy season, the potholed and weathered roads are reduced to rivers of terra-cotta-colored mud and rushing waters. Navigating your car in those conditions — between the reckless boda boda mopeds and the old matatus van “buses” that are rolling deathtraps — is akin to driving in a video game. Add to that mix the fact that most people buy their drivers licenses rather than sit for an examination or pay hefty fees for a legitimate driving school, and you end up with traffic jams that make Los Angeles rush hours seem like moments to put the top down and let the wind blow through your hair.
Enter government bureaucracy in the form of the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), which recently decided to take the estimated 10,000 Rolex and other street vendors and arrest them for operating without licenses. As a result, thousands of these vendors shut down almost overnight rather than risk being arrested for operating an illegal stand and possibly going to jail. Unlucky vendors could lose not only their stock and carts, but they could also be on the hook to pay a minimum fine of 100,000 Ugandan shillings (about $27), which may as well be $10,000 to a cart owner barely eking out a marginal living from 12-hour workdays. To make matters worse, if the corrupt Ugandan police want to put the squeeze on a particular vendor who is unable to pay their fine (or bribe) on the spot, that vendor can be thrown in jail. A Ugandan jail shares greater similarities with a Third World dog kennel than it does with a place fit for humans.
Consequently, weary vendors can either take their chances at operating an illegal stand or pursue the nearly impossible option of obtaining an extremely expensive KCCA license — which still doesn’t guarantee they won’t be harassed by police. While the logic behind regulating food carts, and the fees charged to vendors to license them may have some merits, the uprooting of thousands of food cart owners in Kampala has contributed to yet another sad downward spiral of poverty and joblessness.
By the way, I still frequent my favorite Rolex vendor as often as I can — when I can find him. These days he’s always moving around to avoid the police.
I fear the writing is on the wall: As Kampala’s skyline continues to expand, its food cart entrepreneurs will soon disappear — perhaps to be replaced by fancy, solar-powered stands run by companies making “legalized” carts. The costs of those units will be well out of reach of any of the original stand owners who support their families on their meager, hard-earned profits. The new model will also create another potential revenue stream for Uganda’s already bloated government officials.
While some could argue that the government’s action is progress — after all, the legal carts won’t require charcoal, so they won’t pollute the environment; and customers of the carts will benefit from the “health and hygiene” mandate of the city council — I’m reminded that in much of Africa, the story of progress usually spells disaster for those who can least afford it.
Most of the current vendors are as likely to come up with the money to buy a compliant cart as they are to purchase an actual Rolex watch.
Yes, you can tell a lot about a culture by its street food. For the vendors, their families and their customers in Kampala, the probable demise of the Rolex carts will be hard to swallow.
Yamit Behar Wood, an Israeli-American food and travel writer, is the executive chef at the U.S. Embassy in Kampala, Uganda, and founder of the New York Kitchen Catering Co.
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