BODA BODA: Nothing but a calling

There was nothing spectacular about Jimmy the first time I saw him. He was leaning on his motor cycle just outside my gate. He looked rather comfortable so it was hard to know if he was impatient because it had taken me more than five minutes to meet him. It is only when he spoke to me that I took notice that Jimmy is not your ordinary boda or Safeboda, if you want.
His face lit up as he greeted me and started explaining how I should wear my helmet. The warmth and fatherly tone of his voice could easily put one at ease. I knew I had to know more about Jimmy. It didn’t help that I’m a sucker for conversations with strangers. Jimmy is from Kitgum. He has been riding a boda for seven years.
“It is a calling for me,” he said proudly, when I exclaimed at how long he had been at the trade. You see, he went on, one must take their work as a calling if they are to succeed at it, otherwise there is really no use. He wakes up each day with a spring in his foot ready to conquer the world of his trade. He had worked as a driver before the boda trade and had also had a stint as a building porter.
I listened attentively although my ears were buried under the helmet. Enjoying my attention, Jimmy rode at such a slow pace that I was almost irritated. I probed about his family. His wife and two younger children live in Kitgum. This angle of conversation got him excited. He seized the opportunity to brag about having educated two of his four children until university. For a minute there, I thought he would stop the motorcycle so we could sit down and have the conversation properly probably with chai and groundnuts. I could not see his face, but from the rise in tone of his voice, I imagined that his face lit up during this part of the conversation.
The proud father of four could not wait for his son who was in third year at Kyambogo University to become an engineer and his daughter, in first year to become a teacher.
“You see us here but we are also serious people,” he told me almost accusingly. Evidently, even when the meter readings showed that Jimmy earned a measly Shs 3,500 for the trip, he was making some good money. Somewhere between our conversations he tried to explain about how the finances add up in the Safeboda business but I’m one of those who shut down the moment figures take the place of words. By the end of the trip I had been a student of life from Jimmy’s school. I still regret that I never took a selfie with him.