Driving in Uganda

Our trip started off with the phrase “we could never drive here” but Chris is now well on his way to being an expert 4×4 and combat driver!

Here are a couple of short clips to give you an idea of the sort of driving that is necessary in Uganda

Driving a car is a luxury in Uganda, with most people using the pubic taxi for transport, or the Boda Boda we have mentioned before. These are relatively inexpensive although the risk factor is rather high! When we travel into Kampala by ourselves we usually use these forms of transport however we use the car when we are going out with the family and sometimes for getting to and from school. At the start of our trip, Ivan took a trip to visit the Revival Centre’s sponsors in the UK, so Chris became chief driver for a few weeks. We are thankful we haven’t needed to drive since then, although it was a good (albeit daunting!) experience!

Our usual form of transport to get into Kampala is a public taxi.  These are sort of like buses without set stops, but they follow a particular route.  If you need one, you stand by the side of the road and wait for one with enough space (or not enough space – they will make room!) and get in.  Top tip – get a taxi that is as full as possible, as an empty taxi can add a lot of time to your journey while the conductor tries to convince every pedestrian to get in!  For 2500 shillings (about Aud$1.10) for a 12 mile trip to Kampala, a little extra time is not something we complain about!

Making friends inside a taxi! All these school kids shared the three seats in the back row!

The inside of a taxi – supposed to seat 14, we have experienced up to 20 people fitting in one!

We cannot do a blogpost about driving in Uganda without introducing you to Tom! Tom is a private taxi driver, who we came across on one of the very first weeks here. He was waiting outside the Garden City shopping mall we frequent, and asked if we needed a taxi. We already knew what rate we should be charged to get back to Matugga (the local rate!) and were impressed when he didn’t try to offer us ‘Muzungu’ prices! Since that day he has been our on-call driver every time we have done a little too much shopping for the public taxis (especially 5L water bottles!), or going somewhere a bit more out of the way, or just want to treat ourselves! We have met his family, two cute kids, and we enjoy his company while driving!

Tom and his car
Photo by Debbie Bognar

So far, Tom has also not run out of petrol while we’ve been traveling with him! This may seem like a small thing, but we are averaging once a month in terms of traveling in a vehicle that has run too low! It is not usual to ‘fill it up’ when you get to a petrol station, rather each journey requires a petrol stop with just enough for that journey being added. The reason being that the population lives on a day-by-day wage and a full tank would mean fewer groceries that day. It’s a common sight to see Boda drivers, taxis or cars stopped on the side of the road waiting for a jerry can to be bought from the nearest station. Luckily there are a lot of stations here!

This is the closest we got to a petrol station before running out – good effort!

Flat tyres are also a common occurrence on these roads!

Driving around using any form has given us great entertainment (when we haven’t been fearing for our safety!) in what Ugandans can transport on Boda bodas!

Best things we’ve seen traveling on a Boda Boda:

A Live Goat! The first time we saw this it was too quick to get a photo, but we were very surprised! The second time I couldn’t let the opportunity pass by!

Find the goat!

20 Jerry Cans – purely because the overload is amazing! Unfortunately no photo!

Fruit heading to the markets:

Pineapples!

Live chickens – see if you can count them!

Count the chickens

Wide Loads!

The width of a load never seems to be too much of a concern.

But the best of the best was a motorbike on a motorbike! This one we really wish we had caught on camera! A Boda must have broken down, but the solution of course is just to pick it up and put driver and bike on another Boda!!

Best views of other cars/trucks:

Tea Leaves make a great first class ride!

Logs! This never seems to be securely fastened down, and we much prefer not to be traveling behind such a load!

Whatever can fit on top of a taxi:

A taxi fare can include the roof of the taxi for an added fee.

Seemed to fit in this blogpost somewhere, a wheelchair!

And finally, come along with us as we take a ‘boda’ from the village back home

Encounter with Ugandan Police and Boda Boda excitement

On Wednesday we had our first encounter with the Ugandan police. We were having our weekly day out in Kampala, shopping for groceries and things for the school. Finishing up in the main part of the city, we wanted to go to Garden City. Its a mall with a swimming pool, hot showers, a cafe and a supermarket which stocks Cadbury – we like it there!

