Hygiene Watch- Rolex: Fast and tasty, but how safe is it?
CELINE Dion’s music fills the air outside a kiosk in Kikoni near Makerere University. Food vendors work in tiny corridors separating kiosks and shops. They make ‘sandwiches’ of chapatis and eggs, commonly known as rolex, for people to stuff their tummies.<br>
By Gerald Tenywa
CELINE Dion’s music fills the air outside a kiosk in Kikoni near Makerere University. Food vendors work in tiny corridors separating kiosks and shops. They make ‘sandwiches’ of chapatis and eggs, commonly known as rolex, for people to stuff their tummies.
Amos Mulekwa, a resident of Kikoni, earns his living from making rolex. He adds water to wheat flour and kneads the dough, ready for frying.
Separately fried eggs are rolled together with the chapatis to form a sandwich. Students from Kikoni hostels come in droves to buy the rolexes.
They do not care whether it shares a name with the world renowned brand name for watches. Here, rolex serves a different purpose — to help university students keep with the pace of life. why rolex is popular Michael Mwesigwa, a Makerere University student who discovered rolex when he moved to Kikoni three years ago says: “They are friendly to the pocket and available.
I don’t worry about keeping time for lectures because it gets ready in a few minutes. I don’t labour to find food,†he says.
One rolex goes for sh600 (an egg and chapati), but the higher side is sh3,000 when minced meat, cabbage and carrots are added. Girls who formerly shunned rolex as a low status symbol have now made their way to the queue, stepping on each other’s toes to place their orders.
“The living-out allowance has greatly dipped since the glory of Makerere has been fading. This has condemned more students to rolex and left many at the mercy of roadside food vendors,†says Mwesigwa.
The rolex revolution signifies the changing times at Makerere University and the city at large. One chapati outlet is called “Obama†after the US president because of its popularity.
“Their chappos are nice and that is why they get lots of customers,†says Winnie Natenza, a student. rolex and Kampala’s slums Rolex is getting an open invitation to Kampala’s dining tables. Chapatis are also rolled with beans to make a cheaper rolex called kikomando, sold for sh300.
The urban youth say after eating kikomando, they can take an entire day without food, like commandos do at a battle field. Bobi Wine, a popular musician and self-made president of the ghettos in Kampala, sings about hard work in his song entitled Kikomando while assuring the less fortunate city folks that God has not forgotten them.
They religiously take his word, swallow their meal and melt into their crumbling houses. However, unknown to the city survivors, is that rolex has hidden costs that come with poor hygiene, lack of sanitation facilities and poor mannerisms
of the food vendors.
Health implications
A few metres away from the rolex outlet at Kikoni, passersby cough and spit while the customers and vendors continue with their business. “It is not right to tolerate unhygienic food,†says Paul Luyima, a public health consultant. The spitting, Luyima points out, releases millions of micro-organisms that later cling onto dust and when dispersed on food, contamination occurs.
He also points out that cooks only dust off their work clothes and not wash them. The next day, they wear the same germ-infested clothes. So when the food vendors touch the food after “cleaning†their hands, there are high chances of contamination. Sometimes, filthy water is used to clean plates and forks.
By the time the one hundredth plate is washed it will be a case of smearing a “cleaner†plate with more dirt. A survey done in Kamwokya by The New Vision found that there were a few toilets.
Some people release their excreta into polythene bags, which they throw out at night. The “flying toilets†sometimes end up on a neighbour’s roof or the drainage channels providing a fertile ground for houseflies to multiply.
The flies, like army helicopters loaded with bombs, carry millions of bacteria and amoeba on their hairy bodies
and legs back to the eateries nearby.
Although drug shops stocked with flaggyl have sprung up to deal with the rioting stomachs, prevention is better than cure. Thus, rolex must be eaten hot to avoid disease causing organisms.
The way forward
According to Sam Mutono, a World Bank specialist on water and sanitation, washing hands can reduce the germs by up to 60%.
“We need to create more awareness to cause behavioural change,†he says. Mutono agrees with Luyima that Kampala City Council needs to implement the Public Health Act, which has remained redundant.
The rot is so much that the enforcers and their supervisors have been frustrated by politicians who are too
powerless to lift a finger against their filthy neighbours.
