I saw something that would be difficult to explain to most Americans. A boda was carrying another boda. If you grew up in the US like I did, you were raised inside a world engineered for convenience. When something breaks, someone with a truck, a crane, a flatbed, a specialised tool or a laminated safety protocol appears to fix it. We have entire industries built around not having to improvise.
Spend a little time in Kampala and you start to realise how quickly convenience can soften a person. For example, here are a few things many Americans would struggle with if the power went out for a week; building a fire, growing food, sitting still long enough for boredom to produce a useful idea. Meanwhile in Uganda, a power outage is not a civilisational crisis. It is more like an ordinary Tuesday. People adjust. Phones are charged where power exists. Charcoal is lit. Conversations continue.
Someone finds a way.
Yesterday I was walking through our neighbourhood when I saw the kind of logistical solution that makes Kampala endlessly fascinating. A boda had died. Its mechanical spirit had clearly departed this earth somewhere between Kabalagala and wherever its rider had hoped to end up. In the US, this would trigger a sequence involving a tow truck, flashing lights, insurance details, paperwork and a bill large enough to make you reconsider vehicle ownership.
In Kampala, the solution was simpler. Another boda arrived. A short conversation took place. Within minutes, the deceased motorcycle was carefully balanced across the back of the rescue boda like some kind of mechanical piggyback ride. Problem solved. I watched it disappear down the road, and I could not decide whether I was witnessing recklessness, brilliance or a category for which English has no adequate word. The longer I live here, the more I suspect the answer is often all three. Kampala runs on improvisation. Not the cute, decorative kind people celebrate in leadership books, but the practical kind. The kind born from imperfect systems, limited tools and immediate need. If the road is blocked, someone creates a new lane. If the truck will not start, someone finds a rope. If the motorcycle breaks, another motorcycle becomes the recovery vehicle.
There is something humbling about that. In places where convenience is guaranteed, we often confuse comfort with convinience. We assume we are capable because the systems around us rarely ask much of us. But when those systems disappear, many of us are exposed. We know how to call someone. We do not always know how to solve the problem in front of us. Uganda has made me admire a different kind of intelligence; the intelligence of adaptation. The ability to look at the resources available and make something work anyway. It is not always tidy. It is not always safe by American standards. But it is often astonishingly effective.
That boda carrying another boda was not just funny. It was a small moving parable. When the systems around you are imperfect, creativity becomes a daily survival skill. And sometimes that creativity looks like a motorcycle carrying another motorcycle through Kampala traffic. Honestly, it worked beautifully. I am now convinced that if civilisation ever collapses, the global recovery effort will begin with a Ugandan boda rider.