Boda Boda

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have taken the plunge and can now say that I am a boda riding resident of Uganda! I'm sitting here in my first internet cafe in Uganda, in Fort Portal, and to get here from my friends' house in Busoro county on the outskirts of the city I took on a challenge. I walked to the main road and a motorcycle driver honked quickly twice as he was coming up behind me, I turned around and he slowed to a stop beside me. "Are you going to town?" he asked, and I said, "Yes, thank you. I need to go to Andrews' supermarket, do you know it?" "Yes, I know it"
he replied. "Okay" I said as I sat my skirted self side saddle on the back of his boda (motorcycle taxi). "This is my first time to ride a boda" I added as I climbed on. "Okay" he added with a chuckle. He asked if I had just come here as he drove off rather gently (for which I was thankful). I replied that I have been in Bundibugyo and we walk everywhere there. That was the end of our conversing as the wind created by the movement of the bike is not very conducive to hearing much of anything. The trip was very uneventful, for which I was also thankful, and we arrived at Andrews' supermarket both in one piece and I paid the driver 1500 USh (Ugandan Shillings) for the 10 minute drive which he maneuvered very well and thanked him very much.

Now, this might sound like an unimportant set of events but I can assure you it indeed is not. Let me just tell you about the thought processes and questions that I went through in order to get to the point where I reached this accomplishment...Rachel was at home as I left she and Katy's house in Busoro and so she walked me through it all before I left but here's all that led up to this infamous boda ride:

1. Where do I go to get a boda? Do they come to you or do I have to walk to a taxi park or a certain corner or location?
2. How do I get a boda? Do I walk up to several and have to choose one or do I just have to bargain with one? Do I have to make a certain gesture or say a certain thing to let the boda's driving by that I would like a ride? How do I gesture, if that is in fact what I need to do, without giving the impression that I'm a prostitute or selling something illegal or God knows what else?
3. How do I find out how much they're going to charge me? How much is reasonable?
4. Will they speak English enough that I can communicate to them where I want to go?
5. How do I sit on the back of a motorcycle in a skirt without falling off?
6. How do I "hold on"?...I've never ridden a motorcycle in the US let alone in a foreign country, and wrapping my arms around a strange man's waist (which looks to me like the only way to successfully stay on the back of such a vehicle) doesn't like a good idea to me in general, but I certainly don't want to be roadkill either considering the roads here are the single largest risk to one's life...
7. Is the driver going to expect payment at the begining of the ride or the end?
8. What am I going to do if the driver takes advantage of me having no idea where I'm going or what I'm doing and takes me wherever the heck he wants...(which has happened to friends of mine in taxis in other places in the world).

So, after all of that the questions and answers (I didn't ask Rachel all of them) and talking myself out of thinking about all of my mom's stories about riding on bikes and getting feet stuck in tire spokes and thinking about the men I've taken care of in the hospital (especially when I worked at SLUH) who were s/p motorcycle accidents with road rash all over the front of their bodies from skidding across the pavement head first, I took the plunge and succeeded without a hitch!