Running Errands in Africa

I promise to do my best to never complain about running errands in the US again.  The other day I got a true flavor for what it’s like to run work-related errands in rural East Africa.  And while I found it laborious and frustrating, it was significantly easier in our case because we had access to a car. In addition, I can take comfort in knowing that I am only dealing with this on a temporary basis; whereas people here have to deal with these challenges on a regular basis for their whole lives.

So on Monday our house/office ran out of cooking gas (I think it’s propane?).  Given our 2 burner cooktop stove is our ONLY means of cooking and there isn’t much in the way of instant food/meals (and we don’t live in town), it was imperative we address this issue asap.  It required a couple members of the household/office to drop what we were doing and run to town to exchange the gas tank.  Since only two of us are allowed to drive the office car, and my coworker was in the middle of something, I offered to drive.

As long as we were making the run to town, my colleague/roommate had some other errands that we planned take care of as well. So I drove to Hoima town for the first time.  As I’ve mentioned before, driving in Africa is an experience, and one I avoid when I can.  The rural dirt roads are ok when there’s no oncoming traffic (or rain for that matter). But driving in town is just plain stressful. Driving to town is not much better because it requires navigating on our hilly rough road which is always lined with a bunch of pedestrians. Again though, I am complaining about the difficulties of driving a car, meanwhile passing people who are struggling with large loads while walking or riding a bicycle, so I need to keep it all in perspective...

Once you arrive in town, the roadways there are comprised of about 10-15 unmarked 4 way stops.  The road is a mix of mostly crumbling pavement and dirt, and it is FULL of pedestrians, bicycles, motorbikes, and oncoming cars and buses.  On the plus side, it’s totally socially acceptable to drive slow there, which I really appreciate (although I did get passed in town yesterday when running another errand to pick up generator fuel).  But I digress…

So back to this set of errands, we started by going to get the cooking gas tank filled.  We went to the only place in town where we can exchange the propane tank. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any tanks to exchange that were the same size as the one we have for the house.  All they had were little pony tanks that are about a third of the size of ours.  I figured ‘no big deal, we’ll just get the smaller one.’ But then we weren’t sure if the gas hose would reach to the new shorter tank.  Also apparently, you typically need to exchange like for like or there’s a chance that next time we go back, we might get ripped off and not get a bigger tank back again (there is apparently some ownership of the tank by size, even though you exchange them--I still don't really understand it). Anyway, we were told the bigger tanks may be in at some time the following day, but that would mean no way to cook dinner that night or breakfast and lunch the following day.  After much deliberation, we agreed to go with the smaller tank and had a receipt made and signed (by receipt, I mean a hand-written receipt, as most are here) that verified what we purchased and that we were due back our larger tank when we returned.

Pony gas tank

Next we went to the bank so my colleague could pay the Ugandan payroll taxes for our employees. This was her second trip to the bank to do so.  She had gone the prior week, but the bank had no internet, and she couldn't wait an hour as requested.  So we were back a second time. (It seems there is no way to have this automatically deducted from payroll or paid online, so it's a separate process.) We got to the bank, waited in line, got to the counter, only to find out there was again no internet, again. So my coworker filled out the form while we waited for a bit, but then seeing it would take some time, we decided to run to the grocery while waiting.

We started by going to one of the grocery stores in town that was near the bank--I think there are about 5 or 6 grocery stores in total. Here grocery stores are pretty small, and reminded me of smaller versions of the tiny neighborhood markets I’d seen in New York City, but with less variety. Here it seems none of the stores have everything you need, so you typically need to go to more than one.  This time, we went to two (though there have been days we have gone to four). 

We then went back to the bank to again wait to pay the taxes. Fortunately, this time, after waiting in line we found their internet was working again so the taxes could be paid. 


The next stop was to get keys made from the one person in town that makes keys.  The issue with getting keys made is there is fear that if you leave your keys, extra copies might be made so the key maker (or someone else) may come and break into your house.  However, it takes 2 to 3 hours to stand and wait for someone to make the keys, which is incredibly inconvenient, so it’s much easier to leave the keys behind. Thus, it was decided that the risk would be taken and keys left due to the large volume of work we still had to do that day and that week. On the plus side, it’s highly unlikely that those making the keys can know where you live – at least that’s what we told ourselves -– unless someone follows you I suppose...

Still though, we were not yet done with the errands for the day. We also needed to go to the outdoor market, as they have a larger variety of produce and other staples.  So we then drove to the outdoor market and purchased items there. 

Finally, on the way home, we needed eggs, and there is a lady that sells eggs in a small stall near our house, so we stopped by there on the way back.  Since we currently have four people living in the house, we needed a lot of eggs. So the shop owner allowed us to take the cardboard carton, with the assurance that we would bring it back (the alternative is that eggs are packed against each other into a thin plastic bag, and as you can imagine, require very careful handling).

Borrowed egg carton (& a Peace Corps cookbook I've been meaning to check out -- that's just where it happens to be stored for some reason)

And that concluded one day's worth of errands. By the time we made it back home, it was getting dark, and we then continued with our work day.