6:45 pm. I have just sat in the taxi at the Entebbe Stage in the Old Taxi Park. I actually wanted to begin with, “It’s 6:45 pm” but I erased that to create a new starting line. For some reason, I miss this park. And I miss you guys too. I hope you all are fine. Thanks for the loyal readership.
Now, the taxi had started but then it seems some passenger had boarded the wrong taxi and so we have to wait longer now for another to fill up the space. We had actually even left our taxi gazetted space we call the Entebbe Road Stage. Another passenger has just entered and we have set off now. The problem is that I am not seated in my favourite place. Today, I didn’t want to wait any further. So I just sat in the available seat. That is by the pull-back door behind the conductor’s seat, the one shared with a passenger. Yeah, that uncomfortable one. Let’s call it funny. The seats in my column are all foldable but the last one, which is at the back of the taxi. This is to allow passengers access to the other seats in the other rows. So, my prayer now is that we don’t have any passengers who will be hopping off anytime soon. If the first to get out does that at Kajjansi, it won’t be an inconvenience. It will actually be a relief. It is not easy sitting on these barely cushioned taxi chairs. Sometimes, the chairs are so close to each other that you can’t fit well and so your knees will be pressing hard and through the chair so much for the passenger in front of you to complain about your “piercing” knees. Of course, I don’t have to mention the pain of the bars or metal framework of the chair that the knees are pressing against hard and almost through. Travelling in a Ugandan taxi, I am telling you, is a long journey, even if the actual distance covered is just one kilo! I mean not gram, but metre, don’t be stupid now! Why should it only be shortened for kg but not km?
For about five minutes now, we’ve been parked here at the Western entrance of the Mega Standard Supermarket. That is opposite the 2k Restaurant. That is on the street I don’t know. There is no signpost you see. If it were there, I would have known it. I know all the streets I go through while travelling. I have even taken the liberty to tap the conductor and ask for its name but in vain. He first told me it is Burton Street, which is wrong. So, I corrected him and told him that Burton is the one we crossed to enter this one. He then shyly smiled and said he couldn’t possibly know. For them, they call the street, Ku Mega (meaning via Mega).
We have since moved now and we are approaching the junction where this “Ku Mega” street joins the Seikh Road. We have joined it and are now sloping towards the junction we call the Shoprite junction. That’s the one that joins the Seikh Road and Swaminarayan Road to the Entebbe Road. There is always traffic at this junction. Not because of the construction of a flyover, but because of the traffic police officers and the KCCA officials helping them. Like I had told you guys before, there are traffic lights at that junction, but our traffic officers choose to use their own brains instead of the unbiased and uncompromising artificial intelligence of these poles playing with the green, orange and red lights. Why should they if they can see what the lights can’t see? Because even if there are no cars coming from one road, the lights will still turn red and forbid cars to cross leading to your delay for that job interview; that meeting for which your employer will fire you; that appointment for which your girlfriend will chuck you; that football match for which you’ll never enjoy seeing your team’s opening goal live on screen, forcing you to undergo the anguish of a lost job opportunity; job loss; heartbreak and goal replay. Need I elaborate more on the multiple human rights violations by this stupid and blind and non-intelligent artificial intelligence? Anyway, why am I even getting annoyed with it, after all, it’s indeed AI!?
We are now in Katwe and in jam. We are moving very slowly. Every time, we move, it’s like the engine is clearing its throat to speak. But then it doesn’t speak, because the car is suddenly stopped. So it will clear its throat again. And again and again and again and again and again. Every other time, you dance to the music of the car engine. There is the Inertia Stroke. That stems from Newton’s first law of motion. That a body will continue in its uniform state of rest or motion unless acted upon by an external force. So the stroke is essentially a forward and backward thrust of the upper body. Then there is the Head Stroke. This is slightly the same as the former, but the difference comes from which part of your body moves from the incessant jerks. This one stems from Newton’s second law of motion. I don’t remember exactly how it is stated in the Abbot’s Physics textbook or the Muncaster’s one. But I know that it forms the equation: F = ma. From that, a = F/m. This means that for a heavier person, the acceleration (the jerk in this instance) is lower than that of a lighter person. Haaaa! Let me illustrate this more literally. What happens is that for a heavy passenger, only their head will move, and so it will be a nod you’ll see. But for a musujja (mosquito-bodied) like me (hahaha), the whole upper body will move whenever the engine of the taxi clears its throat. Every time the car moves, some move forward so much as to hit their heads against the chair in front of them, unless they support themselves by way of a handoff (only those who know rugby will understand me here). And some nod as well. Those are the inertia and head strokes respectively.
Of course, like Newton established long ago, there is also the third stroke. And like you just guessed right, yes, it stems from his third law of motion. That for every action, the is an equal but opposite reaction. I have this one in its own paragraph because that is its level. This one is for those passengers for whom music has no effect. So, they don’t dance at all. I don’t know if they also don’t listen to it. Of course, they can’t be deaf, can they? These are the passengers whose mass is so big that every time the car starts and stops, their weight (mg) equals the acceleration, a (the thrust or jerk) and so they stay unmoved, unshaken. This is the Mature Stroke. If you are wondering why, in Uganda, here, it is a sign of maturity if music is played and you don’t stand up to disgrace yourself like the kids and unserious youths are doing by dancing and having fun. And if you must, the only thing you can do is just swing your legs as if to walk but stay still. Uganda is funny by the way.
Now, if you thought that was the end of the strokes, you are wrong. This time, I win. Yes, there is a fourth stroke. Unlike Newton, I go a mile farther. This is the Sick Stroke. It stems from Kachumu’s Protocol Adding The Fourth Law of Motion. If by now, you don’t know who Kachumu is, shame on you! Go to this site’s homepage and find out. Under the sick stroke, passengers are overweight. They are obese. And so they are sick. For them, when the taxi starts and stops in jam, it is not them that dance to the engine’s throat-clearing music, it is the taxi that dances instead because their weight (mg) is greater than the acceleration, a (the jerk). You literally see the taxi almost knock the one in front only for it to fall back in a rare move just in time. The sick stroke! You should take a taxi and experience this jam too firsthand.
We are now in Bwebajja and I have just reached my stop. Have a goodbye. See you when I see you.
So, that was me, let me hear from you too…