No lanes exist in this new world of driving in Africa. In the city, cars carrying people, bicycles carrying jackfruits the size of its own wheel, motorcycles with dozens of freshly-strangled chickens strapped impressively in front AND behind, lorries with mountain-loads of sugarcane, shrieking ambulances and rumbling military trucks somehow find their own rhythm, pace and little space on the little road they share. All the time, a new lane forms while the other disappears, order and disorder ebb and flow like the waves on a shore, breaking up as soon as a new one forms. It was our Ugandan pastor who told us, “If you can drive in Kampala, you can drive anywhere around the world!”
Some of our interesting sights!
He paused for dramatic effect, “Even Bombay!”
Public transport is a different ball game- Boda-bodas, or “motorcycle-taxis” can be heart-stopping affairs, best ridden with your eyes closed. In the more rural areas around our home, pot-holes and uneven dirt roads often send one’s viscera in a tumble. Cars here, including the modest two-door tin can we drive, are more than twenty years old. Driving has its own way of vexing one’s schedule- a burst tyre threatened to stop my husband, Cliff from preaching one Sunday, while the engine refused to start as we tried to send an elderly lady to the hospital.
But Cliff has done brilliantly. He has not only survived finding his way through this new world, he enjoys it and is on top of it. Parking, in between cars stacked like lego-blocks and jigsaw-puzzles, is not a problem at all for him. When the tyre burst, he looked for a jack immediately, without a frown. When the engine refused to start, he merely fiddled with the car till it gurgled into life. To top it all off, he did them all with a big smile, just laughing as he went along.
“This is Africa!” he would say.
Even on the roughest, bumpiest of roads, whose potholes literally shake you out of your seats, he remains calm, enjoying the scenery and adventure of it all, including driving through a herd of a hundred cows, with horns as tall as swords and as thick as large water-pipes.
“How do you do it?” I asked one day, bewildered. It was a conundrum to me, to see this man from a world of broad, impeccable roads in Canada suddenly morph into this adaptable, friendly driver in the dust.
“I don’t know,” he said, “I just go with the flow!”
Go with the flow. How profound a lesson that is, in this strange new land I find myself in.
There are times of great joy, laughter and freedom in this place, and at others, times of frustration and utter vexation. Learning how to deal with disco music from the valleys that booms through the night, power failures, frequent time delays, grating inconsistencies or navigating the whole messy, crazy process of getting a simple visa extension done can be accumulatively hair-tearing.
But I am learning from this very wise man, that the sooner and the more we learn to laugh at ourselves and situations, the more we are able to (even if intentionally) find the humour in exasperating situations, the more we will become resilient, and the more love we shall have for this country and its people.
I realized, that the reason Cliff has survived and thrived so well on the crazy roads was simply because, he didn’t insist on drawing his own lanes. “Just go with the flow,” he said. I could see that, if he had tried to force his way and insist on his right of way, he or somebody else would have gotten hit. But play along and ride to the rhythm of 2-centimetre leeways between vehicles and miss not a beat of the musical drama of a motorcycle dashing in between two heavy vehicles seamlessly to miss getting crushed like a pancake, and everybody wins.
I am learning, to go with the flow, to yield to God when my flesh insists otherwise.
Or like another missionary put it, to be as flexible as possible, and let nothing offend or abrade us culturally. Cliff often says, things are not slower or worse, just simply, different.
And though it is easier to say than to live out on a day-to-day basis, I am learning, the wisdom of these words, if we are to live joyful, fruitful lives here for God to glorify Him wholly.
the lovely dirt roads behind our home