Taxi ride to remember

I have gotten over my phobia of the taxi park after dark. Well, let me clarify that: I am now alright with going into the taxi park after dark assuming I’m not carrying anything too valuable on me. The main reason for this change is because I have been staying late in Kampala more frequently (every day this last week) for Rotary meetings and other events. Since taking the mutatu costs about 1/15 of a normal taxi cab rate, I’ve shifted over to primarily using the mutatu’s to get home.

The benefit of riding mutatu’s (besides the fact that they’re dirt cheap) is that I get to encounter much more of the culture. This, as I found out this last Saturday, can produce some very memorable experiences.

I was in the city late on Saturday for a Rotaract chartering celebration. It was a very fun event, and I enjoyed getting to know some members from my sponsor club – The Rotary Club of Kololo – a little better. I will save the details of the celebration and of my positive experiences with Rotary in general for another post though.

I left the celebration around 10:30 pm and walked with a couple Ugandans to the taxi park where I boarded a mutatu headed toward my home. While sitting there waiting (the mutatu’s don’t leave until they are full), I got my first clue that this was going to be an interesting ride when an older man threw a huge burlap sack of something (my guess is cassava) down next to my feet. He then climbed in, gave me a disgruntled look and sat down next to me on my left.

The man talked to himself for awhile until the taxi started to move. He then started to speak up, talking to no one in general most of the time but occasionally speaking directly to the person sitting on my right.

It quickly became blatantly obvious that he was talking about me. He was speaking in Luganda – the local tribal dialect around Kampala – so I couldn’t make out most of what he was saying. However, the numerous times he used the word “muzungu” gave the meaning away clearly. And, even if I hadn’t caught that, the finger-pointing that started soon after removed all doubt.

As he continued on with his rant, I noticed that he was holding a clear plastic bag filled with liquid (think of a Capri-Sun package, only clear). This was a bag full of Uganda’s local spirit: waragi gin. This potent drink is commonly sold in these small plastic bags for people who want to “drink on the go.” Alcoholism is a very serious problem in Uganda, and these bags of waragi gin, with their very cheap price tag, cater exactly to this crowd.

The old, drunk man continued, picking up some momentum as he went. For my part, I decided to just completely ignore him and pretend like I had no idea what he was saying. However, after 4 weeks of Luganda lessons (and several words that are the same in Luganda as in English), I was able to pick up on the gist of his schpeel: he assumed that I was a student in Uganda, probably doing some type of study on the poor in the country. He talked about me being rich and how my country can afford to through around $700 billion. In general, he was bitter at the hands we had each been dealt in life.

By this time, he was getting a rise out of several people in the taxi. Numerous times people would laugh after something he said. All I chose to do was just sit there, shaking my head, with something of a smirk on my face. I was actually coming up with a “master plan” while the guy kept talking. I decided I wouldn’t say a word until it was my turn to get off the mutatu. Then I would turn to everyone, say good bye, and wish them all a good night, in Luganda, hoping that they would realize then that I knew what they were saying.

This plan was slightly interrupted when the man tapped me on the shoulder and asked me “What does it feel like to be closer to God because of your skin?” He followed that up with “If I cut you, do you bleed?” implying that whites aren’t even mortal.

Obviously, I wasn’t ready for two questions like that. I stumbled through some response trying to say I really wasn’t that different from everyone else on the taxi, but failed to express myself well. It didn’t really matter because he had already gone back to ranting in Luganda before I was even done speaking.

We eventually reached my stop. I got out and went ahead with the Luganda goodbye and good wishes for everyone in the taxi. I didn’t notice any real response from the people, which probably meant I said it wrong or my accent made me too difficult to understand. Swing and a miss…

The feeling I had on the mutatu is a hard one to describe. I wouldn’t say it was humiliating, but it definitely was agitating to be called out like that. Part of me wanted to come right back at the guy and explain to him that I was in the country trying to help and that he should maybe try doing something productive with his life. However, I thankfully restrained myself, opting to not let a drunk provoke me.

After I got off the mutatu and thought more about it, however, it really hit home how much truth was in what the man had said. Chances are that during his life he had seen and experienced countless hardships and tragedies: lost friends and family to diseases like AIDS and malaria, poverty, hunger, homelessness, war, genocide, etc. If I had lived through all of that, and still was relying on a burlap sack of tubers to get me through the next day, I’d be bitter towards people who were born into a world where they would experience few, if any, of the same hardships. Of course, alcohol and publicly making a show of someone aren’t the right ways to go about dealing with problems in life, but I can definitely understand why he was frustrated.

As uncomfortable as the experience was, part of me is happy that it happened. There definitely is an underlying tension among some people towards those in developed countries who, like me, have been blessed to have everything they ever need (and then some) provided. I just hope that the future generations of Ugandans will decide to do something more productive than resorting to waragi gin to fix the problem!

Cheers!
Chris

P.S. I feel like I need to add a disclaimer to this post: This occurrence was an isolated incident, so please don’t let it give a negative impression of Ugandans. The vast majority of Ugandans have been incredibly welcoming to me; this was just a unique experience I wanted to share.


Pic: Old Taxi Park in all its glory. The taxis I catch actually can’t be seen here; there is an “annex” that was recently added a couple blocks away – I go there to catch a mutatu headed toward my home.