just your average ride into town

so i know i have posted about really exciting, bucket list type stuff lately, but this here blog is just to explain the average trip of what it is like to get a ride into town. it doesnt seem like it would be a big ordeal, but you dont know what you are getting yourself into until you try it for the first time. So, here is a slightly sarcastic, but mostly very accurate attempt to explain what it is like...

So you find yourself standing on the street corner with bota-botas (motorcycle taxis) flying past you. And all you want is transportation to kampala, the capital of Uganda that is only a short forty-five minute drive away. However, it is not all that easy. Ohhhhh no, first you get flooded by six conductors at once asking you where you are headed and calling you Mzungu in the most upfront way as possible. You better not stand still at this point, because they will just swarm around, and soon you won’t even have room to think. So, you pick one, I usually go with the guy who looks like nicest…. You ask him his price. And of course, it is over the normal two thousand shillings that it actually costs to get there. Then, the next step is crucial. You have to stare him down. Tell him how much he is overcharging you and that you will not pay anything more than what is actually expected. (you can get an even better response if you say all this in their native language, luganda, of course). So, he shrugs his shoulders and says “kale”. You then get into the matatu, which is the size of a minivan… with fourteen seats that are so close together, you cannot just sit down next to someone without being all up in their grill. There is no option. So you pick the seat that flips down, thinking that you have a closer escape to an exit, just in case your claustrophobia decides to overtake you. But later you find out that this is not a smart move. Number one because the freaking seat is so broken and battered that it sits crooked. You are now slanted for the rest of the ride. And number two because now if anyone wants to get out, you are required to move out of their way. Anyways. It smells a little funky and you take your first look around… There is a very wide variety of people on this taxi. An old woman in a gomez (the traditional wedding dress), a college aged boy who is carrying a briefcase and looks way too professionally dressed for his age, another man who has a chicken on his lap that he is holding by its tied feet, and even a mom holding her most likely two year old daughter with a bandage on her arm like she just got out of the hospital after being hooked up to a drip for God knows what reason. So now what? Just sit and wait til you get there? No big deal, its only forty-five minutes right? WRONG! Little did you know, but the taxi has to stop every, oh let’s say hundred feet, because it must pick up more people and drop others off. There is no such thing as “a straight shot there”. Nooo, the conductor just keeps yelling out that window, with his head and half his body hanging out, trying to get more customers on this tiny van, even though there is absolutely no room left to squeeze. You think to yourself, ‘Okay, so I’ll just zone out and the time will go by faster’. Once again, you are wrong because soon the sun begins to bear down on you and it is extremely hot, no matter what time of day it is. “dangit, there goes that mindset. Okay, how long has it been? Only An hour and fifteen minutes?! Gosh, and we aren’t even halfway into town!!” Next you see that everyone is paying the conductor money… slipping him coins and crinkled up bills like it is some secret drug deal. They don’t even make eye contact. What is this!? Okay, so you pay him too, you figure you don’t want to look like the odd man out, but he doesn’t give you back your change. What the heck? Okay, maybe he is just waiting til he gets some smaller bills for change. I mean, you did hand him a twenty anyway and that is kind of a bigger bill. No, wrong. You begin to realize, he really does think you are that dumb, that you won’t notice if he doesn’t pay you the balance. This is crap. So you confront him, “ssebo… mmpa balance”. And he rolls his eyes, you are smarter than he thought. Good for you. That was a test. So he finally hands you the change you so rightly deserve. But wait, now what? The matatu just stopped working… “are you serious?” Yup, totally. Happens all the time. You are told to get out and move to ‘that one’ because it will take you the rest of the way. “Huh? You have got to be kidding me. Fine, I guess it’s the only option I have got.” So you get in and travel with this matatu for about ten more minutes until they once again pull over and tell you to get out. You ask them why and they say that they are not making enough business so they are going to stop here until they get more customers. Can they really do that?! Well, I guess so. It just happened. Alright. “I’m just going to keep a positive attitude” you think to yourself. “Glass half full, glass half full” you repeat to yourself. It can’t be that far away from the city. And you’re right. It’s only about another fifteen minutes until you get into kampala and you are totally relieved. But how do you tell the conductor where to stop the vehicle so you can get off? You don’t know how far is too far or what the place looks like that you are supposed to be dropped off at… the only thing left you have to do is trust his judgment. He says this is your stop, so you get off and assess your surroundings. Does it look right? You don’t know! So you ask for directions and hope that they aren’t attempting to take advantage of you either. “Gosh this has been one of the craziest experiences ever. But wait, this happens every time I want to go into the city? Well, I guess I better get used to it all then…”