Happy New Year person!!
I hope you are having a great one so far!
2015 was a good year for My
Matatu Chronicles and the team here (urrrm, that’s just me) is ready for a bigger
and better one! Amen?
We start on a Diaspora note this new year. I spent the first
few days of 2016 in Uganda, and came back with a few stories for your pleasure
(if you like :) )
It is going to be a two part series, I hope you enjoy it! If you have been on
this route and experienced it differently, let me know! Now dig in!
****
The journey started at 10:30PM. I boarded the Mash cool bus,
but was utterly disappointed that the leg room would give me nothing but misery
for the over 10 hour trip, and it did. I made a mental note to save for a
flight next time, but then, we wouldn’t have a matatu chronicles article, would
we? It was too dark to scrutinize the passengers, except the 7 foot man who
just laid out a mattress on the aisle and slept. I counted my blessings then,
at least I fit into that limited leg room! We had a pretty uneventful trip to
the Kenya-Busia border, getting there at 4:30 AM. My cousin wakes me up and
tells me, “Hapa ni masaa! I hope uko na biro.” Lol! I always have a biro (pen)
with me.
The border was quite a buzz. Buses were offloading
passengers and getting checked. We had to go queue up at the office to get our
passes. Those who had passports only had to get it stamped and they were on
their way. The rest had to fill a form to get a temporary pass. My cousin then
goes, “Hakuna haja ya kuchafua passport na stamp za E.Africa! Let’s get a
temporary pass.” But alas! There was a form missing, so we had to buy an
alternative one that would cost us Ksh. 300. The excuse: Nairobi had not sent
or done photocopies, something… Hapo naona ni kama tulichezwa. Haidhuru.
Once we had gotten hold of the forms, some guy directs and accompanies
us to a place where we would get a photocopy of the ID and some passport photos
taken. I was impressed at how helpful everyone was at 4AM. We get there and
there is already a bunch of people awaiting the service. I overhear someone
ask, “Ni how much?”
“Four hundred bob!” came the reply.
What? Four hundred Kenya shillings for four copies that will
be taken at 4am with cobwebs around my red swollen eyes? Come on! No wonder we were literally chauffeured
to this place. Brokers had to get their share! My cousin tells me to pay up, but
I swore I was not going to pay four hundred bob! Asi! I took the photo then
handed the guy a five hundred shilling note and firmly said, “Usitoe more than
two hundred kwa hiyo pesa.” Now, on a normal easy day, I am told I have a
serious RBF (Resting Bitch Face). You can imagine how menacing I looked then, my
6 foot self, sleepy and stressed. Hehe! It worked! I was given back my three
hundred bob change and I galloped away before they realized I was bluffing,
because I wouldn’t have done anything if they had charged me four hundred. Time
was of the essence, and it wasn’t like I would walk to Kampala if the bus left
me cos’ of four hundred bob.
Back at the office, I look at the photos and again, make a
mental note (seems like I’ll be making lots of these) to have passport photos
and photocopies of my ID in every purse I own. Turns out I only needed two
photos, what a waste! I am keeping the other two as souvenirs though. I have
often heard that there is always drama at the border, and sure as daylight,
there was! At one corner a high-pitched voice was summoning two ladies who had tried
to sneak into Uganda. The border official they had tried to cheat was bad news.
She was short (they always have a temper :D ) and had legwarmers on that
somehow made her look even more brutal. She bundled them into the office, sat
them down and gave them an earful, telling them watalala ndani if they didn’t explain what mischief they were up
to.
By the time I was getting my first stamp, they were nowhere
near resolving the issue. Their bus conductor had come to check on his clients and
was now in the mix trying to help sort this out so they could move along.
Kampala was another 3 hours away.
I crossed over to the Uganda office, where I
had to fill up another form and get an entry stamp. `I then realized that I had
left my pen at the photo booth. Yaani my first action in Uganda was to borrow a
pen. This Indian like character ahead of me bailed me out. I’ll need another
blog post to describe him though (chuckle)! I finally got my entry stamp and
started back to the bus. My cousin advices me to change some of the Kenya
shillings I had to Ugandan shillings to save us time once we got to Kampala. I
decided on Ksh. 2000 and asked him what the rate was. 32 bob. You should have
seen the smile on my face once I was handed 64,000 Ugandan shillings! Sema kuwa
baller! That lifted my spirits immediately! I stuffed them into my wallet and
walked back to the bus. I drifted back to sleep soon after and was only
awakened by my cousin when we got to Jinja, to see the River Nile at dawn. I
almost shed a tear. It was the most beautiful thing I had laid my eyes on in a
while. I made a mental note (again) to travel at the same time next time so I
can behold the sight again.
The first thing I saw when I woke up again was a pick up
full of green bananas. I smiled. We were in Uganda alright. It was 8:30AM.
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