Boda-Boda

So I'm off on one final mini-excursion for a few days, but I plan to be back in Kampala for the weekend. I've met a really nice group of peacecorp folk here, and I've been invited to a fourth of july weekend ultimate frisbee bbq extravaganza. I'll write again after the trip and bbq, but I wanted to do a blog entry on what is by far my favorite method of transportation, the boda-boda. A boda-boda can be either a bicycle or a motorcycle that you hop on the back of. In Kampala there are almost no bicycles so boda-boda means just the motorcycle. Kampala's traffic is so bad that you can pay almost nothing to get on a minibus, but you will not arrive at your destination for at least a few hours. The only way to get around, the way I see it, is to get on a motorcycle which weaves its way, quite dangerously at times, through the city. I think the peacecorp is overreacting a little, but they deem the boda-bodas dangerous enough to ban their volunteers from using them with an automatic punishment of being sent home if caught.

Anyways, the main reason I like taking the boda-boda has nothing to do with it being faster than a minibus, but rather the boda-boda drivers. They congregate in herds throughout the city, and I really think there needs to be a doctoral thesis on the sociology of these folks. Anytime you get near a group they start yelling at you to choose them, and many times a few will even start up the motorcycle and go towards you with the apparent belief that running you over will make you want to choose them for your ride.

Once you've succeeded in getting rid of all the drivers but the one you want to talk to it gets even more fun. I'll ask them if they know where the place I want to go is, and more often than not you get a glassy blank stare, several seconds of silence, and than the following response "you come on, we go". "So how do you get there?" I'll follow up, to which I get a pleading "you sit down, we go". Before I knew that most of the guys had no clue where they were going I'd get lost quite a bit. Often in the middle of the ride I would ask them if they knew were they were going, and after a pause they'd always say "yes". But a few moments later we would conveniently stop for the guy to buy a cigarette. While I can't hear the transaction going I always find it curious that the guy selling the cigarette would always be pointing in a direction and his body language always seemed to indicate that he was in fact giving directions and not selling cigarettes. Eventually you make it to your destination, but its always a process. These guys are so desperate for any business they'll do whatever they can, including just driving off in a direction with no clue how to get where I want to, hoping that somehow the problem will resolve itself.

Agreeing on a price is not a simple affair either. There's the initial bargain, and as a mzungu I'm always charged more. You have to dictate the price from the beginning to get anything close to the local price. It doesn't end there though. Sometimes in the middle of the ride the guy will say "its very far, you give me more money". They're not actually expecting you to agree to increase the price, but they're trying, and well, I can't blame them. If you don't get the plea in the middle of the ride it will definitly come at the end. As you're getting off the boda-boda and getting the money out you usually hear the following "eh, the price of petrol is so high, you give me more money" I've heard it so many times now I usually start laughing. The other comical thing about it to me is the tone of their voice. The "eh" is so high pitched some soprano opera singers would be impressed, and the rest of the sentence is not much lower in the tone, and it's all quite an impassioned plea. At the end of it all most folks give you a big smile and thank you once they get the amount you originally agreed upon, and go off looking for their next customer.

I got an amazing insight into the world of the boda-bodas a week or so ago in Mbale after I had finished the Mt. Elgon hike. I was having dinner with Nico, the guy I climbed part of it with, when a Dutch guy and and a Ugandan woman that Nico knew came into the restaurant. So we had dinner with them too, and soon enough the conversation switched to the Boda-Bodas. The Ugandan woman was from Gulu, up in the north of Uganda, but now lives in Kampala. She was saying that the Boda-Boda price is not two tiered: Ugandan and Mzungu. Because she is not Buganda, the local tribe in the Kampala area, and does not speak Luganda, the main language of Kampala, she is charged more than Bugandans speaking Luganda. The Boda-Boda people size you up based on your dress, skin color, and once you open your mouth your language as well. This stuff is extremely complex as y'all can see, so mostly I just walk.