truck canopy.

The guys built a wooden canopy on the pickup while I was in soroti. Its illegal to carry “human cargo” in the back of a pickup and we always have people in the back. Hence a canopy to hide us. Not that it will actually help to not get us stopped. The police stop us more to get a bribe from the mzungus with money than to give us an actual ticket. Now our truck looks more recognizable with the wooden canopy.

Henry has plain bad luck with the “white ladies with lollipops” – the traffic cops wear white and wave red sticks to stop traffic offenders. Men and women can be cops. Their main goal seems to be collecting bribes instead of tickets and ineffectively directing traffic. I say ineffective because the bodas pay them no attention and cars can sit in line waiting for their turn to go thru an intersection for 20 minutes. It happens more often than we like.

Now I sit at the way back of the pickup sitting backwards watching the country we pass. I feel like either a clown or a mascot the way everyone smiles and waves at me. Ay, mzungu! I might start calling them Ay, Ugandan! But its much easier to wave to the kids from the back. I must be an odd sight tucked away in a wooden canopy. A white mzungu girl grinning and watching everything, listening to headphones (to tune out leonard and opus), and chewing gum to deal with sitting backwards. Yup, that’s me.

While working at painting our dorm yesterday, on of the leaders of the site walked in and started talking with Bryce. But he stopped when he saw me, or rather recognized me. We greeted each other. Finally he blurted out “so you know how to paint too.” well duh. Several sarcastic retorts jumped to mind, but I bit them back in favor of a more neutral and relation-saving “yup”. I must remember that its not his fault this sight shocked him. Not his fault his culture has not prepared him. But that will change. If he had been American, I would have let fly with the comments. But here I must teach, not whack upside the head.

im still working on a post about soroti. it is a long story so far.