Fire at Mbale market

Last night there was a fire at Mbale fruit and veg market. The market is only about 200 metres as the crow flies from the hospital so it was very scary to see such a large and out of control fire so close. There is a petrol station next to the market and people were suggesting that may blow up if the fire spread any further. That made it even more frightening as we had no idea how far an explosion could go so we stayed and helplessly watched from the guest house until the fire eventually started to subside a few hours later.

Hearing the screams, sirens and commotion from the market area was even worse than the fear though. It was bad enough just imagining the scenes of a place I've got to know so well and that I'm so fond of being destroyed let alone hearing the destruction first hand.

As I’ve mentioned, Mbale is a very poor region and resources are almost non existent. Apparently, the whole of the Mbale district only has one fire engine. The nearest support vehicle had to come from Jinja which is over 2 hours away so it's not surprising how the fire escalated.
Without wanting to do any disservice to the fire service here (which also doubles up as the police force), I can’t imagine they have anything like the slick operation ours has.

To be able to have a stall at the market, many people take out loans to pay for the timber to construct their stands and pay it back with any profit their produce earns.
It was a really endearing, higgledy piggledy place with wooden shacks piled on top of each other selling everything and anything you can grow or slaughter.
In between the fruit and veg though, you’d find stalls selling homewares, including coke bottles and jerry cans of oil, diesel, paraffin and petrol.

Luckily, it wasn't as bad as people initially feared. According to local reports, most of the fire was contained within the square so even though the marketplace itself has been utterly decimated, the surrounding buildings are mostly ok and still structurally sound.

Nobody is sure what started the fire yet – there are all sorts of rumours which range from electrical faults, to spilled cooking stoves to arson attacks to hide theft and insurance claims.
Whatever it was though, the lives of the stall holders have changed forever.

There is very, very rarely any form of government support for those living in poverty or that are affected by disasters and tragedies. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the only help they get (if any) will be from NGOs and CBOs (Community Based Organisations).
People have to fend for themselves and somehow deal with whatever life throws at them. To make matters worse, this is the third time it’s happened in the same market.

I keep thinking about what this means for my mango man, my avocado lady and my wizened old tomato woman.

My mango man ripped me off once by charging muzungo prices once but ended up giving me the wrong change.
Since I told him he’d given me far too much money back, he picks me out a nice mango and charges me local prices.

And my avocado lady that works there day in, day out, with a baby boy strapped tightly to her back.
She always greets me with a wonderful smile, knows the type of avocado I like and waves me off with a cheerful “thank you madame – calay” (see you soon).

And my tomato lady that looks as old as the hills she tends.
She speaks no English and me no Lugisu so we’ve never had a proper conversation but I’m a regular customer, so every now and again she’ll pop another tomato into my bag with a cheeky smile, scrunching her shoulders up to her ears and grinning at me like an excited small child.

It makes me really sad to think I’ll probably never see them again now and it makes me even sadder to think what this fire has done to them and their families.