Traffic

Sometimes when people find out that we live in New York they get all excited, as if all people from New York live at the Statue of Liberty or on Broadway or something. So we always make sure that people understand that we're from Western New York. Instead of using buzz words like "Empire State Building" and "Rockefeller Center" (which if you're from NYC you're probably laughing your head off at those right now) we use words like "Lake Erie" or "Niagara Falls/Buffalo" or "Lake Effect" (that's snow for you southern folks).

Not quite as glamorous, I know.

There's a few things you should know about Western New Yorkers. Unlike our eastern counterparts, we are pretty conservative. We stand by our sports teams no matter how incredibly terrible they are. We are nothing if not loyal. And if you're not from around here, and you tell us how much you love to go eat "Buffalo wings" from "Applebees" we will laugh and depending on how convinced you think you are that you are indeed eating "Buffalo wings" we may even openly mock you.


Now, we live in a small town of approximately 600 people. The closest Walmart is a good 25 minute drive away. The closest thing to a traffic jam we ever encounter is when a farm tractor is driving down the road (substitute snow plow for tractor and you'll have the winter equivalent). And let me tell you, nothing slows you down like a tractor ambling down the road.

So you send these country bumpkins halfway around the world to Kampala, Uganda, a city of about 1.6 million people, and things get interesting. I have never seen traffic like this before.

There are no rules of the road in Uganda. Actually, let me rephrase that. There are rules of the road, we're just not sure we understand them. It involves a lot of honking and light flashing...

All on the wrong side of the road.

And then those taxi's are everywhere. And the police don't have cars to drive around in, they stand on the side of the road and if they want you to pull over they make some kind of signal and you just pull to the side of the road (the wrong side)...

And there's people on the road trying to sell you stuff while you sit there...

My dad loves this next picture. The amazing thing is that he's not in any one of those vehicles you see, that's how close they all are.

It can sometimes take hours for us to get from point A to point B. That's where that hurry hurry wait comes in. We hurry around and end up waiting in traffic. But it's time we spend getting to know our driver and enjoy taking in the sights, sounds, and smells of Uganda.

Just seeing these photos has me all excited. Won't be long, and we'll be back!

- Aly

Somewhere in this post there is a Volkswagon Beetle. Can you spot it? Oh and Punch Bug! No punch backs!