Being four kilometres away, up hill, we decided to have our first ride on a ‘Boda Boda’ motorcycle!
This is not something to be taken lightly! The traffic here is a little crazy, and the reason is often these boda bodas! Their name comes from the time when you weren’t allowed to travel in a bus over the border from one country to another, so the motorcycles would pick people up and ferry them across the border crossing, yelling ‘Border Border’ to sell their service. They are known to be the fastest way to get somewhere – usually at the expense of the road rules! We warned our drivers to be careful with us, and they were good – but it’s not something we plan on doing too often! Hayley’s driver laughed at her for ‘steering his shoulder’!

 

We arrived at Garden City, and needed to cross the road to get to our oasis. We crossed half way to the centre island, when Hayley noticed the policemen (you can see them in the photo of Chris above, on the right hand side) moving to meet us when we finished crossing, so we moved down slightly to a break in the grass to finish crossing on the otherside of them. We were going through the security check when the the police came up to us an told us they had been calling us and we needed to talk to them. We went over to them, where they accused us of not crossing the road at the crossing (there wasn’t exactly a crossing there, although we think the break in the grass was probably what they were referring too!). We explained that we had crossed half the road at the ‘crossing’ when we had seen it, and that we had crossed with other people. Their rather large guns are a bit intimidating at the best of times, but especially when you are in an argument with them!

Their commander told us to come with him, and pointed towards their vehicles. I (Hayley) got a bit annoyed at this point, and just said in my most pointed voice ‘no, why, where are we going?’. Thankfully this worked, he turned back to us and told us to leave.
We are thankful that we had read that this was a new occurrence at the westerner frequented Garden City, that police are trying to extort money from foreigners by creating false charges and asking for bribes to be let off. We are so used to trusting police and having them enforce correct laws that we are now adjusting our expectations for our new country. Our Ugandan friends at church last night were frustrated at our experience, they want a police force they can trust too! We are thankful for our safely here! We thank God for his protection over us during our time here.

 

We’re Really Going!

We have booked our flights, and it’s hitting us that we will be on our way to Uganda in just 159 days time!  Many of you will know the desire that Chris and I have had to go to Africa to volunteer, and through conversations with friends we were put in touch with an organisation that has needs we hope we can help with.  We have quite a bit of preparation we want to do in the lead up to the trip to make sure we are as useful as possible while we are there, both practically and spiritually!  We are also taking the promise that God will be our strength where we are weak, a far greater strength than we could acquire ourselves.

On May 17th we will be leaving to spend about 6 months in Mattuga, Uganda volunteering at the Revival Centre.  The Revival Centre hosts a primary and secondary school for 650 students, and an orphanage for 120 children.  They are continuing to build a farm that was started in 2009, and run a vocational centre and womens’ projects (helping women set up their own business through making crafts, bricks, farming pigs or crops and catering events).  The Revival Centre is supported by St John’s Church in Ilkley, England.  To find out more about the Revival Centre, please visit their website www.revivalcentrematugga.org.uk and to have a guided tour of the school by a couple of the students see this video – YouTube video

We will be contributing our skills in finance and marketing, helping with the vocational and womens’ projects and teaching in the school.  Alongside this will be some additional projects which we will find out more about soon.

Matugga is about 20km from Kampala, and according to Wikipedia has a population of about 15000, with 85% being under the age of 18 although this is a very rough estimation.  The current temperature in Matugga is 19 degrees at 8am, with a high of 28. Below are a few maps to help get an idea of where we will be (the gold star marks Matugga – its a bit hidden behind the word Kampala in the last picture)

We will be staying with pastor Ivan, from the church in Matugga.  The Revival Centre is the vision of pastor Ivan made possible when, in 2000, a group from England met him and supported the first buildings to start the school.  We are so looking forward to meeting him and being a part of the continuation of the Revival Centre.

For our friends and family who would like to keep up to date with our plans and our time over in Matugga we will endeavour to keep this blog up to date!