Yep, it’s about time I come clean on the ridiculousness of my life here in Uganda: more specifically my means of transport. I know I have already highlighted the absurd “Corolla” rides where we essentially roll 11 deep in a car that should have been trashed in the Reagan era, but my recent trip back from a training I was facilitating on malaria in a town no more than 100 miles from my house has inspired this recent blog. Having enjoyed a few beers the night before and feeling a little tired, I sat in the sun sweating my last few beers out as I waited to hop on the bus that was going to take me to a town, Mbarara, about 30 miles from my house. I knew this leg of the trip would be the most trying, but I figured as long as I made it to Mbarara my self loathing would dissipate. Of course the bus arrived about 30 minutes late (in fact, 30 minutes was quite impressive) adding to my self perpetual torture as I baked in the equatorial heat. As I humbly endured my last bout of harassment from the locals on the road ( “Mzungu, where you go? We go now!? Mzungu, Mzungu, Mzungu!), I happily jumped on the dilapidated bus that probably should have been scrapped shortly after Bush Sr. took office. I found an open seat next to a woman who was put off by the Mzungu asking if he could sit there. She was not thrilled to be sitting next to me, and she showed this lack of appreciation by somehow expanding the size of her ass and pushing me further and further into the isle. I thought it was weird that her super-power was to increase the size of her ass on command. I’m sure my power would be to teleport anywhere at any time (if I were granted this power I wouldn’t have been sitting on the bus battling madam expand-a-ass) - anyway enough of the dorky superhuman commentary. As I tried to make myself comfortable for the theoretical 2 hour bus ride to Mbarara, I realized that the bus was a sauna and that no one thought it necessary to open a window. Poke the bear when he’s already hot and tired! I sucked it up and tried to sleep like an old man sitting upright. Not even 10 minutes into the bus ride we stop to pick up and drop off people. No joke, this continued throughout the entire bus ride. I don’t think there was one point of the ride where we were constantly moving for over 15 minutes. The thing that really irritated me was that I waited for this specific bus company because it is always the fastest and most reliable. Yeah it was one of those days. As I wavered in and out of consciousness, not sure from tiredness or the suffocating heat, I looked out the window to see the 100ft. memorial of Yoweri Museveni (President of Uganda for the past 26 years) and the late Muamar Qaddafi shaking hands amiably. This was a sign that I was almost there. I realized that it took roughly two and a half hours to travel 70 miles, but I found that bitching to myself just made my head hurt more. The bus arrived in Mbarara and I jumped off liberated as if I had just managed to free myself from a FARC prison in the middle of the Amazon. Funny thing is, is that I managed to obtain a meeting with the Uganda Health Marketing Group (UHMG) after I was liberated. It turned out to be a really important meeting with what seems to have long term implications for Peace Corps Volunteers focusing on malaria prevention. Feeling as if I had accomplished something, outside of arriving at my second to last destination without going into shock from the sweltering heat in the hot-boxed “No New Taxes” era bus, I flagged down what I thought was an almost full Mutatu (15 seat van-style taxi). Rookie Move!!... Rookie move for several reasons. Firstly, I realized that I had just been screwed by the largest number of ghost riders in history. Ghost riders are sneaky people working with the taxi driver that sit in the taxi looking like customers as the driver goes around town looking for people to pick up. Essentially, they make the taxi look almost full. This is significant because, as everyone knows, you never get in one of these taxis that are less than half full or you will be waiting hours for the driver to fill the taxi before you can leave. With that said, as I entered the taxi and we made our first few loops around town looking for customers, I realized that an egregious number of people were chatting with the driver and exiting the taxi. “Shit!” I thought, “I just got ghost-ridered hard”. So we toured the town for about an hour looking for people to fill the taxi before we headed out. Of course we didn’t leave town until we reached max capacity of the Mutatu. We were finally on our way, and I had only 30 miles left until I reached my house (this 30 miles traditionally takes anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half). Realizing what kind of luck I had had with transport already that day, I knew I was in for a rough-long 30 miles. It never seems to fail. Of course we stopped about 20 times to pick up and drop off people. However, we were picking up more people than dropping off. By the time we made our first turn to pick up about twenty-20 litre containers of milk, I counted 21 people in the taxi. They shoved the containers under our feet, thus making me sit with my knees pinned to my chest the rest of the way. This wasn’t even the egregious part. We had so many people packed into the Mutatu that for the first time ever I saw, what I coined, a triple lap-sit. I’ve seen plenty of people in taxis sitting on each other’s laps due to the cramming of people in the vehicle, but I’ve never seen a triple-decker. There was a grown man sitting on another grown mans lap, and a twelve year old girl sitting on his lap. That’s how full it was. I feel like once you start making customers engage in the triple-decker, you should probably stop trying to pick up more people. In typical fashion, the driver still tried to pick up more people. Thirty miles and an hour and a half later, I arrived at my stop. I believe I started to cry out of joy. I had never been so happy to see the village drunk or the lady I buy water from. One hundred miles and 6 hours later, I collapsed on by bed and didn’t move for what seemed like an eternity. I awoke from my nap and thought I had dreamt the whole thing: nope, just another typical day in my life. They say that dogs are good pets because they are always happy to see you when you arrive home. This affection makes arriving home that much better. Although, my new theory is go to hell and back trying to get home, and no matter how crappy or depressing your home is you will always feel overjoyed to be back. These are the type of things I will most certainly miss when I leave. I don’t know if I’m a masochist or I just enjoy doing things to the extreme, but for some reason I always yearn for the rough nature of the unpredictable.
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