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Makondo, the place where I’m working, is 160km from Kampala (which can take anything from 4 to 9 hours). so having argued our way on to a matatu ,convinced we were being over charged because the price had gone up since a few weeks ago (but they wouldn’t lower so we had no choice) we spent the next half hour waiting for the matatu to fill up and then a further 30-40mins trying to get out of the taxi park (just as well these buses don’t run to a timetable and instead just go when full). The taxi was jammed in nose to tail with 100s of other taxis. As is always the way - everyone gets involved and so those standing around got other taxis to move out the way and help the driver to manoeuvre out around the other taxis and stands to the potholed exit.
Once on the road it was a painless journey, fortunately coming behind many trucks and hence the driver having to slow down plus he didn’t overtake on too many blind bends or brows of hills. We were stopped a few times by police to check the number of passengers (limited to 14) and so we weren’t too squashed passengerwise, although when we arrived in Masaka and tried to retrieve our luggage we realised how much other stuff had been crammed in to the boot…… bag after bag of grain/rice followed by a dozen or so jerry cans full of water(!) and then a sack of grass, before our bags were pulled out from under the seats.
Once in Masaka, the nearest town to Makondo, some 40km away on dirt tracks we headed for food and sugar! there was only about 4 things on the menu available because despite being lunchtime the local food wasn’t ready and the waiter ‘really wouldn’t advise the soup’! We phoned the guy who was coming to ‘pick us’ as the ugandans say, and he was on his way - 3 ½ hours later he arrived!!
There had been two downpours of rain during the day and so we avoided the short potholed route but instead went a longer way on better (still dirt but not potholed) road. There were a fair few puddles and the car was filthy but nothing compared to what was to come….. we were within a km of our destination but on the other side of the valley. everyone in the village where we were took one look at the car and said ‘don’t go any further, you’ll get stuck down there’. We ummed and arred and decided we couldn’t get a boda boda (motorbike taxi) as we had way too much stuff and had resigned to staying the night in the next door village and hoping it dryed out over night. Our driver, the headmaster from the school where we’ll be working, decided to give the back roads a shot - his mission for the day to get us to our destination - though this was another 8km. Huge gulleys were forming on the side of the road where the water was running down so manipulating the road and where to drive was hard enough let alone the skidding in the mud. I’ve never seen the steering wheel used so much….. he was forever correcting the steering trying to avoid sliding in to the verge, unable to move out of the way so pedestrians were having to jump into the verge and we lost a couple of cars following us who just got stuck and couldn’t go any further. it was getting dark and to me it looked like we were driving down a path….. and not a flat one at that as many parts were on a slant….that’s one thing when it’s fine but when it’s muddy it’s pretty impossible to pass. We miraculously managed to avoid skidding in to any trees but a few hedges were squashed and tyre marks right across people’s front gardens (if you can call them that) or more like earth yards.
the next day a truck tried to take the road across the valley to the parish where we are, the one we avoided the night before, and he is still stuck there several days later, one tyre completely submerged in mud, not sure how he’ll get out of that one without a hand.
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Katy
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: )
What an adventure Jess! I got quite a kick out of reading it and imagining you on your journey...seems like something out of a movie. : )