Kampala to Fort Portal: Day one ends successfully
We have safely come to the end of Day One of the #JoeWalker Kampala to Fort Portal road safety awareness walk. We started off at 6:45am at the Independence monument, Nile Avenue. We were flagged off by Hon. Gen. Katumba Wamala Minister of Works and Transport who urged drivers to take extra care and protect the walkers. The minister retaliated the government’s commitment to crack down on errant drivers starting with those of government cars; review the infrastructure to make it safe for all road users; and improve safety of pedestrians.
After the brief speech, boom….he flagged us off. Gen. Wamala is a man of his word. Unlike many government officials, he more than kept his word. Just like the Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Hon. Thomas Tayebwa did last year, Gen Wamala kept time. Our appointment was for 6:30am, he called at 6:04am to let us know that he would be with us in a few minutes, and he arrived at 6:15am ready to do his thing.
With the formalities out of the way, we hit the road and our first stop was Bulaga for breakfast and a brief rest. It was also a stopping point for some of our friends. After a reset, we hit the road again and this time the cloud cover that had been our shed the entire morning was peeling off and the heat setting in. We had a brief chat with the police at Buyala who decried the menace of unruly boda bodas and reckless “drone” taxis, both of whom are hard to tame and make follow the rules mainly due to an unregulated sector and unrelenting “political interference”.
With the sun getting hotter, we needed to manage our pace and energy better to ensure we got to our next destination in time to catch our late lunch and also get to our next engagement with the boda boda riders in Bujjuko at 5pm.
We made it in time for a nice lunch at Zam Zam restaurant at 3:15pm; she had been waiting for us since 1pm. We enjoyed our lunch. Got some rest and strolled to the nearby boda stage for our appointment. We listened to them, and the issues they raised included;
– Narrow roads which don’t allow them to coexist with vehicles.
– Speeding cars more especially “drone” taxis and government cars
– Damaged/potholed roads where they are normally pushed off and at times knocked by speeding vehicles trying to dodge potholes
– Roads without signs
– Unruly characters amongst them those who recklessly load many kids to and from school.
With our final scheduled event of the day out of the way, a group of our friends who had committed to walk only one day, kissed us goodbye, wished us good luck and boarded taxis back to Kampala as we checked into Konka Guesthouse for our rest.
We start again tomorrow as we plan to shoot to Mityana, our next destination on day two of the #JoeWalker Kampala to Fort Portal road safety awareness walk.
