Yesterday, I was wobbling down the dusty roads on the back of a bicycle boda-boda, on my way to a meeting with one of the physicians here who is doing some fantastic research and community work locally here. We came to the main intersection in town, a bustling crossroads of the main trade road which is flanked by street vendors and crowds of locals, and the Trans-African highway, which passes through Iganga on its way across the continent.
My bicycle taxi man set off across the street haltingly, then realized too late that there were taxi vans and motorcycles coming and him from both directions. He turned east and started up the road in a desperate attempt to keep moving, wobbling more severely as he tried to peer over either shoulder to see how we could avoid the oncoming vehicles, and finally we collapsed in the dead center of the highway. Although the bike fell on me, I had been riding sidesaddle so I was able to kind of hop away unharmed and then I just ran for it because the vehicles had all slammed on the brakes.
Though this experience was terrifying, in retrospect it's sort of funny, because the same boda boda man approached me a minute afterwards, smiling and querying "we go?" I only then began to contemplate the fact that he might be drunk. Irritated, I yelled "I'd rather walk than die!" and ran in the direction of the district health offices to the giggles of the crowds by the roadside.
I also dressed wounds yesterday including Dermabonding an abdominal laceration, and ran a rapid malaria test, so I felt a bit more useful than usual.
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