By Tuhirirwe Karane 

Long before Uganda's Rolex became a global culinary sensation, before food bloggers celebrated it and international media discovered it, there was a young boy in a school uniform racing through the dusty streets of Wandegeya every evening.

He would rush home from class, wash his uniform, hang it carefully on the line, and sprint to a chapati stall. There, beneath the glow of kerosene lamps and the hum of Kampala's restless nightlife, he fetched eggs, carried charcoal, cleaned utensils and slowly learned a trade that would one day build him a home, educate his children and earn him a place in the memories of generations of Makerere students.

Yet it was not money that first drew him to the stall.

As a child, the greatest reward was much simpler, the chance to fry himself an egg or a chapati at the end of the evening. To him, that felt like abundance.

Today, few people know him by his birth name. In Wandegeya, he is simply Kabode — a nickname born from the Luganda expression customers would often utter after tasting his rolexes.

"Yabode!"

They were just that good.

For nearly three decades, Kabode has stood behind a sizzling pan in Wandegeya, rolling eggs into chapati and serving students, doctors, police officers, construction workers, travellers and future leaders. His story is more than one of street food. It is the story of a man who grew alongside Wandegeya, witnessed Kampala's transformation and helped shape a food culture that has become unmistakably Ugandan.

Born in Mulago and raised in Wandegeya, opposite what is now KFC, Kabode has never really left the neighbourhood that raised him.

"Wandegeya is home," he says.

Though he occasionally ventured elsewhere in search of opportunity, he always found his way back.

A lifeline after school

His journey into the chapati business began in 1998 while he was still in primary school. A local chapati maker known as Kafulu took him under his wing and taught him the craft. What started as an after-school activity soon became a lifeline.

"I would leave school, wash my uniform and go straight to the stall," he recalls. "Sometimes I worked until ten at night and then woke up early for school."

The work became even more important after the death of his father in 2002. The few hundred shillings he earned each evening helped pay school expenses and eased the burden on his mother. While many children his age were thinking only about homework and play, Kabode was already learning lessons in responsibility, customer service and entrepreneurship.

Years later, after saving about Shs80,000, he tried his hand at farming. The investment failed. "That is when I asked myself, ‘If I leave the chapati business and another plan fails, what will I survive on?’" he says.

The answer was simple.

Chapati.

Kabode's current stall in Wandegeya

From that moment, Kabode stopped viewing the trade as a side hustle and began treating it as a profession. He studied customer behaviour, learned how to manage costs and focused relentlessly on quality.

The rise of the rolex

His timing coincided with the rise of one of Uganda's most beloved foods.

When he started, a chapati cost as little as Shs100. Before that, he recalls, chapatis sold for just Shs50.

"Those chapatis were huge," he laughs. "A two-hundred-shilling chapati back then could be the equivalent of two one-thousand-shilling chapatis today."

The rolex itself was still evolving. In the late 1990s, the standard ingredients were little more than eggs, onions and a few tomatoes.

Then innovation arrived.

By the mid-2000s, sellers began introducing cabbage, chilli, spices and new flavour combinations. Kabode embraced experimentation. His stall became known for creations with memorable names: the Pizza, a local invention that mixed sliced chapati, eggs and ingredients in a cup before frying; the Double Face, with eggs on both sides; the Titanic, a generously packed rolex with a chap in it; and even versions stuffed with chips.

But innovation alone was never enough.

"You had to keep prices reasonable because students did not have much money," he says.

To survive, he understood that selling food was about far more than cooking.

"What keeps a food business alive is how you do it. It is the service, the quality and how you treat people."

More than food

Long before food safety became fashionable, Kabode had already made hygiene a core part of his business.

"You had to cut your nails, keep your hands clean and keep your hair neat," he says. "Many young people like stylish hair, but when you are handling food, you must think about the customer."

His attention to detail earned trust.

So did the changing rhythms of Kampala's nightlife.

Back then, Wandegeya pulsed with energy long after midnight. Students, workers and revellers poured out of places like Steak Out, Blue Haze, Ground Zero, Casablanca, College Inn and High Table looking for something hot, affordable and filling.

