Ugandans habits that really piss me off
Sep 04, 2012
Last week a female relative was due to some stuff at my place, and said she will be there some time soon. So I waited, and waited, and waited. After four hours I tried to call her but she did not answer her phone. Eventually I called her mum, who said the girl was nice and safe at home, 20 kilometr
By Kalungi Kabuye
Last week a female relative was due to drop some stuff at my place, and said she will be there some time soon. So I waited, and waited, and waited. After four hours I tried to call her but she did not answer her phone. Eventually I called her mum, who said the girl was nice and safe at home, 20 kilometres out of town.
And what happened to my stuff? Oh, another male relative will drop it. So, why didn’t the girl call me and explain about the change of plans? “But, I was going to call you,” the little girl pleaded. Really? When, tomorrow? Next year? I hang up before my vocabulary became more colourful than she could possibly handle.
That kind of thing is happening everyday to somebody in Uganda. It is called being rude, or insensitive, or indecent, or just plain having bad manners. Here are some behavioural habits amongst Ugandans that really drive me up the wall.
Bad Manners
But bad manners can be defined in many ways, including being impolite as a result of ignorance. Ugandans can be excused for being ignorant of what to do in a civilised society, because our ‘troubled times’ took us back a few hundred years in sophistication.
A whole generation of Ugandans grew up in a society where law and order had broken down, they have children now, so with parents behaving badly what are the kids supposed to do? And in any case, many of our leaders spent their formative years in the bush, how do you expect them to set an example?
But generally bad manners can be any of the following: rudeness, disrespect, insolence, bluntness, impudence, curtness, ungraciousness.
Telephone etiquette
Our lives are held ransom to mobile phones, each and every waking hour, and many times when we are sleeping. Wherever we may be, the telephone intrudes in our lives, but Ugandans have refused to accept that there exist dos and don’ts where telephones are concerned.
Very loud conversations that are supposed to be private, extremely annoying and also very loud ring tones - the list is long. The story is told of one guy at a local pub who called home to instruct them what to cook for supper, but everybody in the pub could hear him. He told his wife to cook fish, but keep the head for him, only for him. His friends still call him ‘fish head’ up to now. This is extreme disrespect of others, and very bad manners.
Ugandans also have a problem in returning calls. It used to be excused when air time was very expensive about ten years ago, but not anymore. So not returning calls is extremely ungraciousness, and also very rude.
Answering machines are used all over the world, and are an important medium of communication. But not Ugandans, like the guy who wanted desperately to get in touch with me while I was in a meeting. He said he tried to call me but just got my Voice Mail. So why didn’t he leave a message? “Uh?” I explained that by the time he gets to the voice mail prompt he’s been charged already.
Poor Work ethics
Ugandans have some of the worst work ethics in the region. Again, this can be blamed on the war and instability throughout the 70s and 80s. Life was one big hustle then, and the joke was that the employee pretended to work, and the employer pretended to pay them. Sadly that attitude still exists to a degree up to now, why do you think the Kenyans are taking over our jobs?
Poor time keeping
One guy wrote on facebook how he was caught up in traffic going to work. He described in detail how long it took him to get past the gridlock in Bwaise, how long it took the taxi guys to fill up the vehicle, and how he would explain to his boss why he was late for work. I posted that if he knew he would be held up for 45 minutes, why didn’t he start out 45 minutes earlier? He never did reply, and did not get back as to what his boss had said, but I heard he was on suspension.
The single biggest excuse Ugandans have for being late for an appointment is the traffic. But we all know Kampala traffic will most times be a killer, so why don’t we plan for it? This is also disrespect, with a tinge of insolence.
Stopping for the rain
Kampala must be the only pace in the world where everybody waits for the rain to stop. Like the cab driver I called to pick me up from town, and said “… but it’s raining!” That’s right, in Kampala even drivers park their cars till the rain stops, leading to the infamous impossible traffic jams afterwards. In fact the safest and easiest time to drive in Kampala is when it is raining, very few cars are on the roads and all the boda guys have taken cover. Is this bad manners? No, I think it is just plain stupidity.
‘I’m coming’
This has to be the most common answer in Kampala when you ask anybody to do anything. You order for a meal in a restaurant. Fifteen minutes later you ask the waitress where the food is, ‘it is coming’, she will answer. Twenty minutes later and the food is ‘still coming’. Very often after that I just get up and leave.
I’m an editor and have spent the last ten years assigning writers to do stories. We always work under very tight deadlines, so I’m always on their cases for their stories. And the answer? “I’m sending it,” which means the ‘story is coming’. For many freelance writers that was the first and last time they heard from me, and they are still wondering why.