A few days ago, I had to rush to my village of birth in a bid to visit my old man who has been nagging me so badly in need of a visit from his so called “prodigal son”. The problem is that, when people live in the villages, they assume that, we the city dwellers have all the time in the orld! Not quite! As things have been in the past year or so, we have been hard hit by the so called “crise économique” to the extent that, all our remittances to the folks in the distant villages and their surrounding environs have nearly dried up! How can you be expected to send money to guys to buy meat when you yourself can hardly afford beans for your own dependants? This may sound absurd but the reality is that, these days, we hardly find the few hundred francs for the purchase of a bottle or two of ARMSTEL and yet, guys who enjoy all the “Ibigajis” and “urwagwas” for free are busy condemning some of us who have cut such luxuries out of our daily diets! As many of you may have heard, we now have buses that depart from Kigali heading to Kampala, these leave as early as 04:30am in the morning, midday as well as 06:00pm in the evening; this leaves one with so many alternatives, like travelling in the morning or afternoon or even at night. All this can be attributed to the peaceful climate ushered in by the good leaders as well as the coming into effect of the East African treaty. This time round, I left for Kampala onboard the evening Starways coach that promptly departed from the Nyabugogo bus terminal at exactly 06:00pm (18:00hrs) Rwandan time. We reached the Gatuna border point at around 07:30/08:30pm (depending on which side of the border one was at. The whole phenomenon is quite interesting. You work by the day and sleep as you travel (by the night), in the end, you do not have to worry about any Hotel Bills as the night is spent on the wheels! Having had a stop for nearly an hour, we sped off from the Katuna border point towards Kabale and Kampala road close to 10:00pm. It is quite amazing to note that, the road was quite full of many “nocturnal” drivers! Many buses, Lorries and trailers ply the road by night and day alike. We reached Mbarara towards midnight and had a short stop over for those who wanted to answer to nature’s calls. I was amazed to find some Traffic police fellows at Mbarara beyond the midnight mark! These chaps must be well or over motivated to work or may I say that, they love their job very much? Much as many of the road sections have been repaired, there are lots of spots that have been graded and left for the dust to rise as high as it chooses to! For most of the journey, I was sleeping on and off! We eventually arrived in Kampala at around 04:00am. The bus dropped us off at a location along Buganda Road just opposite the Kampala Central Police Station (CPS). By that time, Kampala had literary woken up and people were already moving around their normal chores! Mfashumwana@fastmail.fm
