Trends
Carolyne Nakazibwe

I was reading in the news the other day, Americans, Koreans and a couple of other rich countries are finding a solution for the food scarcity soon. They are building garden skyscrapers. Basically, multi-storied green houses to ensure a steady flow of food supplies come rain or shine. Imagine a spinach garden in Times Square!

I closed my eyes and imagined the scenario. You wear your gumboots and jump into a lift to go to your orchard on the fiftieth floor? Wow.
I have never really been a fan of gardening, but if things promise to be this way in GenerationQ, so help me God that I be around to be a witness.

I mean, when I saw my first storied parking lot in Germany, I was totally blown away. Coming from a country that had not a single shopping mall then, it was already mind-boggling enough walking through the vast arcades and department stores. But when I saw these winding driveways and lifts up several floors of nothing but parking space, it totally beat me. At that point I was ready to crown the Europeans the most ingenious beings God ever made.

But soon enough, we got the arcades in Kampala and now even have the storied parking slots at Garden City and Social Security House. That gives me hope that one of these days, I will have my very own potato garden somewhere on Kimathi Avenue, floor 72.

Or better still, park on the 12th floor of the parking tower on the same street and then connect by escalator and a couple of lifts to my garden on the 72nd floor!
In this increasingly dotcom era, don’t write me off that easily as a dreamer.

The scramble and partition of land in this country has gone to another level and what we need is a dotcom government that thinks very unbutambalish. A government that will build high rise structures just to let us do our gardening without having to drive all the way to Wakiso, and in due course, allow us to also have burial grounds in the same garden plots.

Hey, if the Americans can pull it off, don’t think it too far-fetched. It will get here, so just start rehearsing a very-much-so e-life.
For one, I am looking forward to my garden with a spectacular view of Kampala.

carol@ugandaobserver.com