Trying to catch a bus

This weekend…. I got stuck in the bush for too long and was too late for my 2:00 bus. We were handing over some roads to the district (after we finish new construction projects, we hand them over to the district, sub-county, and local community – I love them sometimes for the entertaining communities but they pretty much suck). This was the second shot because there was some issue the first time. We had two sub-counties to hand over. The first one was fine, but they were kind of being bitchy when the community didn’t contribute the 10% materials so they needed more marram (stone/dirt for roads). I was like, “get y’own damn marram. Read the MoU. Involve your communities. Get their buy-in so they maintain the shit.” So that ran a little late. For the second one, the sub-county chief (in fact everybody from the sub-county office) was gone, so and they were the reason that we had to return for the second time. So the district official was like “fuck them” and we went to find the most local of local leaders at the trading centre. He wasn’t there. Then we went down the road. It ended in the bush at a national park kind of. We turned around. We saw some kids so I got out of the car and chased them. Some cried, others laughed. While I was doing that, my main man Kinyera was asking the parents where the local of local leaders was. Turned out they were at a nearby school construction that looked like it was a local of local projects, which is good around here because people have become too reliant on NGOs. This community was so much better than the first one. The road looked great (especially compared to the first one, which was embarrassing in parts). The community made their contribution, they worked hard on the road (we manage the process, but pay local labour and it’s their job to maintain it after so buy-in is better when they build it themselves) and the road looked great. Now they’re building a school. I was standing next to one dude was holding a freshly killed squirrel. We made eye contact. He smiled proudly and showed me his kill. I was like, “nice kill, man.” So they asked some questions and did the usual “give us more” and we were like “nothing right now, but talk to your sub-counties” (project selection is challenging; local governments can be shit at selecting roads so we’re getting the communities more involved in new projects). Then I made a little speech as is customary at these things where I told them to keep up the good work and that they rocked because they were proactive about the road and the school. Then they were like “don’t we usually get sodas at these things?” and I was like “yeah, but we had to walk deep into the bush just to find… fuck it, yeah, let’s hurry up! I’m late for a bus to Kampala!” So I ran to the car through the bush and they followed excitedly. I started popping off bottles of sticky soda (PepsiCo Products, not great for local business or dental health), dishing that shit out like the bartending days…. I was using a water bottle cap to pry them off and those suckers come flying. One ricochet off of my face and I was still picking out puss at a meeting today. Then came the “glucose biscuits”, which incited a riot. We left.
Late for my 2:00 bus, the truck dropped me at the gas station. Apparently there are busses from Juba that come frequently and go to Kampala. In less time than it took to meet some dude who audits us and take two sips of beer, a guy from the station told me a woman was driving her car to Kampala so I managed to get shotgun of a roomy car, rather than the cramped, far worse than Peter Pan Coachline, shit-ass bus filled with people and stuff (yes, including plenty of chickens, goats, people eating meat on sticks and cassava root with their hands where you’re lucky to not get stuck in between two people or wait in the bus park for two hours before it leaves. Busses are great, though. Last night I had a damn bible conversation going on behind me for about 7 hours (but that’s last night, I’m still on Friday afternoon).
The woman giving me a ride was Jennifer. She was driving like a bat out of hell, reaching 160 k/hr which probably isn’t fast on well-maintained U.S. roads, but damn it felt fast. That might actually be 100 mph which is pretty insane on these roads (paved, but not so wide with absolutely no lines painted and with people on bikes and foot (including children strapped to backs) are just poking along the sides – there’s not enough room for 2 lanes of traffic and 2 lanes of people so something always gives). We made it. We had some good fun. Me, Jennifer, and two educated dudes. We listened to my mp3 player, we watched the sun set, we stopped at some random spot where Jennifer knew they sold some good honey, but there was nobody there.