The change he wants to see

I would have made the sign of the cross to ward off that evil happening but I had already been beaten by my neighbour who prayed every time before a taxi started its journey.

We were in a jam but he thought we could have avoided it and he was giving the conductor and driver his views about it.

We were steaming, though all the windows were open, and maybe he was speaking a little for all of us, “What sort of driver are you that you don’t know your route? How many years have you been driving? Everyone knows that during rush hour only fools opt for the panyas. Because that is where every fool rushes.”

He was seated right behind the conductor, who tried to escape him by sticking his head as far out of his own window as he could. But the irate passenger would not relent, “Simanyi lwaki mu-insistinga (You’re so hard-headed.) Kati don’t be surprised if you find that they did not put enough fuel in the tank as if they did not expect us to get caught in jam.”

I would have made the sign of the cross to ward off that evil happening but I had already been beaten by my neighbour who prayed every time before a taxi started its journey. I might not have noticed him securing our gate pass to paradise if he were not my neighbour because our representative was in full flow.

“I don’t know how you became a driver. Now you are going to follow the traffic rules like you are a virgin on the road when you know our roads are too small? Why don’t you cut into the pavement like those boda bodas are doing? We will move faster,” he kept up.

He was indignant, “You know we are not bazungu that we wanted a cultural tour of Kampala’s slums when you decided to take these short cuts. We do not need to linger in this filth and squalor. I wonder what KCCA does with all our money it collects. I don’t think it has ever been here or cares.”

It was difficult to read in the fading evening light and just when I thought we would be here forever, the jam eased up. As we begun to move, he leaned his side of the window and tossed a bottle of mineral water out the window.

Twitter: @DavidTumusiime