So there is no more finger-pointing and most of the enforcers who see all this dirt simply walk away, leaving students like Mwesigwa to face the music, which many times is not as serene as Celine Dion’s voice.
CELINE Dion’s music fills the air outside a kiosk in Kikoni near Makerere University. Food vendors work in tiny corridors separating kiosks and shops. They make ‘sandwiches’ of chapatis and eggs, commonly known as rolex, for people to stuff their tummies.
Amos Mulekwa, a resident of Kikoni, earns his living from making rolex. He adds water to wheat flour and kneads the dough, ready for frying.
Separately fried eggs are rolled together with the chapatis to form a sandwich. Students from Kikoni hostels come in droves to buy the rolexes.
They do not care whether it shares a name with the world renowned brand name for watches. Here, rolex serves a different purpose — to help university students keep with the pace of life. why rolex is popular Michael Mwesigwa, a Makerere University student who discovered rolex when he moved to Kikoni three years ago says: “They are friendly to the pocket and available.
I don’t worry about keeping time for lectures because it gets ready in a few minutes. I don’t labour to find food,†he says.
One rolex goes for sh600 (an egg and chapati), but the higher side is sh3,000 when minced meat, cabbage and carrots are added. Girls who formerly shunned rolex as a low status symbol have now made their way to the queue, stepping on each other’s toes to place their orders.
“The living-out allowance has greatly dipped since the glory of Makerere has been fading. This has condemned more students to rolex and left many at the mercy of roadside food vendors,†says Mwesigwa.
The rolex revolution signifies the changing times at Makerere University and the city at large. One chapati outlet is called “Obama†after the US president because of its popularity.
“Their chappos are nice and that is why they get lots of customers,†says Winnie Natenza, a student. rolex and Kampala’s slums Rolex is getting an open invitation to Kampala’s dining tables. Chapatis are also rolled with beans to make a cheaper rolex called kikomando, sold for sh300.
The urban youth say after eating kikomando, they can take an entire day without food, like commandos do at a battle field. Bobi Wine, a popular musician and self-made president of the ghettos in Kampala, sings about hard work in his song entitled Kikomando while assuring the less fortunate city folks that God has not forgotten them.
They religiously take his word, swallow their meal and melt into their crumbling houses. However, unknown to the city survivors, is that rolex has hidden costs that come with poor hygiene, lack of sanitation facilities and poor mannerisms
of the food vendors.
Health implications
A few metres away from the rolex outlet at Kikoni, passersby cough and spit while the customers and vendors continue with their business. “It is not right to tolerate unhygienic food,†says Paul Luyima, a public health consultant. The spitting, Luyima points out, releases millions of micro-organisms that later cling onto dust and when dispersed on food, contamination occurs.
He also points out that cooks only dust off their work clothes and not wash them. The next day, they wear the same germ-infested clothes. So when the food vendors touch the food after “cleaning†their hands, there are high chances of contamination. Sometimes, filthy water is used to clean plates and forks.
By the time the one hundredth plate is washed it will be a case of smearing a “cleaner†plate with more dirt. A survey done in Kamwokya by The New Vision found that there were a few toilets.
Some people release their excreta into polythene bags, which they throw out at night. The “flying toilets†sometimes end up on a neighbour’s roof or the drainage channels providing a fertile ground for houseflies to multiply.
The flies, like army helicopters loaded with bombs, carry millions of bacteria and amoeba on their hairy bodies
and legs back to the eateries nearby.
Although drug shops stocked with flaggyl have sprung up to deal with the rioting stomachs, prevention is better than cure. Thus, rolex must be eaten hot to avoid disease causing organisms.
The way forward
According to Sam Mutono, a World Bank specialist on water and sanitation, washing hands can reduce the germs by up to 60%.
“We need to create more awareness to cause behavioural change,†he says. Mutono agrees with Luyima that Kampala City Council needs to implement the Public Health Act, which has remained redundant.
The rot is so much that the enforcers and their supervisors have been frustrated by politicians who are too
powerless to lift a finger against their filthy neighbours.
So there is no more finger-pointing and most of the enforcers who see all this dirt simply walk away, leaving students like Mwesigwa to face the music, which many times is not as serene as Celine Dion’s voice.