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| From Kampala Daily Monitor, March 2, 2010. Full article. at this link. |
Each day I walk from my apartment to my place of work
north along Entebbe Road, a major thoroughfare that links the airport in
Entebbe to the center of Kampala. Unfortunately, my apartment is on the
east side of the highway and the office on the west requiring me to cross two
lanes of traffic.
On Monday as the cars going north crawling along, bumper
to bumper, I crossed the south lane during a break in the traffic, motioned
with my left arm for a northbound car to let me pass, and walked quickly between two cars toward the
shoulder. Just as I exited from between the line of cars, I was hit by a boda-boda
(motorcycle) going north in the shoulder - what we would call a breakdown lane
but it is hardly wide enough to be so classified. Luckily, the front tire of the motorcycle hit
me square in the left hip. Shaken and
bruised and still on my feet, two white clad women traffic cops appeared and
began to lecturing the motor-cycle driver who was transporting a women
passenger dressed smartly for work. One of
the officers turned to me. “Are you
hurt?”, she asked. “No, not seriously”,
I replied assessing the state of my body.
“Will you forgive this man?” the officer continued. Although this caught me off guard, I quickly
realized that if I did not answer yes, the situation would become
complicated. I also was aware of the overtones of the situation: a young African driver strikes an American
pedestrian. Gathering myself, I answered yes, twice at
the insistence of the officer.
The motorcyclist, surely relieved, drove off with his
passenger and I stopped to reach into my backpack for ibu-profen and water that
I carry for emergencies. I tested my
leg. Sore but able to walk, I went off
to work, more aware than before about the dangers lurking along Entebbe Road.
Of course, the situation is more hazardous for children and women, In my next post, I'll look more generally about the safety of pedestrians in East Africa.
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