Which boda boda shall you ride?

KAMPALA

When you arrive at a typical boda boda stage in Kampala City or any of its suburbs, you will be confronted with a neat line of motor-cycles, some decorated and yet others plain, revving and their riders gesturing to prospective passengers.

They come in many colours – shiny black, blue or wine red – and in many names, but the most popular are the Bajaj Boxer and TVS brands. These ubiquitous two-wheelers are perhaps the most prominent feature of Uganda’s public transport. Nearly everyone – visitor or resident, rich or poor – at one point or the other will jump on a boda boda.

Rough estimates put the number of boda bodas in the country at 70,000, according to DFID’s report on Uganda’s rural and urban low capacity transport. “Another 100, 000 livelihoods are supported from the repair and sustenance services the industry needs,” the report adds.

But that is for policy makers, planners and all those paid to worry about order.
For many ordinary travellers, especially in and around Kampala, who have found boda boda to be the most handy form of transport in and around the city, the question that comes to mind every time they arrive at a boda boda stage – or when a couple of them swarm around them offering to take them – is which bike should one take.

Do you choose the newest or do you choose the most colourfully decorated? Do you look at the riders instead and if yes, do you choose the oldest and presumably more experienced or do you choose the younger and seemingly most agile? Do you choose the smartly dressed or even the averagely dressed can give you a ride? Do you choose one wearing a helmet and reflector jacket or it does not matter, anyway?

For Stephen Kiggundu, 34, a driver in Kampala, the weight of the boda boda rider is a big issue. The rest come off as a by the way. Expressing shock that this is an aspect people always ignore, he says, “it is not a matter of siting on a bodaboda. If I weigh 100kg and I have heavy luggage, the rider should also have some good weight to be able to carry me otherwise he gets weighed down and you can fall.”

Ann Winslet Mukombe, a teacher at Kiira College Butiki shares Kigundu’s point. To her, the man who will take her to that destination must show physical potential in every sense of the word.
You don’t want to use the motorcycle of a man looking hungry as if he is going to die the next minute.
“What if we reach a hill and the motorcycle slides, instead of controlling it like a man he will also be screaming,” she asserts.

Ivan Kirya, 26, a guard with Ultimate Security Limited admits he is a regular customer of the two-wheelers credited for beating jam, their flexibility and availability. The first time he saw a dead body, it was a man and woman with heads smashed into a gruesome mixture of clotted blood and brain reduced to droplets on the road in Namutumba District. The passengers had just been crashed by a speeding trailer. Since then, the guard wears a helmet before he climbs any motorcycle.

“The other things I don’t care. Why should I mind how smart a boda boda man is or waste time inspecting the motorcycle as if I am a traffic officer,” he says, adding, “All I need is a helmet. If the boda boda man has only one, I pick it and he sorts himself out, he can die alone.”

Not for Philip Emulit, a musician also known as Phillipe, who when not driving his car first checks the quality of the motorcycle’s engine, shakes it and analyses the facial expression of the man in whose hands he is about to put his life.

“Usually at night, you will find some taking drugs, already drunk or with very red eyes. There you know they are wrong characters who can do anything,” he says. For Ms Sarafina Muhawenimana, a resident of Kisasi, “the smartness comes first; how presentable is he? I don’t want to sit with a man who will give me stomach ache because of smelly armpits.”

From the horse’s mouth
Mr Francis Bulwa, the secretary of Boda boda 2010 Association of Uganda Limited says: “Passengers should not just sit on any boda boda. Check the hygiene of the person carrying you but more importantly, the condition of the motorcycle. There are some bodas you sit on and they almost want to break. As soon as it starts, it stops immediately and the man has to struggle to restart,” he says. He clarifies that other than outer appearance, it is hard to tell a good boda boda unless one has interacted with the rider or used his service.

For matters of safety, Mr John Matovu, a boda boda rider based on Jinja Road urges passengers to always choose riders parked at the stages. Often times, the general opinion is that these tend to be a little more expensive than the one you bump into on the streets, whistle at and wave to slow down and hop on. “Those of us at the stages are more considerate in times of accidents and will rarely rob you of your property because we know you can follow up at the stages where we are all registered,” he reveals.

So how do you sit on a boda boda?
Well, having chosen one boda boda among the dozen nosily revving their engines, now you must decide which sitting posture to take that is most comfortable, convenient and/or safe. Kennedy Kintu, a student of Development Economics at Makerere University says he sits “normally” – in this context meaning legs spread on either side of the motorcycle. “That is the manly way of sitting,” he says. The womanly posture is where the legs and entire body face one side of the boda boda.

One boda boda rider says he never carries a man who sits like a woman because they are “abnormal”.
“That is how they start their homosexual things. In 2010 I almost caused an accident when a muzungu man, sitting like a woman began touching my bums, he later paid me Shs50,000 instead of Shs3,000. Since then, I never carry any man who wants to sit like a woman.”

He is quick, however, to add that women are fearful while on a boda boda.
“They think they are going to get an accident or fall off so they hold us tight. That one is good, especially if it is a young, beautiful woman, the journey becomes shorter,” he says, his eyes glowing and burning with passion and fantasy.

If that explains the public perception that boda boda men are kingmakers of infidelity he says, “We just facilitate it. Some of my loyal clients call me and I drop them in lodges and some of my colleagues even work as go-betweens for rich men. We see many things in this town,” he proudly notes, calling bodas the masters of town’s best kept secrets.

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