Scooters

 We leave the students at Ruhija in the Impenetrable Forest , heading for Bwindi near the Congo Border where our next group are posted at the Bwindi Community Hospital.  We can find no lower cost accommodation so at the driver’s suggestion that just around the corner is a good spot we head off down the road.  
Around the corner drags on and on, through a number of small towns, forty-five minutes later and it is almost dark.  The place owned by a minister has closed down.  We are directed to accommodation with a bar where the music is already blasting.  We stand around in a loose group clearly disgruntled. 
A fellow comes over and directs us to another spot in town.  The prices here are double what we wanted but it has a restaurant and it is quiet.  The double room Angella and I share has huge poster beds with about 6 inches between them but we don’t need to dance.  Andrew, the volunteer, is in a fix becase he can’t afford it so Angella offers to pay for his room and the driver takes off  agreeing to collect us at 8 am the next morning.  The staff is helpful, cutting up Angella’s pawpaw for her.  They call us when our order of chicken and chips is ready.

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They have fresh passion fruit juice for me for breakfast but power is off so there is not enough boiled water for Angella and Andrew.  But we have a 2 litre bottle of boiled water with us so we present it to them and everayone has passion fruit.  I get a delicious Spanish omelet.  Angella has not seen one before so gets scrambled eggs but decides after a bite of mine that she is going to order one next time.  Andrew is not quite so adventurous. 

It is market day in Kihihi, outside the Impenetrable Forest, where we have ended up.  The early morning streets are jammed with people coming into town, heavy loads and home-made scooters.  At first we wonder if the scooters  are used for the handicapped as one or both legs seem to be tucked up behind in them, but watching someone get down from one, we note he has use of both legs. 

Many of the scooters are operated by young boys who are moving heavy loads about town or wait outside shops.  It is the first time I have seen such scooters and the town seems to be full of them.