A brief blurry-eyed introduction

John was the name of the man sent to pick me up at the Entebbe airport. He was really nice and friendly and put up with all of the questions I asked him. Though it was dark out I was able to catch a glimpse of Ugandan nightlife as we traveled to Jinja, passing through the capital, Kampala, in the process.

On the plane Tom had told me that I would probably be a little distressed when I first experienced the driving – he was right. As in most British settlements, vehicles drive on the left side of the road, however staying there is really more of a suggestion than a rule. Trucks, cars, motorcycles, and bikes alike will take up both lanes in one direction until on-coming traffic is spotted. But even then they might still take up the whole road. This results in the oncoming traffic to drive on the side of the road to avoid a collision. Needless to say, it makes transportation very interesting. But I would like to point out when driving in Uganda it is size that matters, meaning that it’s pretty much big trucks that can do whatever they like and everyone else has to work around it. This just goes down the line leaving pedestrians dead last.

The thing that jumped out at me the most were all of the people I saw just walking around on the side of the road late at night in the dark . . . most in dark clothing. My first thought was ‘thank goodness I’m not driving, I’d be scared if all of a sudden I saw people on the side of the road and then running across it in the middle of the night!’ And as time went by 12:00, 12:30, 1:00am, people didn’t seem to disappear but instead gained in numbers. But then again it was a Saturday night so I guess being out late isn’t too unusual. We passed a lot of clubs, bumping bass alerting us of our imminent approach. To me, the club buildings reminded me of gas stations, except without the pumps and completely covered overhead. Basically they had one whole side open, like a huge open porch with a small area in back that could be considered “inside”.

Another exciting event was finding out the road was blocked because two huge trucks had broken down right in the middle of it. Apparently this is quite common, lucky for us there was a side road we could take to get around it. Also, John told me (from what I understand) that not too long ago a truck carrying gasoline broke down/spilled/tipped over or something along those lines and there was a free-for-all of people trying to gather up as much as they could. I find that easy to picture and can imagine it was much more civil than it would have been in the US – but that’s just my opinion.

The last thing I thought was slightly exciting on the trip home was the police check points. We had to stop at two. The first we went right on through but the second took a little longer. The guard decided to hassle John a little bit, asking if he’d been through before as he shines a flashlight through the back windows – “yes”. Have you been through here before? – “Yeah, like four hours ago.” Have you been through in the last 30 minutes? – “No.” The guard looks through the windows some more. After a snide remark we were on our way again and soon arrived at Plot 33 Lubogo Road.