Well! Today was a day of MANY firsts for me – many of which I was really dreading and I’m happy I got them out of the way. I woke up late again today (jetlag + mouse = bad sleeping environment). Maggie, another volunteer, made me a cheese and avocado sandwich for breakfast. She got the avocado from some street vendors right outside our compound. For some reason I figured I’d probably spend the entire day reading about microfinance and taking it easy since yesterday was such a crazy day. I was VERY wrong.
One of the mentors was going up to the school she teaches at every week. The school is called Gayaza Cambridge and its one of the poorer partner schools associated with Educate. Anyways, the urged me to go so I said okay. We walked out of our compound and I got onto my first boda boda – it was the driver, Angelica and finally me on this tiny little thing. Here is a picture of a boda boda:
Anyways, I’ve never even been on a motorcycle and here I am riding behind two other people on this rickety old thing. But…the thing with boda boda…as with most things in life – you have to be smart and you have to use your discretion. There are certain places where its super dangerous to ride a boda boda and I of course avoid those. The first boda trip was from our compound to the main road where we got a matatu (van) – it cost 500 shillings (25 cents).
We got on the matatu and basically they just shove as many people in these things as possible. I sat with 4 other people in my row alone…the thing is really packed BUT they don’t go fast so its not that scary. They kind of creep along…the matatu costs 700 shillings (35 cents) for the 20 minute trip to Kampala.
I have NEVER seen anything like old taxi square. Its where you go to get taxi’s to EVERYWHERE in the country. Its literally a lot full of these matatu’s and they’re all moving at the same time. To find a suitable van you just need to ask around and people show you which matatu to get on.
We drove into absolutely DESTITUTE neighberhoods. There are no words, pictures or videos to describe what I saw today. Literally shanty towns and people that have nothing…children begging. Donkeys, cows, longhorn cattle, goats, chickens all over the place…running around like nuts. I could write a book about the villages we passed. I didn’t have my camera, and I will try and take pictures at some point – but right now im not comfortable whipping out a camera. After almost an hour in this cramped matatu we came to Gayaza.
We left the paved roads about a half hour into the trip – gayaza only had dirt roads with huge potholes in them. We walked over to the boda boda drivers and Angelica asked one of them if they knew where Gayaza Cambridge was. The man sheepishly nodded and quoted us a price of 500 shillings. She asked him again – louder. He nodded again and patted the seat for us to get on it. She shook her head and walked away and asked another one – he seemed to adamantly know where the place was and quoted us 1,500 shillings. I asked Angelica how she knew the first guy was full if s*it and she said it was because he quoted too low of a price. Apparently boda boda drivers quote you something cheap, then once you get on the bike they drive away and once they’re away from the other boda boda drivers they ask you where to go….if you don’t know they charge you extra for getting lost and you are at their whim. Pretty crazy.
Anyways, we get on the back of this boda boda and fly around on these dirt backroads that are wide enough for one car. Over speed bumps. Around fallen branches. Past animals. People stared at me like I had two heads and several yelled “MZUNGU!” at me as I drove past.
We arrived at Gayaza Cambridge and sat in on the class. It was quite a spectacle that a mzungo was there…we listened to the teacher talk and then I introduced myself to the class. Apparently I spoke too fast and didn’t open my mouth enough (?) so the teacher had to translate my words into Kiswahili so the students could understand it.
There was a quiet boy in class named “Tribe.” He was a muslim who didn’t say anything throughout the class. After class was out all the children wanted to shake “joe’s” hand. I spoke with them and talked to them. When they all left Tribe came up to me and said, “What is your vision?”
“What do you mean what’s my vision?”
“For us?”
“It was a deep question. “Well, what do you want to be?”
“An entrepreneur and an economist.” He said.
“I’ve studied both.”
“Can you teach me?”
I nodded.
“Do you promise you’ll come back?”
I nodded again.
“When?”
“In a week or two.” I promised.
He smiled and walked away.
There were two boda boda drivers waiting for us when we got back (we paid the one that took us there 1,000 shillings to come back at 6:20. He never did…)
We got into town and into a matatu. The people called me Mr. Mzungu. Everyone was friendly enough except for a teenager on the side of the bus. He kept yelling “mzungu! mzungu” and rapping on the glass. When we pulled away he hit the glass again and gave me the finger. Oh well – there’s always a bad apple in every crowd.
We got into Kampala and Angelica told me she wanted to meet up with her Ugandan friend, “DJ APEMAN.” He was formerly from the UK and had been living in Uganda for the last couple of months. Angelica and DJ Apeman took me to 2K restaurant bakuli on Hoima Road for my first real Ugandan meal (this is where the locals eat). I had beef and crushed peanuts in a huge leaf, rice and meat, matoke and na’an. It was really delicious actually…
Then DJ Apeman drove us home. We passed a chocolate truck which had flipped on its side.
Phew.
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