This passage is from my journal, dated 12th Sept, 2008, and describes my experience taking public transportation home the last time I came to Masaka.
It rained hard again yesterday, though I was inside the internet cafe for all of it. It has been cooler since the rain - yesterday I was glad to have brought my rain jacket, and today, I am wearing long sleeves even as I cook beside our small fire. I got to the taxi park around 5:00 yesterday, but it was already starting to empty. Note to self: don't stay in town so late! I got in the taxi to Kyanjalay, but it took forever to fill and leave, making me worry that I'd be stuck in town after dark. Anyhow, we eventually left the park, but kept picking people up. At one point, there were 9 adults in the five passenger car (4 up front; 5 in the back); at another, 8 adults and one baby. As we let people out, we kept picking more up. The man beside me wondered once where all these new people were going to sit - but it is the choice of the driver to pick up passengers and the responsibility of the passengers to figure out how to fit. As I sat there, cramped and slightly uncomfortable, sometimes feeling every breath the man beside me took and other times with an old woman half on my lap, I felt an uncontrollable urge to laugh. Not because of anything particularly humourous in the situation, but mostly just at the strangeness of it. Laughter seemed to be the only appropriate response to the situation.
Oh, yes, I obviously survived the experience and continue to ride in taxis when necessary, but mostly, I prefer taking a boda if I can.
14 years ago
1 comment:
Ha ha! I love reading your posts, probably mainly because I could write many similar ones. Yes, I have squeezed into a van for 2 1/2 hours with more people than I thought it could hold (thank goodness one was a young boy). And motos are so much better if you are by yourself, but when 2 women sit side-saddle, we don't really talk because each is concentrating on staying on the moto while half of our body hangs off of it. Yes, I can relate and I laugh with you because though we are separated by hunderds of kilometers, some things are the same.
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