Kampala, Uganda – Richard Mukasa has been my taxi driver nearly the whole time I’ve been in Uganda – and I plan to use him for the remainder of my time, because we’ve found a way to communicate that makes us laugh at the insanity of trying to get around Kampala.
Richard speaks only a small amount of English. When possible, he communicates in Luganda, one of the regional dialects spoken in this country. English is Uganda’s official language, but native languages often are the go-to way of speaking. But every morning when he picks me up to taxi me to an interview or to work at the Daily Monitor, he greets me with a formal “Good morning, madam.” Then he laughs.
He’s laughing because as we navigate the nightmare traffic in Kampala, he watches my reactions out of the corner of his eye. I’ve tried to mask my faces of horror and to squelch the enormous gasps of fright. When I see a bold move or near accident, I screech to him, “Did you just see that?!” He chuckles and says, “S’OK, madam.” But it’s impossible not to grab the dashboard of his ratty Toyota sedan that gets me where I want to go.
In Kampala, people get around (besides walking) by using a boda boda, a taxi or a “private hire.” Boda bodas are motorcycles. Women still mostly ride on the back in a side-saddle position as their male drivers weave madly through traffic jams, taking chances and maneuvers that make me want to swear like a longshoreman. I haven’t yet used a boda boda, because since I’ve been here, I’ve seen no fewer than 50 accidents with them involved; I’m opting to not spend an evening in a Ugandan emergency room. I’m told, though I haven’t verified, that there are about 300,000 licensed boda boda drivers in Kampala. They are the cheapest, quickest way to get around a very congested city. (Boda boda drivers and the Ugandan government are currently in a dispute over regulations.)
Taxis in Kampala really are buses. To be exact, they call them matatus – 12-passenger vans that are white with short blue stripes painted on them. Nearly every one has a personal touch of the owner, like “God is good” in rainbow-colored holograms on the back. The matatus have informal pick-up and drop-off locations along their routes. Some matatus travel long distances, so passengers have to board them at a taxi park in the city – a park of thousands of taxis that is so vast that it is overwhelming to figure out where you need to go. Obviously not as small and maneuverable as boda bodas, matatu operators still drive assertively to get where they want, when they want.
“Special hires” are people like Richard. They are independently owned cars that are not commercialized, have no meters and frequently are run down because of the constant abuse of driving in a crowded city. Special hires work for themselves, which means you negotiate the fare before you get in the car (and hope the driver holds up his end of the bargain when it comes time to pay).
Richard’s metallic tan Toyota is probably a late-1990s model. The windows don’t roll up completely, if at all (they seem to not roll down on a warm day but not roll up on a rainy day – clearly a Murphy’s Law car add-on). The after-market window tint, which is so dark that you can barely see through it, is partially peeled back enough that you have to control yourself to not finish the job and get it over with. The back doors can’t be opened from the outside. And the floorboard on the front passenger side is worn through. Look down and you see everything beneath you breeze by.
This car is Richard’s livelihood. I’ve stuck with him during my stay here because we created a mutual respect for each other – we know we need each other. He waits for me while I’m in interviews, always greeting me when I get back into the car with a friendly “madam.” I try to explain to him where I need to go next, and if we can’t understand each other, I call the person I am meeting and ask him or her to give Richard directions. He’ll hang up and say, “Ah, yes. I know exactly where that is. Don’t worry, madam. I know the way there.” And off we go, his left eye glancing my direction to watch my facial expressions.
In my short time using Richard, we’ve shared experiences that will probably stay with both of us for a long time. On our way to Katosi last week, we talked about how costly cars are to buy and maintain. He pointed out a shiny black Ford SUV in front of us and explained that it was a new model to come to Uganda. He said only wealthy Ugandans could afford to buy such a car. In turn, I explained that such a car is a dime a dozen in the states, and several models are affordable to middle-class people. He asked what poor people drive. I told him it’s conceivable they drive a Ford, but it may be an older model. It seemed odd to him that his new make in Uganda would be someone’s main transportation in the U.S. I can only imagine if he saw slick new Cadillac Escalade, I thought to myself.
Richard said the Ford SUV probably cost 16 million Ugandan shillings (about $6,500). That’s about 15 times what he probably makes in a year. I told him Americans often spend $20,000 on a car – sometimes brand new and sometimes used. He asked how many shillings that is. I said: “52 million.”
And then we crashed.
Richard’s shock at the figure distracted him long enough for him to not see a man on a motorcycle only an inch from our car. In an instant, the front of Richard’s Toyota slammed into the front of the motorcycle and our view was momentarily obscured by a thick cloud of white. When the air cleared, I realized there were two chickens tied to the front of the motorcycle. The motorcycle driver, gratefully uninjured, was off his bike but standing with his head in his hands as he assessed the damage. I quickly got out of the car but Richard stayed inside. It took me only a minute to realize that we had crashed into a poor village resident from Mukono traveling to sell his chickens. Those chickens were his paycheck for the month. He had raised them, and now he was on his way to a store to get rid of them.