And nothing answered that call the way a rolex did.

If you could create something memorable, Kabode says, students would return. Then they would bring their friends. And those friends would bring more friends.

That is how a customer became a community.

And that is how a rolex seller became a Wandegeya institution.

Feeding future leaders

Over the years, thousands of students from Makerere University College of Health Sciences passed through Kabode's stall. Some arrived as struggling undergraduates with barely enough money for a meal. Others showed up late at night after long hours of studying or after a night out with friends. 

Many became regular customers. Some became friends.

Among the familiar faces he remembers is the now Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Thomas Tayebwa.

"Many of the people who are now big men used to eat from us," Kabode says with a smile. "Thomas Tayebwa was one of them."

Rt. Hon. Thomas Tayebwa, one of the most prominent Makerereans Kabode has fed over the decades

Some students paid immediately. Others survived on credit.

A trusted customer could eat today and settle the bill days later. A hungry student returning from a night out might receive a rolex even without money in hand.

His philosophy was simple: today's struggling student could become tomorrow's success story.

One customer would bring five others. Those five would bring even more.

That is how the business grew, one relationship at a time.

The changing face of Wandegeya

The growth of Kabode's business mirrored the rise of Wandegeya itself.

He remembers a neighbourhood alive around the clock. Bars, hostels, photocopy shops, restaurants and markets created an ecosystem that kept people moving through the night. 

"Wandegeya used to be the heart of Kampala," he says.

He fondly remembers fellow pioneers like Sula and other entrepreneurs who transformed ordinary street food into brands with memorable names such as Obama Chapati and Gaddafi Chapati.

People bought them out of curiosity.

"Some even thought the seller had a connection to Obama," Kabode laughs.

It was marketing, pure and simple.

But cities change.

The demolition of the old market, shifts in nightlife and increasing pressure on street vendors altered the landscape. Businesses that once operated 24 hours a day disappeared or relocated. 

The struggle behind the smile

Today, Kabode rates the Rolex business at seven out of ten, not because people no longer love the role, but because survival has become increasingly difficult.

His greatest concern is not competition. It is uncertainty.

For Kabode, every day begins with rising input costs and ends with the fear of disruption.

"Everything we use is already taxed; flour, oil, charcoal, tomatoes, onions," he says. "Government should find a way to organise us instead of simply chasing us off the street."

The uncertainty weighs heavily on him. 

"This business has started to feel like a prison," he admits. "You work under pressure every day. You are always looking around, worried about enforcement or being disturbed." He is quick to clarify that he is not opposed to regulation. His plea is for fairness and recognition.

Street food vendors, he argues, should be organised, licensed and supported according to their capacity rather than treated as though they do not belong. 

A legacy rolled in chapati

Few people embody the contribution of small businesses more than Kabode himself.

The business built him a home in Kawanda. It enabled him to raise a family. It continues to support the education of his children, including a son in Senior Four whom he hopes will excel academically.

But even these achievements come with anxiety.

School fees remain a constant struggle. Medical bills can quickly wipe out savings. A sudden increase in the price of flour can disrupt an entire week's business. Like many small entrepreneurs, Kabode lives a delicate balance between survival and progress.

Yet he continues.

"The children I am educating will be tomorrow's workers," he says. "They will be the people who build the country. If you chase us away and our children drop out of school, what future will they have?"

For all its challenges, the work has given him something invaluable — dignity.

"This business has helped me support myself without begging or hurting anyone."

After more than two decades behind the pan, Kabode remains one of the enduring faces of Wandegeya. The city around him may have changed. The students have grown older. Some have become ministers, doctors, legislators and business leaders.

But every night, as another chapati meets a sizzling egg on the pan, Kabode continues doing what he has done for decades, feeding Wandegeya.

And in the process, he continues to prove that some of the most important builders of a nation are not always found in boardrooms or Parliament chambers. Sometimes, they are standing behind a roadside pan in Wandegeya, quietly shaping the futures of others with rolexes.