Written in caps

Public transportation, Kampala style

There are three basic kinds of public transportation in most developing countries: large city buses, mini-bus taxis, and regular taxis (the kind that carry up to three people, like we have in the US). The mini-bus kinds usually have colorful local names, like Matatus in Kenya, Dala-Dalas in Tanzania, and Blue Donkeys in Ethiopia. Beyond these, there are sometimes variations by country. Bangladesh has the bicycle rickshas I wrote about here. 

Uganda has a unique class of public transport: Boda-Bodas, which are small motorcycles, which rent for between 500 and 2500 Uganda Shillings ($0.27-$1.35). You see the Boda-Boda drivers loitering everywhere, looking for passengers. Kampala traffic is dangerous and bumper-to-bumper even inside a car. The Boda-Boda drivers are fearless as they weave in an out of slow and stopped traffic. At first I wondered why all small motorbikes in Kampala have leg guards. Now I know. The Boda-Boda drivers often bounce wheels off of cars, and push away with their hands as they weave between stopped vehicles. It's common to see as many as three passengers on one Boda-Boda, and I've seen some passenger situations that made me cringe. For example I saw a Boda Boda speeding past our taxi, weaving in and out, carrying a woman, side-saddle, with an infant in her arms. Another Boda-Boda, coming straight at us in a seeming game of chicken, weaved aside at the last minute, which is when I saw the toddler riding on the gas tank.

Boda-Boda drivers are required to wear helmets, but almost none of them do. Their passengers are not required to wear helmets, and none do.

Greetings from Uganda

Written in Kampala, the capital of Uganda.

In 1999, when I started doing this work, and way before Blogs, my first trip to the continent of Africa was to Uganda. I remember thinking about how long it took to walk down the stairs from the door of a 747 to the tarmac at the airport. Back then, the Sheraton was the hotel and I was happy to learn that there was some kind of dial-up internet in my room so I could check my email. In the ensuing years I've found myself back in Kampala only a handful of times, and now not since 2004. The changes are subtle, but evident.

The airport is in Entebbe, which people of a certain age (my age or older) will remember from a made-for-TV movie starring Charles Bronson, called Raid on Entebbe, about a highjacked plane and the ensuing hostage crisis that played itself out at the airport. As you fly into Entebbe you can still see the highjacked plane, resting exactly where it ended up after it was pushed off the end of the runway over 30 years ago. The airport is about 30km from Kampala and the drive is beautiful in the daylight, mostly following the shores of Lake Victoria. Uganda is lush and green and everything grows here. The saying is that if, on your way to work, you throw a mango pit on the side of the road, on your way home you can pick fruit from the tree growing there. 

For this trip we started at the Sheraton, which is a down-at-the-heels reminder of its former glory. Like so many hotels in Africa the Sheraton suffers from being able to find lots of investment money for construction, but little for maintenance, and none for staff training or management. The rooms are dark and the list of things that didn't work was long: the A/C, the TV, the internet, the lamps, the shower... You get the idea. And the service is the please-get-out-of-my-face variety found in so many places I travel. "Yes, please just go back to your room and wait." But much has progressed in Uganda. More tomorrow.

Dhaka Drug Bust

When I read the headline "drugs seized" in the Daily Star this a.m. I had to look. Bangladesh is the home of many pharmaceutical factories. It's also famous as a place where one can buy prescription-grade drugs over the counter. Of course (of course) I have never checked this out, but I've overheard conversations about expats buying a year's worth of jet-lag sleeping pills for the price of a Starbuck's coffee. 

So I imagined a big heroin or cocaine bust, to make the paper. Money quote: "seized were two liters of wine." The biggest question is "why?" When you have access to unlimited, basically free valium, who needs alcohol?

Back in Bangladesh: the Dhaka Dinge

Written in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.

I like working in Bangladesh. The people are friendly, hard working, and very well educated. The infrastructure is not bad, and the hotel is livable, although no Serena by any stretch. But there are downsides to any city. Expats that live here talk about the "Dhaka dinge," referring to the smog that settles over everything. Dhaka has 12 million people in its 1300 square kilometers. In a front-page article in the biggest-selling English language newspaper, the following features of daily life in Dhaka were presented:

The consequences of fast growth without planning is disastrous as evident in poor transportation services, inadequate housing, problematic supply of water and electricity, poor sanitation and sewerage systems, extremely poor drainage, poor health services for most people, poor air quality, degraded environmental indicators, high crime rate... degradation of the water quality so that in the dry season the quality of the surface water resembles septic condition[s].

The senior geographer from the Urban Development directorate opined "Dhaka's skyling is covered with soot. The noxious, black fumes from the city's dilapidated busses, trucks, and three-wheelers have turned the city into a dark, slate-gray maze, exposing city dwellers to health hazards." Dinge indeed.

Below is a photo I took of one of the "dilapidated busses." It makes you wonder what/who it scraped up against... And they all look like that.

Vandalism by... peat moss?

I think it was my father who originally pointed out to me that we have so many stupid laws because we have so many legislators with so much time on their hands and making laws is what they do and while we don't need any more laws, they have to do... something.

By the looks of the sign below, DC must have lots of rule-makers with not enough to do. I can see prohibiting littering, but this is getting ridiculous.

