People who own smartphones in Uganda have come to accept that they don’t have smart batteries – yet.

So you need a power bank for your smartphone. And when the bank collapses a few weeks after you bought it, you need to find a better power bank. So whenever you are in caught in a Kampala traffic jam and you hear a street vendor crying out “power bank, power bank!” you turn to see if it is a better type than the one you want to discard.

But these days, the chances are fifty-fifty that the power bank you see being waved through your car window is not a sleek electronic gadget, but some brown, thin long roots being dangled at you, especially if you are male. I am yet to find out their scientific or even English name, but locally they are called mulondo.

These roots are believed to have aphrodisiac properties. But they also have a strong flavour and Chinese chefs have found ways of incorporating them among the ingredients in their cuisine.

The demand from the Chinese has strengthened the local belief that mulondo is more potent than Viagra. After all, isn’t it the same Orientals who fuel the demand for rhino horns that is responsible for endangering the world’s second-largest land animal?

The heightened sales of these “power banks” in Kampala comes at a time when the National Drug Authority is cracking down on the sale of unapproved medicines. Only last week, they issued a list of proscribed drugs, many from India but also some from Europe.

Officials are now staging raids on chemist shops impounding all the unauthorised drugs they find. Which leaves one wondering, are the pharmacists sending out street vendors to help move their banned stock?

So far, we haven’t seen NDA disturbing the fellows who sell all types of medicines on the street in the name of herbal remedies. The most annoying are those who mount loudspeakers on very old cars and start reeling off a list of ailments that their concoctions allegedly cure. And needless to say, they all purport to cure impotence.

These noise polluters who infest Kampala’s busy suburbs in the evenings after harassing markets and busy trading centres during the day, also claim they can cure barrenness in women, and a range of problems including unattractiveness. They claim to give you bigger hips, a flat belly and other erotic attributes.

From the rate at which they have proliferated, we can assume there is a high demand for their concoctions. Heaven knows when the NDA will take a look at these people.

The lucrative demand for African concoctions has drawn expatriates from neighbouring countries, mostly Kenyans who all purport to be Maasai. Those of us who have lived in Kenya are amused when we hear a pair of the so-called Maasais talking in low tones in a Kenyan language that is neither Kiswahili nor Maa.

But well, guys have to eke out a living and I don’t work for NDA. And there is no law that limits the wearing of red or purple shukas to Maasai.

Joachim Buwembo is a social and political commentator based in Kampala. E-mail: [email protected]