From Jack’s trip to Africa in the summer of 2010:

We stopped at Masindi a good size country town about 4 hours from Kampala along paved roads.    We walked the town market.   Uganda always has plentiful supplies of  avocado, pineapple,  green bananas ( source of main carbohydrate in diet) and tomatoes.  But I was interested in beans and met a woman I call the Bean Lady of Masindi.  She had a strong, confident and  happy personality.

We talked about what everyone eats in Uganda and Japan.    She was incredulous that you can eat rice three times a day.   Others could not believe you could eat seaweed so we shared some sembei with nori we had carried.   What I found interesting was that their selling price for good quality dried beans was less than 1/2 the world market price.   This was later explained to me that the logistics and cost of transportation in or out of landlocked Uganda  were so costly that Uganda for both better and worse was isolated or not affected by world commodity swings.