What's the opposite of "protect and serve?"

Here's a great DC-Police-related post, paraphrased from a story a friend told me. 

So I was walking to my parking space in A-M to get the car so I could do some heavy grocery shopping. I rent this space on a monthly basis, and it's in a private parking lot. As I walked towards space 16, which belongs to me and me alone, I noticed something unusual: a Prius-sized hole where my car should be. Aaaaack! My car has been stolen! I called the insurance company, then called the DC police. After taking the license tag number, the woman on the phone said "your car is at 123 Adams Mill NW." Huh? "Why is my car there?" "I don't know, but our system shows your car at 123 Adams Mill Rd." So I walked around a while before realizing that 123 Adams Mill Rd. is an impound lot. My car had been towed! 

To make a long story short, the impound lot person traded me $260 for my car and a police ticket that showed the badge number of the helpful officer who authorized my car to be towed from my private rented space. It seems the helpful office responded to a complaint that my car was in someone else's spot, simply believed the complainant, and had my car towed.

I called the police back, and told them the story. The helpful woman on the other end said (at least I think she said) that I would have to talk to the officer who authorized the towing. I read her the badge number on the ticket. She responded "there is no such badge number in our system." So I asked what to do next. "I have no idea ma'am." After much verbal goading she offered to put me in touch with her supervisor. (And seemed relieved that she would be rid of me finally and get back to playing solitaire on her work PC.) The transferred call went immediately to a full voicemail box. 

End of story. While DC's finest are never around to prevent the several-per-weekend break-ins, incidences of vandalism, shootings, muggings, and general mayhem in A-M, they had time to have someone's car towed from their private rented spot. And then, poof!, when told about their mistake, disappear again. 

Rally in Meridian Hill Park to Stop Child Trafficking

Our dogwalking park is really one of the nicer parks in Washington: lots of old trees, lots of space, moving water and fountains, two levels. So it gets used for all kinds of gatherings, including the Sunday afternoon drumming that I've written about before, rallies to free Cubans in American jails, MLK-day rallies, Palm Sunday services, what have you. Usually Toby and I stumble upon these gatherings as an accident of our normal exercise routine.

This morning it was a rally and "walk" to stop child traficking worldwide. I'm not sure how walking around Meridian Hill Park will stop child trafficking, but I'm sure these peoples' hearts are in the right place.

Guest post: Greetings from Kabul

This is a guest post written by my longtime colleague and pal, Sr. Roberto Arroz de Chapel Hill, now serving a 17-month posting in Afghanistan.

Kabul, at an elevation of just under 6,000 feet, is in the bottom of a bowl surrounded by mountains. At least this is what I’m told; the dust and pollution make them impossible to see.  Dust and pollution tend to hang in the air for days; Kabul is a very sneezy city.  Local men and women use the ubiquitous headscarf to drape it across their noses to filter the air. As the population flees the violence in the provinces and the population of Kabul increases, earthen dwellings have been built up the sides of the bowl.

Security dictates that we take different routes getting to/from work so I have seen many parts of Kabul. Traffic is bustling, outrageous, and governed by testosterone—the most dangerous of stimulants. My favorite move, which I saw 10 days into my stay, was crossing lanes to plunge into oncoming traffic, not only to see if any bad guys are following but also to save a few minutes. Right-of-way is governed mostly by vehicular muscle, and we have the ultimate muscle car with our armored SUV. Size does matter! I have experienced only one stoplight while motoring but police are everywhere, often directing traffic—however, I use the word “directing” loosely.  At one traffic incident, the police officer was slapping the truck driver in the face and shouting at him while the crowd gathered. We muscled on….

The city-center is teeming. Micro-enterprises are everywhere. For some reason that I cannot explain, all like-minded small businesses are congregated together. For example, the ten repair storefronts are all side-by-side, displaying orange traffic cones, axels, hub caps, and motor parts; followed by the fire extinguisher and gas cylinder storefronts; lumber stores, one next to the other, displaying precisely-the-same lumber choices; merging into the storefronts offering cheap kitchen utensils, pots and pans. There are plenty of food choices this summer including locally grown peaches, apples, watermelons (yummy), squash, onions, carrots, tomatoes, and cucumbers. Other typical food stalls include bread shops, with the typical naan flat bread, as well as butchers displaying headless lamb carcasses 

Kabul city-center: rebuilding, but dusty and polluted

… and yes, small, homemade kites dot the sky

Top five best things about bike commuting in Washington DC

In reverse order:

5. No Metro: no 150 sweaty people pressed together with one arm raised for the handhold (think about it).

4. Quicker than Metro or driving

3. No car: no insurance, no parking, no vandalism, no girdlock, and so forth.

2. Exercise that's free in terms of time (see #4)

1. Riding past longgggg lines of stopped cars, smiling smugly at drivers quietly seething at the gridlock.

Why is the country of Columbia advertising in Adams-Morgan?

Last week these heart-shaped things started appearing on my walk home from the Metro. They're really big, way taller than me. Apparently they're to advertise Columbia through its art. Huh? Advertise to whom? And what are they selling? (The graffito on the last one says "Columbia kills union leaders. NO free trade agreement!")