Smell
Kampala is the Capital city of Uganda, it has a verity of shops, factories, hotels, office blocks and houses. It's a big dusty city with lots of people walking along the busy pavements, cars, minibuses, lorries and motorbikes all cram the roads with very little regard for the law. Drivers 'talk' to each other on their car horns so it's very noise too.
There are lots of interesting smells in Kampala, and some really horrible ones. Rubbish is often left in piles on the street and trucks often belch out black, smelly exhaust fumes. During the daytime and in the evening lots of small stalls in the street cook and sell kebabs, chapatis, chicken, popcorn and other foods. Cows and goats can roam the streets as they break free from being tethered to grassy areas alongside the busy roads. People make wooden furniture at the side of the road, leaving piles of wood shavings and the smell of paint and vanish. Power is not always available with electricity being cut for hours and sometimes days, the noise and smells of generators fill the air.
Activities
Look at each of these pictures of Kampala in turn and imagine you are there. Make a list of anything you might smell. Which are nice smells and which are nasty ones?
These are the spices often used in Ugandan cooking. Do you have them in your kitchen? What do they smell like?
Facts
In the slums of Kampala the houses usually have open sewers running between them. They don't have toilets or bathrooms in the houses. The nearest water is from a tap, sometimes quite a few streets away, and the houses are often just one room for a whole family to live in.
When cars, mini buses and lorries belch out black exhaust fumes, the Ugandans joke that the driver has bought along a kitchen and is cooking his dinner!
Marabou Storks
Are very common in Kampala and are known as ‘ugly birds’ by the locals. They are very good at cleaning up the streets by eating any dead animals and rubbish. A large male Marabou Stork, standing up to 1.5 m tall and weighing nearly 9 kg, is one of the largest flying birds in the world. Their wingspan approaches 2.9 m.
To find out more about Marabou Storks click here