When the Truck Becomes the Market at 5 A.M.

At Nakasero Market in Kampala, Uganda, lines form around pickup trucks loaded with produce at 5 a.m. A local newspaper recorded “urgent lines” at several points where the trucks were stationed. Most of those waiting were not household shoppers but retailers who would divide the vegetables and fruit into smaller quantities and sell them around the city.

Here the truck bed becomes a wholesale counter. Instead of waiting at a fixed stall, farmers can sell an entire load before freshness declines. Retailer John Ashaba selected produce here for his roadside cart. Another farmer travelled overnight from Masaka and, at 6:45 a.m., sold watermelons from the back of his lorry to waiting retailers.

The pace of this queue was set not by office hours but by freshness and the stock on a truck. Joining early helped a trader secure good produce and begin the day's street business. The market line was not the end of consumption; it was the first stage in distributing food across the city.