Friday, July 29, 2016

A Day in the Life - Cultural Insights

After living in Africa for over 14 years we tend to not notice things that take visitors by surprise. So this post will be dedicated to a few of those things.
In it we will cover motorcycle taxis, electricity  and produce.


Motorcycle Taxis or Boda Bodas first started being used to carry passengers across the Kenyan/Ugandan Border. The motorcycle drivers would yell out
they would carry you 'border to border' and the slang became boda boda.


Bodas are both a blessing and a curse. A one way trip in the town of Mbale
is 1000 shillings or about 30 cents. A round trip is 2000 shillings or 60 cents.


Forgot your phone at home? Send it with someone on a boda. Need building supplies like a bag of cement or a 5 gallon bucket of paint but don't have the time to run it home? Send it on a boda.


That's the 'blessing' part of bodas, the convenience. But because the price
IS so low people use them everywhere and haul all kinds of objects.




The 'curse part of bodas is that because they are small, cheap and maneuverable they will drive ANYWHERE - the wrong way up the roads, weaving in-between cars and traffic lanes, so overloaded with items and people that they can easily overturn. There are hundreds of bodas in our dwontown areas and roundabouts that they clog traffic and cause many accidents. So riders must beware!





Electricity - It's strange to think that we live so close to THE Nile River.
That river that we heard so much about in Sunday School lessons as a kid.


The electricity we use is provided by that same river via a hydroelectric dam that spans The Nile at it's source in Jinja about 2 hours west of us in Mbale.
It's been said that the electricity gets sold to Kenya and Tanzania because
they will pay more, therefore shorting the people of Uganda.



We don't know if that's why, but electricity certainly is an issue here. Some days the electricity flickers as if someone is standing by the light switches
and is turning them off and on. Other days it is off all day and you can hear
the sounds of generators running. Then there are the days the electricity
runs as it should and we are truly thankful.



Produce - Unlike many African countries, Uganda is blessed with an abundance of water that allows for all manner of fruits and vegetables to grow year round. Just walk into the Mbale Central Marked and you will see the equivalent of a huge farmer's market that is open every day of the week!




The woman pictured below is selling eggplant, tomatoes, carrots, onions, mangoes, oranges, watermelon, pineapple, pumpkins, avocados, cabbage
and bell peppers. There are also imported and packaged goods, meats and
dairy products in town.




We hope you enjoyed this little glimpse into our life and that it helps you
to realize we are in good hands so that we are able to do the ministries we
have been allowed to come here to do.