Bodas, Taxi and Plane

Well I had quite the eventful trip to the airport on Saturday evening. I was staying at my friend, Susan’s uncle’s house out off of Entebbe Road near Kampala. You can understand that this is Uganda, so when I say off the main road I really mean “Off Road”. He lives at least 4 klm out up and down hills on bumpy pothole, trenched, dirt roads. The first time Susan and I went to the house I was amazed that the car made it out there, but the funny thing is there are some huge houses out in that area and around his house. I thought to myself wow this is crazy they can build these estates, but don’t do anything about their access roads! Uganda needs a infrastructure so bad!
Anyway, the night I left for the airport Susan’s friend John called 2 bodas; 1 for the 2 of us and one for my luggage. As the boda driver strapped my 2 big pieces of luggage onto the motorcycle I thought gees only in Uganda! John and I boarded the second boda and we were off. Well kind of, the boda driver couldn’t make it up the first hill and he rolled backwards right into the other boda, with John and I both on the bike. Ok I thought I can deal with this and jumped off and walked up the hill, as the boda plowed up the bumpy, dirt hill. We jumped back on and were off, and then of course something else happened. The driver caught a rut and almost wreaked. Ok that was scary and the second time was enough for me to get off and start walking. All the guys came following after me convincing me that it was going to be ok from here on out. I said, God’s telling me not to get back on but finally I did a quick protection prayer and jumped back on. We finally made it to the main road and then had to find a taxi.
Finding a taxi was a whole other experience. Imagine standing alongside a busy main road in the middle of the night with your entire luggage, flagging down taxis as they speed by. As the minutes clicked by, we waited and waited, but all the taxis that speed by were full of people. I kept thinking I’m going to be late for my flight, but finally a half hour later a taxi stopped. As John ran to talk to the taxi conductor I grabbed bags and as I got closer I could hear all the people in the taxi shouting in Luganda, there’s no room how are we going to fit? I could see the taxi was packed but the conductor shoved my luggage under the seats and crammed us in too and we were off!! I was just thankful that we were finally moving toward the airport and said a little pray of thanks to God.
Then all of a sudden this loud flapping noise started from the rear tire. I thought oh my, the tire has blown! The conductor and John jumped out of the taxi and assured everyone it wasn’t the tire but the noise kept up. The people started yelling at the driver to go slow. A few kilometers later the driver stopped again and the conductor and John jumped out again and ripped off the mud flap. That was the noise was!
As it turns out all the people on the taxi with us were family returning from a wedding in Kampala, so they all had to be dropped off at different locations around Entebbe. The family had long good byes with each other recounting the days events, as time ticked by. Gees we finally got done dropping the families off and we were off to the airport again. I was thinking that the taxi driver wasn’t going to take us all the way into the airport parking lot, so John asked them if they would. We got through the main gates and into the lot, and it was time to pay the driver and check-in. But of course we weren’t finished with the nights issues. When we went to pay the driver was asking us for 9,000 shillings. Much, much more then John had negotiated. I handed the driver 5,000 which was our asking price and he proceeded to argue with us. I was feed up, time was ticking and I was going to miss the flight, so I handed him the last of the money I had in my purse, another 1,700 shillings. Of course he was not happy! John stood there discussing things in Luganda and I walked away. I was so done with the negotiation but John knew he needed to smooth things over. I ended up giving the driver another 1,500 and he was somehow happy. Ahh we raced to the security check-in and I said good-bye to John. I couldn’t thank him enough for all he had done for me that evening. What a Blessing he was to me. I hugged him, said good-bye for the last time and got through security to check my bags. By the time I reached the gate people were going through the last security check for boarding. Whew I made it! What a night! This is one trip to the airport that I won’t forget!!