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| Medi Ntege |
Yesterday evening in Kampala, the electricity suddenly
shut down – a brown-out that I was told to expect. The electric supply cannot keep up with
demand as Kampala, a young city, experiences explosive growth. The population has jumped from 46,000 in
1959, 775,000 in 1991, and 1.6 Million today. The signs of this expansion can
be seen everywhere: jammed roads, slums with makeshift buildings, the green
hills yielding to houses, acrid air from diesel exhaust, people crowding the
streets and along the roads.
The greater Kampala transportation network consists of a
number of main paved roads that intersect in roundabouts – what we call
rotaries – and unpaved and rutted side streets.
The downtown is paved but the sidewalks are narrow and, as a result,
pedestrians spill into the streets.
There are very few traffic lights and stop signs, and those that exist
seem to be universally ignored.
I was driven about today by my landlord, Mohammed Ntege,
a large friendly fellow with a huge smile.
Medi as he is called drives a 1990’s Toyota sedan fearlessly,
negotiating traffic and missing collisions by a hair’s breadth. The other drivers do the same and, in this
organized chaos, traffic moves and no one appears to get hurt. As a condition of coming to Uganda through
American Jewish World Services (AJWS) headquartered in New York City, I had to
sign a document agreeing not to drive an automobile or motorcycle while in
Uganda. The organization could have
skipped this notice. I have driven in
New York City and Boston and, believe me, there is no way that even an
aggressive American driver would be able to function here.
In addition to private cars and specialty buses – city to
city and school buses – people move by taxis called private hires, small
motorcycles that are called locally boda-bodas and Toyota vans that are called
Mutatus or taxis. In my two days here
besides rides with Medi and an AJWS staffer, I’ve been using the local vans
and, once, the boda-bodas. Twelve to fourteen people often with parcels pack
into the vans that cost 1500 shillings about 60 cents a ride. The driver is aided by a young man who opens
and closes the sliding door, takes fares and organizes the seating. As I have experienced consistently in Uganda,
people take the daily challenges in stride with equanimity. The traffic delays congestion
that would cause an American to go into road rage, are born by Kampalans without
a frown or raised eyebrow.
The boda-bodas are everywhere, weaving in and out of
traffic, sometimes even going in the wrong lane direction. These traffic gnats were the one thing that
caused Medi to complain. And he warned
me, correctly, to be very careful upon exiting his auto to make sure I looked
both ways to avoid being hit by a boda-boda.
Of course, all these vehicles require imported gasoline
to run. But Uganda and now Kenya has
discovered what looks like major oil fields. This holds both promise and peril
for this country. As Medi said referring
to what has happened in countries like Nigeria, “I worry about the curse of oil
for Uganda.”
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