Proudly Ugandan!

The people who live in Bunga and beyond will surely have seen this. Assuming your driving from town, the authorities have put up a zebra crossing on Ggaba Road just past Shell Bunga – which is a good thing.

However, it is plainly obvious that Authority really didn’t think about it for while the school children and anybody who uses the zebra crossing is able to cross the road without getting knocked down, the downside of it is when you get to the other side of the crossing, you walk straight into the road coming down from Montessori School and St. Augustine’s University. Authority so I figure, feels it is much safer to get knocked down by slow moving traffic coming down from Montessori and St. Augustine’s than the speeding trucks that hurtle down Ggaba Road.

So I am tempted to think that as Ugandan’s, we have a strong desire not to get anything right. It is in our system and perhaps part of our hereditary right.

Authority also decided to tarmac the road from Kansanga that goes down past Didi’s World, into the valley past Kansanga Miracle Centre and up the hill past Rainbow International School.

Authority duly closed off the road and deployed heavy duty graders that created a dust bowl. He then brought in heavy duty trucks with stones which, another heavy duty truck fitted with a heavy roller compacted down. That done, the tarmac was laid.

Assessing Authority’s work, it was well below par. From Kansanga to the entrance into Didi’s World, he laid smooth tarmac. In the Valley where Kansanga Miracle Centre is, he didn’t bother doing a thing. It still remains a murram patch. Across the valley past Rainbow International School and beyond, it’s a rough tarmac. And Authority reckons the work has been satisfactorily completed?!

But it’s not just Authority who has issues. A special hire taxi driver will never tell you he does not know how to get to your chosen destination. Well before you are through telling him where you want to go, he is already in his seat, the car is fired up and get this, his only thought is the petrol station round the corner.

Once he has put in gas – which he won’t pay for but you will, it is then that he will start asking for directions. And when you remind him that before you had set off, he had said he knew where the place was and now he doesn’t.

Whether he knew, knows or didn’t, he is not bothered because you have already paid for the gas. He is content. And he is smirking because he has pulled one over you.     

When a friend contracted a painter to paint his company name down the door of his 4x4, Painter during the interview assured how he has done it many times before. He even had a brochure of the work he had done.

And so we watched Painter at work. He got off to a sizzling start but as the work progressed, it was obvious the words would not fit into the door. By the time it dawned on him, the damage was done.

But he didn’t give up. He stepped back and thought of a plan B. And his plan B? He simply reduced the font so it came out looking like something like this: Timothy Bukumunhe. And guess what, like Authority and Special Hire Driver, Painter felt he had done a grand job and expected to be paid as well!