Roads, where we're going we need roads

I feel like every entry I make could really be a 12 part series. Ex-pat life, do no harm, and today’s topic: roads. I suppose this is the nature of the blog. For me anyway, blogging is the the answer. It’s get a snapshot or nothing at all, because the great American novel or memoir ain’t gonna happen any time soon.

Roads in Africa are amazing. Physically, they are usually horrendous. In Uganda, there is a road that goes from the Nile River to Congo that is perfectly paved and it makes me weep when I’m on it, because it is such a rarity. Most roads, especially those where I live are a crazy bumpy calamity of potholes the size of your vehicle and pitiful scraps of colonial tarmac ceding almost entirely to marum. Marum is the other other paved road. It’s a fancy word for dirt. Admittedly it’s packed well and in some cases I prefer marum, because unlike the tarmac it’s been replaced more often than every 50 years. However, in dry season, which seems to be this entire year in Gulu, marum is a dusty nightmare. It reminds me of trying to drive in a dense fog, except fog doesn’t blow out my sinuses the way marum does. Since Gulu is more arid than the south and closer to its much more arid neighbor Sudan, dry and dusty desert winds are frequent. Only since moving to Gulu have I realized that the covered heads of many Arab people are as much about function as they are about religion. Conversely, when it rains, the road is washed away. What remains are nasty mud puddles that are impossible to avoid and threaten to ensnare your entire car like quick sand.

The physical condition is only part of the sport of traveling the roads of Africa. If you leave aside the danger of it, which I will do for only a moment, roadside life is so vibrant. There’s the livestock. Goats, goats and more goats line the streets or cross them. Chickens and cows too. The only time I have ever seen a Ugandan driver brake responsibly is when a cow is crossing. The driver yields only to cows and buses.

In addition to livestock, people line the streets. Life in Africa is lived on the side of the road. Each town you drive through is bursting with life. Rows and rows of shops line each trading center with everything for sale. From chickens and bush meat (some sort of unidentified large rodent) to furniture to spare car parts to mobile phone stores to coca cola distributors. Petty traders hawk everything to the vehicle passing through. You can buy whatever fresh produce is available. There are pineapples and mangoes in Luweero, pumpkins in Lacokacet, several different varieties of bananas – each variety located at a specific stop on the road: “gonja” in Bweyale, “matoke” in Bombo, etc. There’s a stop along the Kampala-Gulu road called Kafu that serves what I like to call dysentery on a stick, otherwise known as barbecue goat. They also serve a more ex-pat friendly roasted cassava and sometimes even fresh mushrooms, a rarity in Uganda. They have cold water and soda there. I’m not sure how they do it, because there is no sign of power for miles and miles. It’s entrepreneurial and adventurous and I never tire of watching the throngs of traders scamper quickly to our car to get the first, quick sale.

Apart from those selling are just those living life in Africa. Women, carrying babies on their backs, also carry impossibly large loads of firewood on their heads. Or they drift gracefully down the road on bikes with their long skirts flapping in the wind; apparently northern Uganda is one of the only places in all of Africa where women ride bikes. Little children struggle to carry a jerry can of water. Those lucky enough to have an adult sized bike (I’ve never seen a kid bike here) somehow manage to balance 50 lbs of water on a bike that they cannot even properly peddle. It’s amazing. Just yesterday I saw 3 children, ages perhaps 12, 7 and 3 carrying size appropriate water jugs: a jerry can, a half of jerry can and the three year old had an oil jug of about a gallon that he was somehow managing to carry. Have you ever tried to lift a jerry can of water? It takes herculean strength and yet most children here are tasked with it and carry it without complaint.

It’s glorious to travel up the road, taking in all of these sites and of course the beautiful country side. It’s glorious unless you stop and think about how freaking dangerous it is. Allan Rock said to me on his trip last year that he’d rather not take the honored front passenger seat. He commented that he’d like nothing more than to have no idea what was going on outside the vehicle, because he was convinced that an accident, involving any of the multitude of road side activities described above, was imminent.

And accidents abound. As I mentioned, drivers yield to cows and buses. Buses are lethal weapons on the road. They travel between 140-180 km/hour and they appear, as they hurl toward you, that they are literally coming apart at the seams. Countless fatal accidents on roads are caused by reckless buses careening down the road. Drivers in Uganda are a phenomenon too. They speed dangerously as well. I have to admit that I, albeit guiltily, allow my driver to speed on the Gulu-Kampala road, because I’m usually so ready to get to either location. It’s bad, especially if a goat or chicken or God forbid a three year old were to misstep. Tragically this happens too often. There exists in Uganda no road rage. None. Zip. I have seen every possible crazy move a driver could possibly make and neither the offender nor the offendee show any sign of concern, let alone anger. It’s weird. Although I guess not, considering that Ugandans are the nicest people on the planet.

Oh I forgot bodas. Again, an entire blog could be spent on bodas, our favorite guilty transport pleasure. For this blog I’ll contain it to one decision I have made that keeps me from having accident. When I first started driving in Uganda I made a rule, inspired by the 9 bijillion boda drivers on the road: Never, ever use your peripheral vision. If you do, you’re screwed because you get distracted by pretty bad driving and the rest of the road side carnival.

Allegedly there is a new project coming to northern Uganda to build roads and infrastructure. Ham Delilah. Let me suspend my disbelief and stave my cynicism for a moment and hope that road repairs are finally coming north. Now, if only they gave drivers licenses to goats, chickens and cows!