transportation II: it's the dry season

"if you live in uganda, you must agree to swallow dust."
- boniface

it's been at least a month since the last significant rainfall and i am seated next to boniface, who is deftly maneuvering his late model mercedes, perhaps a bit too confidently, at 160 km/hr through a dizzying gauntlet of potholes, motorcycles, roadside tilapia vendors, petrol tankers, and oncoming traffic. i am seriously beginning to question this particular alternative to public transport when a stall of irish potatoes piques his interest and he quickly pulls over.

for a moment, i can relax.

this is not the first time we've stopped to purchase food; the road from mbarara to kampala is lined with periodic clusters of stalls featuring a particular type of item. one region offers stunningly fresh fruits and vegetables, another potatoes, another fish, yet another beef. it is a veritable "some assembly required" drive-through feast. there was even one stretch of road several kilometers long lined with enormous bathing loofahs jabbed onto the ends of bare tree limbs.

roadside meat vendors await drive-thru customers

boniface had earlier stopped to buy meat, but decided against it after several minutes spent anxiously eying the dozen or so animal carcasses hanging from a wooden beam because he felt like they were likely covered in too much dirt. i guess that's just the additional price you pay for anything on the roadside in this country. where there's traffic without rain in uganda, anything within 50 meters of the road gets coated in a layer of orange dust. green trees turn a ruddy brown, cattle resting lazily on a roadside garbage heap squint and flap their ears against the airborne onslaught, while innocent people choke on the polluted blend of powdered earth and nauseating emissions from poorly maintained diesel engines. this is quite simply not a nice time to move around the country, especially with the windows down, but that's what boniface and i do all the way from mbarara to kampala. i take a few shallow breaths and enjoy the relative comfort of my self-imposed hitching holiday from public transport...