Incident

e had to head into town for a few errands, namely to get a couple of flags made for an impending state visit by various notables to the NLRI at Wanseko and Kaiso, on the banks of Lake Albert.

The road from Kawuuku to Kampala would have been hard work for an off-road vehicle; in a matatu, it was only thanks to the driver's single-minded pursuit of profit that we arrived in one piece at all!

Kampala was hot, noisy and crowded. Hawkers peddling mobile phone credit, plastic gew gaws, mangos and cassava jockeyed for our attention as we pushed our way through the dusty streets.

Several enquiries later, we had managed to arrange for the flags to be made in time for the visit. Satisfied with our progress, we decided to eat. A short walk up the Nkurumah Road up to Kampala road and we had arrived at Debonair's Pizza. Debonair's service was excellent, by Ugandan standards, meaning we only had to wait 30 minutes for our food and drinks, by which point we were ravenous.

Just as our food was arriving a terrible scene unfolded on the other side of the road. A boda-boda driver and passenger had come off their bike at the traffic lights on the junction of the Kampala and Entebbe Roads and, as I turned round to look at the commotion, a 15-tonne lorry drove over at least one of them. Within moments, a crowd of several hundred people, including a hundred or so boda drivers, had surrounded the victims and the driver of the lorry (boda drivers are notoriously loyal to each other, and there was a risk of summary justice being dispensed there and then). Luckily enough, the police arrived fairly quickly and the injured were lifted into the back of a pickup (and oddly enough the lorry involved with the incident) to be ferried to hospital. The crowds were soon dispersed at the police's behest and quickly the traffic resumed its earlier tempo, with only a few shards of glass and plastic bearing witness to the earlier carnage.

This was an apposite lesson in the safety of African roads, of which Uganda has some of the most dangerous. With a rate of fatal road accidents 11 times higher than that of the UK, you could be forgiven for closing your eyes and saying a silent prayer every time you get on board a matatu or boda-boda...