Miscellaneous observations about hair and taxis

When I visited Amy in India I quickly fell in love with the women's saris and the gorgeous fabrics they were made from, each seemingly more beautiful than the last. Here in Africa I'm not so taken with the clothing, but I love women's hair. I never dreamed there were so many ways to do cornrows, braids, and curls. Many styles are intricate and must take hours to complete. Women also wrap their hair in headdresses, again with a multitude of styles. I suppose I've seen 30 different ways you can wrap fabric around your head and have it look lovely.

On a completely different subject, I've been wanting to explain a little more about how the shared taxis work here. I get quite a bit of time each week to analyze them as I ride from place to place. As I've mentioned, they're 14-passenger vans. Each one runs a more or less set route heading into or out of the main taxi park downtown. They will stop anywhere along the route to pick up passengers. Each taxi has a driver and a conductor. The conductor sits in the seat nearest the side sliding door. His job is to collect fares, notice passengers wanting to be picked up, and help people on and off as necessary. People carry all kinds of things on taxis, including large burlap bags of who knows what, so the conductor will help them with their parcels or hold their babies while they load and unload.

Passengers know to go to the back or far side seats as they get in. There are seats in the aisle that fold up, so if someone in the far back corner needs to get out, for instance, the people in the fold up seats get up, fold their seats up, get out, let the passenger out, then climb back in. It's really quite a workable system. The vans are made for 14 passengers, but that number is flexible. People here don't need the personal space we're used to, so if the conductor wants to let 16 or 17 people ride, you just basically sit on each other.

When I go to Bead for Life I leave our home in Kansanga, pass through Kabalagala, then catch a taxi downtown to Luthuli Road in Bugalobi. Aren't those great names?

Karen