The borda-borda[1] – feared and detested throughout Uganda but the only transport system able to deliver economical and reliable short-distance door-to-door service – it brings shudders from tourist and Ugandan housewife alike. Responsible for 50% of all deaths on the road, and in most people’s mind causing all the rest and endless road-rage, it is a curse to which the majority are reluctantly resigned.
What is the borda-borda - “What sort of name is that?” most mzungus (foreigners) cry. It is the two-wheeled taxi service, the moped or small motorbike that darts and weaves the road, running the gauntlet of every gap - emerging and disappearing - in the Kampala traffic. It is the life-blood of the Ugandan road system, with thousands of them pouring through the city’s arteries like red blood cells in a particularly disturbing internal body-camera scene from ‘House’. It is the mystery of the universe - how do they do it?! It’s the only way to get from the main road to ‘the village’ or from where you are to ‘not-too-far-away’. It is the platform that screams its defiance to the idea that a moped is designed for two.
The most satisfying myth of the name’s derivation is from the Uganda/Kenyan border. Pedestrians could at one time only cross the no-go zone of some several hundred yards on official mopeds, and thus they were called ‘border to borders’. When these mopeds became available on the open market, the name stuck. Its sound and immediate associations place it in the same genre as ‘barracuda’, ‘kamikaze’, ‘hari-kari’, abracadabra, ‘out of order’, and ‘going under’.
Who travels on a borda-borda? It is a regular sight to see a 100+kg sow, alive but trussed up like some sort of fiendish bondage fetish, balanced precariously across the seat. The other day I saw an 85kg Nile Perch the size of a stout gentleman wiggling frantically, wanting to get off. It could be a ladder, albeit swung at an angle across the back seat to reduce the risk of amputation at the hip to passing pedestrians. Or a man holding in front of him a huge sheet of glass, screaming at the driver in front as the glass bends inexorably in the wind to the point of destruction. Or a family of mother, father and three children, including babe in arms (actually balanced over the petrol tank in front of the driver; the driver looks down occasionally to make her smile and wave at him). Or a set of poles on which are slung, legs tied together and hooked over, 24 or more hens, alive but looking concerned at the loss of feather composure. Or a three-seater settee. Or four stacked crates of Nile beer bottles. Or a set of four 20’ long eucalyptus poles being dragged behind along the road. There is nothing I can see now that will cause me shock, albeit maybe some laughter.
They are the subject of most tourists’ conversation within the opening days of the safari holiday, and the consensus is that these are brain-dead imbeciles, incapable of understanding the word ‘line’ let alone driving along one. For those who risk (for there is little option) the ride – or should I say ‘thrill’ – you get the impression that the driver’s eye-hand co-ordination says more about his libido than his driving skills as he stares at the gorgeous girls in passing cars. For those who get as far as the ride along a terrifying murram village track deep into the country, weaving like a rabid dog on amphetamines between holes in which a car could be lost and rain-filled ravines of uncertain depth, there is now the absolute certainty that a frontal lobotomy is a pre-requisite qualification for drivers.
So …… when I set out on my brand new ‘Max 100R TVS’ (2.3m USh - £770 - including helmet, insurance and road tax) from our house at the very end of one of these tracks to the Entebbe Road, 2 km away, my mind was focussed on how I, as an expert middle-aged English motorcyclist, would put these guys to shame. This typical borda-borda 100cc moped, dressed up to look like a whizzy motorbike, is less than 10% of the engine capacity of my drop dead gorgeous BMW R1100RT that I sold to pay for my air ticket out here. It is so light that I can almost tuck it under my arm and carry it. The tyres were thin enough to have come off a BMX bike.
I failed to notice along my track the glossy path formed by the hundreds of borda-bordas tyres over the days through the constantly shifting sea of mud and treacherous shoals of murram. (Follow that to salvation, like finding Theseus’s thread through the maze.) I failed to register that my endless starting and stopping to tackle the accelerating bumps and craters was straining the engine, shredding my nerves, and making the bike lurch manically as it lost momentum and direction.
I was vaguely conscious (through a rising red mist) that borda-bordas were bombing past me laden with women sitting side-saddle, serenely smartening their make up or chatting to another alongside. It seemed impossible! I, I was the master, not them! Kids were laughing in disbelief “Mzungu, mzungu, bye-ee mzungu!! I accelerated, intent on regaining the lead. The road’s surface suddenly became a caricature of what we would in the UK call ‘a camber’, but with a razor sharp central ridge and slopes each side of Alpine proportions. Across it appeared a road hump so high that Evil Knievel would have been happy to use one to leap the Grand Canyon. In that moment of sheer terror I broke the first rule of my training 20 years earlier and yanked the front brake. A split second later I was sliding along the murram gravel on my forearm, aware vaguely that the subcutaneous tissue was absorbing most of the track.
Pride lost forever, the laughing stock of the entire village, I ruminated upon my misfortune, tucked my tail between my legs and went to look for iodine, tweezers, bandages, and a stiff G & T – in that order. It began to dawn upon me that the skill levels of borda-borda driving were perhaps understated. Over the next few days and weeks my respect for them slid off the scale. However hard I tried to follow the ‘Shining Path’ of each week’s perfect route, I wobbled all over and around it into the surrounding pitfalls. The sheer grace of their smooth and precise dashes through their inch-wide, calculated ‘perfect score’ lines was unbelievable. And I now knew just how hard it was to make it look that easy. I got high blood pressure after 100 yards of every ounce of concentration, but they looked like the Olympic ice skaters who perform obscenely complex manoeuvres with hands behind their back.
Now, months later, I know and can find the perfect route. But they look like Ronaldo and I like a junior league full back. OK. These guys drive us nuts and are maniacs. But don’t dismiss the skill required to carry a whole wriggling family through lethally mud-crusted, slimy, sheet rock. These guys are awesome. Perhaps one of the greatest and most hidden wonders of Uganda. Respect!
[1] Or ‘bodaboda’
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