SAFARI, SPILL OR STEP?

Jessica arrived for game night forty minutes late, carrying a handbag, a dying phone and a transport policy.
“Bodas!” she announced. “Those people will kill us.”
Uncle Rwamiti looked behind her. “How did you get here?”
“Boda.”
“So you have arrived safely to report your death?”
Brenda choked on a groundnut.

Safari, the boda rider who had brought her, was still outside. A boda is a motorcycle taxi, though Jessica had apparently hired an aircraft.
“He was weaving between cars,” she said.
“Were the cars moving?”
“No.”
“And you wanted?”
“To reach.”
“Ah.” Uncle moved a bowl to make room for her. “Sit. Your contradiction must be tired.”

Jessica’s phone lit up. Someone had liked her post:
BAN BODAS. KAMPALA DESERVES BETTER.
Brenda leaned over. “Posted twelve minutes ago?”
“Yes. I was expressing my frustration.”
“While Safari was transporting it?”
“It is possible to use something and still recognise that it is a problem.”
“Of course,” said Uncle. “Some people have husbands.”
Brenda put her drink down before it became a medical emergency.

Outside, Safari was trying to turn his motorcycle beside an enormous SUV whose owner had parked as though he had purchased the compound.
“Safari!” Jessica called. “Come. Uncle wants to interrogate you.”
“About the fare? Madam, we agreed before departure.”
“Come,” Uncle said. “You are safe.”
“People say that before introducing a discount.”
He came anyway. Brenda offered him a chair and some groundnuts.

“What are you playing?”
“Spill or step,” she said.
Safari looked at the floor. “Step where?”
“Spill means you answer honestly,” Uncle explained. “Step means you take a challenge.”
“Does the challenge involve money? Madam has already negotiated away my retirement.”
Jessica folded her arms. “I paid what we agreed.”
“After we agreed three times.”
“Safari. Spill or step?”
“Spill. Let me preserve my remaining assets.”

“What did you want to become when you were a boy?”
“A pilot.”
Jessica smiled. Safari noticed.
“A real one, madam. With a uniform. Not this business of lifting a motorcycle over a drainage channel.”
“What happened?” Uncle asked.
“My father died. School fees stopped. My mother sold tomatoes. I started helping her carry them.”
He rolled a groundnut between his fingers.
“At school, when they asked what I wanted to become, nobody laughed. The teacher even called me Captain.”
“What does your mother call you now?”
“When she needs money? My son.”
“And otherwise?”
“Still my son.” He smiled. “She never called me a failure.”

For a moment, the room became quiet. Then Safari looked towards his helmet.
“Now I carry people who tell me to fly.”
Brenda laughed first.
“Pilots have control towers,” he continued. “I have a woman behind me shouting, ‘Pass there! Pass there!’”
Jessica became interested in the ingredients on her juice carton.

“Jessica. Spill or step?”
“Spill.”
“What instructions did you give Safari?”
“I told him I was late.”
Safari raised a finger. “Then?”
“I asked whether there was another route.”
“Madam.”
“Fine. I said, ‘Find a shortcut.’”
“Then?”
Jessica sighed. “I asked whether he could use the pavement.”
Brenda set down her juice. “Madam prosecution has become exhibit A.”

“That doesn’t mean he should do it,” Jessica said. “He is the rider.”
Safari nodded. “That is true.”
She looked surprised.
“The handlebars are in my hands,” he said. “Even when the bad idea comes from behind me.”
Uncle leaned back. “Your turn to spill, then. When did you last frighten someone on the road?”
“Yesterday.”
“What happened?”
“A schoolboy was crossing. I came through a gap. He jumped back.”
“Did you stop?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I wanted another trip.”

Safari looked at his hands.
“Later I remembered him. Small bag. Big eyes. He looked like my son.”
“Did you look for him?”
“No. I wouldn’t know where.”
Nobody rushed to rescue him from the silence. Outside, another motorcycle passed, its engine briefly filling the room.
Safari reached for a groundnut, then left it.
“If someone did that to my boy, I would be very angry.”
Jessica uncrossed her arms.

“My turn,” Safari said. “Jessica, spill or step?”
“Spill.”
“Where the taxi drops you, how far is your home?”
“Too far to walk in the dark.”
“Does the taxi reach your gate?”
“No.”
“Is there a pavement all the way?”
Jessica shook her head.
“And this evening, why didn’t you remain in the taxi?”
“It wasn’t moving.”
Safari nodded. “That is where you find me.”
“Between the taxi and the gate?” Brenda asked.
“Between where transport stops and where people still need to go.”

