Mbale

Mbale is a young city by Ugandan standards. Its beginnings are usually traced to to 1903, when the Ugandan general Semei Kakungulu, working with and then uneasily alongside the British administration, established a base at the foot of Mount Elgon and set out a settlement below Wanale. The colonial government took over the administration of the east from him, and the place grew as a district headquarters, a market for the mountain and plains around it, and a staging post on the route to Kenya.

Cotton and then coffee made it. Arabica from the Bugisu slopes above the town and cotton from the plains were bought, ginned and shipped out through Mbale, and a merchant community of South Asian traders built much of the town centre, its shopfronts and its first industries. The expulsion of Uganda's Asian population in 1972 emptied those businesses, and Mbale, like the rest of the country, went through years of economic collapse, insecurity and decayed infrastructure.

Recovery came slowly from the late 1980s, helped by the coffee trade, by the founding of the Islamic University in Uganda, inaugurated in 1988, and by the town's role as the service centre for a densely populated and fertile region. Mbale was granted city status in 2020, together with several other Ugandan towns, taking in surrounding areas under one city administration. Its modern profile rests on trade, education, health services and the steady traffic of walkers and trekkers heading for Mount Elgon and the Sipi falls.

This is the capital of Bugisu, and Bagisu culture defines it. Lumasaba, also called Lugisu, is the first language of the slopes above the city, and the best-known tradition is Imbalu, the circumcision of young men held in even-numbered years. The season opens at the Mutoto grounds outside the city and runs through the villages with kadodi drumming and dancing, processions of candidates and large crowds; enduring the cut without flinching is the point of the rite, and the Umukuka, the Bagisu cultural leader, presides over the season.

Mbale is also one of the most religiously mixed cities in Uganda. Anglican and Catholic churches sit alongside a large Muslim community and the mosques and schools that serve it, with the Islamic University drawing students from several countries. Outside the city, at Nabugoye Hill, live the Abayudaya, Ugandans who have practised Judaism since the early twentieth century, with their own synagogues, schools and choirs whose recordings have been heard well beyond Uganda.

The city sits where Bantu-speaking Bugisu meets the Nilotic-speaking Teso plains and the Sebei highlands, and its markets and stages mix all three. Football and athletics are followed closely, the mountain slopes having produced runners of international standing, and music is a constant presence — kadodi drums in season, church and mosque, and the sound systems of bars in the centre. Greetings, respect for elders and hospitality to visitors are expected everywhere.

The city had roughly 96,000 residents at the 2014 national census, and the wider city area created in 2020 takes in a considerably larger population across its divisions. It functions as the regional capital for eastern Uganda: a referral hospital, courts, banks, secondary schools and the university bring people in from several districts, and the bus and taxi stages are busy from early morning.

Trade is the main business. Coffee from Bugisu, matoke, maize, beans, vegetables and dried fish pass through the markets and warehouses; shops and small workshops line the centre; and services — health, education, transport, NGOs and government offices — provide most of the salaried work. Many households in the outer divisions still farm plots on the slopes or keep livestock.

Daily life runs from an early start, with produce arriving at the markets before dawn and boda-bodas filling the streets through the day, to evenings of street food, football on screens in bars, and church or mosque. The pressing local issues are familiar ones: crowded and poorly drained neighbourhoods such as Namatala, flooding and landslides after heavy rain on the deforested slopes, youth unemployment, and the stretched water and waste services of a city whose boundaries grew faster than its infrastructure.

Mbale eats the food of the mountain. Malewa, the smoked and dried shoots of mountain bamboo cooked into a thick groundnut sauce, is the dish the Bagisu are known for and is served at ceremonies and in the better local restaurants. Alongside it come matoke, steamed and mashed green bananas, kalo, the stiff millet bread of the east often mixed with cassava flour, and posho of maize meal, all eaten with sauces of groundnut paste (binyebwa), simsim, beans, cowpea leaves and other greens.

Meat is grilled as muchomo, goat or beef cut small over charcoal, and chicken is a dish for guests and celebrations. Fish comes up from the Nile and Lake Victoria, fresh or smoked, and tilapia is fried whole. Street eating is cheap and everywhere: the rolex — a chapati wrapped around a fried egg with tomato and onion — roasted maize, boiled cassava, gonja plantain, samosas and mandazi. Avocados, jackfruit, passion fruit and mangoes are sold by the heap in the market.

Coffee grows on the hills above the town and is traded here in quantity, but tea boiled with milk and ginger is the everyday hot drink. Traditional brews include millet and banana beers, drunk communally at gatherings on the slopes, while bottled lager and waragi, the general name for distilled spirits, are the usual order in the city's bars.