“People who don’t have friends are real monsters.”
Not exactly the morning affirmation one expects, but in the unpredictable world of the Ugandan taxi, anything can happen. Each journey promises something unexpected, a challenge to your very sense of logic
Before we dive deeper into this unraveling, let’s agree on one fundamental truth: business dealings, personal relationships, and other private matters are best kept, well, private.
So, imagine the scene: You lazily clamber into a taxi, desperately craving a few more minutes of shut-eye. There, in the front passenger seat, sits a self-important “tax guzzler”—a term perhaps earned from years of KFC wings and CJ’s submarines.
For some inexplicable reason, his Mpenkoni is out of commission, and instead of a swift boda ride, he’s somehow graced our magical taxi with his presence. He seems to forget that he’s not in the climate-controlled serenity of his private car and, without a second thought, unleashes a torrent of phone calls.
I, for one, didn’t pay to have my dreams of lunch or dinner, or my calculations of transport money back to my humble abode, violently interrupted.
Yet, this fellow plunges ahead, loudly broadcasting his intricate dealings in Sudan, Burundi, some obscure village in Bugiri, and HR issues that now, inexplicably, demand my full, unwelcome attention. The sheer audacity!
Suddenly, I’m privy to confidential matters that are utterly irrelevant to my life, yet they’ve become an inescapable part of my morning commute. It’s a bizarre, almost theatrical, violation of that unwritten rule: the taxi is a public space, but personal affairs remain private.
And just like that, the peaceful hum of the journey transforms into an unwilling eavesdropping session, leaving you wondering if you’ll ever truly escape the day’s first dose of unexpected drama.
