Jesus, take the wheel

I’ll write something more thoughtful about Emmanuel’s ordination in a bit (and post photos), though I’d like to highlight something first:  I loathe night driving in Uganda. 

The good part about night driving:  bodas and people tend to stay on the shoulder properly after dark, whereas during the day, they take up whatever space on the road they want.  I think they realize that death may find them more easily at night when drivers can’t see them.  Now if they’d only realize that applies in the day as well!

The down part about night driving:  no or little ambient light, no or few lines on the road, and any that 1. exist and 2. are visible certainly weren’t made with reflective paint, vehicles with dim or nonexistent lights (front and/or back), and drivers who have an unusually strong affinity for driving with their high beams on, or switching them on right as they reach your vehicle.

I needed to be in Mukono on Monday, so I planned to leave Soroti after Emmanuel’s thanksgiving service, especially since I wanted to get through Mbale before it was dark, as there was a diversion because the road is being worked on (this time, I only had to ask directions once, and didn’t have to take anyone with me.  Hallelujah!).  Well, naturally, everything was delayed, and I left about 5:30 pm, and therefore had a good 3.5 hours of driving in the dark and very near dark, as the sun sets at 7 pm.  Yes, I probably should have stayed one more night in Soroti, but the advantage to traveling on Sunday night is that there is less traffic. 

Traffic jams in Uganda rival the DC area, and unfortunately, that doesn’t just apply to Kampala.  Therefore, one plans journeys around the jams as much as possible.  However, sometimes that means driving in the dark with all it’s, ah, contributions to the driving experience.  It brings new meaning to “Jesus, take the wheel.”  I think I've posted this article before, but it's simultaneously hilarious and spot-on.