Uncle pushed the groundnut bowl towards him. “Tell us about today.”
“First customer was going to open a shop. Second was a woman going to the clinic. Then a man whose car was at the garage.”
“And after that?”
“A student. Then a woman carrying a cake.”
“Was the cake wearing a helmet?” Brenda asked.
“The cake had better protection than me. A box, plastic, and instructions from three people.”
Even Jessica laughed.

“Then I carried a man to a meeting about traffic.”
Uncle sat forward. “You are inventing that one.”
“I don’t know what the meeting was about. He spent the journey on the phone saying, ‘We need a serious solution to this transport problem.’”
“How did he want you to ride?”
“Seriously fast.”

Jessica reached for her drink. “So what are you saying? We should just accept the chaos?”
“No,” Safari said. “Sometimes I also want to report us.”
“Us?”
“Riders. A man will enter the road without looking, and now all of us must discover whether his ancestors are paying attention.”
Brenda bent forward laughing.
“And some carry passengers after drinking. Some have no patience. Some quarrel before you finish speaking.”
“So you agree with my post?”
Safari glanced at her phone. “When you say ‘ban bodas’, what happens the next morning?”
“People use proper transport.”
“Which one goes to your gate?”

Jessica opened her mouth. Safari waited.
“The buses could improve,” she said.
“Yes. They could.”
“And routes could be better organised.”
“Yes.”
“And walking should be safer.”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you arguing with me?”
“I am waiting for those things with you.”

A horn blared outside. Then another. The SUV owner appeared at the doorway.
“Who owns that boda?”
Safari rose. “Me, boss.”
“Move it! You people block everywhere!”
Everyone went outside. Safari’s motorcycle occupied a small gap beside the SUV. The SUV occupied enough ground to establish a modest poultry project.
Brenda looked at one, then the other. She pressed her lips together. Some observations were best swallowed.

Safari wheeled his motorcycle aside. The man climbed into his vehicle and reversed slowly, sounding his horn at obstacles that had existed before he arrived.
Uncle stayed beside Safari.
“Would you still ride if there were reliable buses?”
“If people needed me between the bus stop and home.”
“And if they didn’t?”
“I would need another job.”
“What kind?”
Safari shrugged. “One I could actually get.”

“Would you miss riding?”
“Some days. I know people. I know which grandmother needs help with her bag. Which shopkeeper will pay tomorrow. Which customer says ‘I am coming’ while still bathing.”
He checked his phone.
“But there are days I go home and my shoulders are hard like wood.”
“Could you stop?”
“The motorcycle payment continues whether my shoulders agree or not.”
He paused. “My landlord doesn’t accept improved transport as rent.”

Jessica joined them, phone in hand.
“My cousin needs a ride.”
“Where?”
She told him. Safari checked the time. There was enough evening left for another fare. Perhaps two, if the first went well.
Tomorrow’s motorcycle payment was waiting. So was a message from home asking him to bring cooking oil.
“She says she’ll pay extra if you get her there quickly.”
Safari reached for his helmet.

Then Jessica’s phone lit up again:
PLEASE HURRY. EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO USE THE PAVEMENT.
She read it aloud. Nobody laughed.
Beyond the gate, traffic barely moved. A pedestrian picked her way around a puddle. A boy in school uniform walked beside her, swinging an empty water bottle.
Safari watched them pass.

Uncle Rwamiti looked at the message. Then at Jessica. Then at Safari.
“Spill or step?”
Safari gave a small laugh. “Uncle, this one has left the game.”

His phone rang. The cousin.
He could accept the fare and settle the argument later, somewhere between the cars and the pavement. He could refuse and watch another rider take it. He could offer a journey on different terms.
Jessica was still holding the phone on which she had demanded a better city.
Safari’s thumb hovered over the green button.

YOUR MOVE
You are Safari. What do you tell the passenger before accepting the trip?
You are Jessica. What do you tell your cousin?
And that post, “BAN BODAS. KAMPALA DESERVES BETTER”?
Do you leave it, delete it, or write something else?

UNCLE RWAMITI: YOUR MOVE.
The uncle your parents should probably never have introduced you to. 😎
Play and find more games:
Unclerwamiti.com
Peterospaths.org