We had killed his chickens by talking about the cost an American will pay for a car.
I apologized to the motorcycle driver and explained that Richard was simply distracted, not reckless. I asked how much he would have made from selling the chickens. He said 12,000 shillings each (about $4.50). I gave him 30,000 shillings and asked again for his forgiveness. He gave it, tipped his motorcycle on its side to let the last bit of tank in his gas flow into the carburetor and left. I noticed part of Richard’s front bumper detached from the body of the car, but I was able to nudge it back in place.
Richard watched all of this from inside the car. After we crashed and I had determined nobody (well, except the chickens) had been injured, I told him he did not need to get out. After all, the odds of Ugandan police coming to an accident scene were slim to none. Unless there are injuries, they don’t bother. I didn’t want Richard to bother either, because he can barely walk.
The first time I hired Richard to drive me to an interview, I noticed that he was barefoot and his legs were exceptionally skinny. He never moved his left leg. He used his right leg to press on the gas and brake pedals. Each time he had to brake, he used his right arm to pick up his right leg and moved it to the pedal. When he needed to use the gas, he picked up his right leg again and moved it to that pedal. He did this over and over again as we drove through one city-wide traffic jam.
Once Richard noticed I watched him move his right leg back and forth between the pedals, he smiled and said, “S’OK, madam.” Neither of us needed to verbally acknowledge he has polio.
We moved on from our crash with the chickens, headed toward Katosi. There was silence in the car for a short time. I think he was hesitant to ask about how we Americans live, worried that an answer would shock him into the other phantom lane of oncoming traffic. I call it “phantom” because no stripes are painted on the crumbling, pot-hole riddled roads.
On the deeply rutted dirt road to Katosi, a fishing village on the shores of Lake Victoria, Richard and I had begun talking as much as we could through our challenged communication about politics in the U.S. He mentioned President Obama. I asked him if he was popular in Uganda. “Yes,” Richard said.
Knowing the president’s popularity because of his African roots, I brought Obama swag with me to give to people who talked about him. I pulled a button from my backpack and gave it to Richard. He pulled to the side of the road momentarily, unfastened his seat belt and pinned it on his shirt.
We continued our drive to Katosi. Halfway there, two policemen on the side of the road flagged Richard down. They asked him to pull over and turn off the car. The officer asked Richard why he wasn’t wearing his seat belt. Richard lied, and told him that his chest and stomach hurt because he was sick. The officer admonished him for driving while sick. He ordered him out of the car. Richard struggled.
The two exchanged heated words. The policeman returned to the car and kindly asked me to get out too. I did. He made Richard and I sit in the dirt on opposite sides of the road – in the rain. Occasionally, the two would chat. This time, I thought to myself, I can’t fix the situation with money, even if I suspected that is why we were being detained. After 45 minutes, the officer let us go.
The next morning when Richard picked me up, I asked him if he paid the officer a bribe. He said no. I took his word, and we quietly sat in a traffic jam. Richard said what he always says, “It’s a jam.” I give my usual reply, “A bad jam.” Then we find a way to break the silence by talking about his two daughters – 13 and 8 years old – until the language barrier becomes too difficult and we simply nod to say what’s necessary.
Today, Richard was scheduled to pick me up at 8 a.m. Typically, he arrives 30 minutes early and waits for me. At the scheduled time, he calls to tell me he is waiting. Today he wasn’t at my hotel on time. I called him but he didn’t answer. I walked around the block of my hotel to make sure he wasn’t parked and waiting but had forgotten to call me. As I walked, I had to fend off the aggressive “special hire” drivers who would take me immediately. I opted to wait for Richard, even if I was going to be late to my interview. When he arrived, he nervously apologized and said, “A jam, madam.” Then he promised me he could get me to my appointment in 15 minutes – a drive that would, with good traffic, take 40 minutes. (We made it in 20 minutes!)
Richard waited for me while I was in my appointment. As usual, village children flock to his car and ask him what the “mzungu” (white-skinned person) is doing and why I am with him. When I return to the car, I smile and wave at the kids, and Richard laughs like he does every time I smile and wave to someone. “Why do you do that?” he asks. “Because we’re all the same people and we all want someone to be kind to us,” I reply.
As we started our return to downtown Kampala, the front bumper of Richard’s car began dragging on the ground. We looked at each other in silence but knew our crash with the chickens was coming home to roost. At first he tried to ignore it. But with every bump in the road, the noise grew louder as it came dangerously close to falling off entirely. We found a couple of men doing maintenance on a boda boda and asked them to wire the bumper back onto the car.
We arrived at my hotel and Richard said: “I shall pick you up in the morning for another jam, madam?”
I said, “Yes, I’ll see you at 8.”
I closed the car door and the bumper fell off.
“Richard,” I said, “maybe one day I will get enough money and come back to Uganda to buy you a Ford.”
He laughed and said, “S’OK, madam.”
