Hello everyone! I hope
you are having a wonderful weekend! We
have been in Uganda for a little over a week now and are having a wonderful
experience so far. There is so much to
get used to and so much to learn but we have great support and are making some
awesome new friends.
We have quickly realized once again how much we take for
granted in the States. The list of
luxuries that we all have is long but the one I want to tell you a little about
today is transportation. At home it is
expected that most of us have a vehicle of some kind… and not just one per
family. We are expected to have at least
one vehicle per person that drives. In
Kampala only the very rich have vehicles of their own. Even most of the expats that are here seem to
only have one vehicle per family if they are lucky!
So, needless to say, the roads have a very different feel
here! Instead of the roads being filled
with cars and trucks in a very organized manner traveling down the streets,
ours are crazy! There are people walking
everywhere (including darting through the streets), some personal vehicles
darting through, but mostly the roads are filled with boda-bodas (motorcycle taxis)
and matatus (van taxis)… and it is chaos!
Motorcycles are darting in and out and between cars and the matatus are honking
and then pulling over everywhere to pick up new passengers.
Abbey and I (with a whole lot of help from the staff at the
school) have taken on the task of figuring out the boda-boda systems and the
matatu systems this week and are having a lot of fun doing it. In a nutshell, here is how the system works…
the boda-bodas will take you from anywhere to anywhere. The drivers are everywhere and just about all
of them offer you a ride. It costs about
5,000 Ugandan Schillings (about $2 U.S.) for a one-way ride from our end of
town to downtown (and the price increases or decreases based on the
distance). There are a lot of scams and
bad drivers so the school has introduced us to some boda drivers who are
trustworthy and safe. We have a list of
their names and phone numbers and we can call them and they will come wherever
we are and pick us up! My boda driver’s
name is John and he is a very nice guy and a safe driver. Here is a picture of us today after he
brought me back from picking up some groceries at the Super Supermarket (I know…
great name!) Obviously, with Abbey being
pregnant we have decided that the matatu is the much safer option for her.
The matatus run pretty similar to a public bus system in the
U.S. They have set routes and you have
to give them the signal that you want them to pick you up when they pass
by. They are, by law, only supposed to
carry a maximum of 14 people per matatu but we have figured out pretty quickly
that this law is ignored. Matatus will
routinely have 17+ people in them. It is
the cheapest form of transportation as a ride from here to downtown will cost
around 1,500 Ugandan Schillings (about $0.60 U.S.). The matatus come from all over the city and
converge on one massive taxi park downtown.
When you are ready to go back toward your end of town you come back to
the park and overlook thousands of matatus all waiting to be filled with passengers.
Abbey and I took on the task today of finding our way to the
correct matatu. There are signs above
each section of the massive lot and we kept asking drivers where the section of
vans that go to “Kansanga” were and they kept pointing us further and further
to the back of the park. To add to the
excitement, we were carrying groceries and packs in an amazing Ugandan
downpour! Oh, the excitement! Finally, we found the correct matatu and
waiting for the other 15 passengers to pack in like sardines and off we went! It was actually all very exciting!
Well, there you go!
Appreciate your cars and your motorcycles and your garages… but every
once in a while try to imagine what life would be like without them. It’s a whole different adventure!
Your brother in Jesus Christ,
Ernie
Sounds like an amazing experience!!
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