What is this...New York

So in August 2006 I was able to go to New York City for the first time. It was so much fun. My friend Melissa was working in DC for the summer and I flew out to see her. We took a weekend trip with her roommates up to NYC and had a great time. Now, when I think of New York I automatically think of taxis. Every where you look, you see those little yellow cars. I was even able to ride in one on the trip as Melissa and I rushed from Grand Central Station to church.Now you might be thinking that I can't honestly be writing a whole blog on the taxis in New York City. Don't worry, I'm not...I'm going to tie this to Africa (surprise, surprise). Now Africa doesn't have these little yellow taxis...but they do have something so much better. They have boda-bodas. Now you might be thinking that those are simply motorcycles...and you would be right. That is how most of the people get around. They have vans that hold 15 people, motorcycles or bicycles as their mode of transportation. Our goal in July was to ride on a boda-boda. However, we ran out of time and didn't have the opportunity. This time around we did have the opportunity and we took full advantage of it.These boda-bodas are great fun. You get where you need to so much faster than any other mode of transportation. They can swerve in and out of all the other cars and even at times go up on the curb. The only time I was scared to ride on one what when I was on the back of a really slow boda-boda. All the other cars had to swerve around us!

Not only do these boda-bodas get you where you need to go quicker, they serve many purposes. While we were there we saw the many different sides of the amazing boda-boda. Now you can see with the picture below, there is just enough room for Melissa and I with our driver. Can you imagine one other person on there with us? That is right, we saw one boda-boda with four adults on there. What about if we weren't there and instead there was not one twin bed, but TWO on the back (yep, saw that)! Finally, we saw one boda-boda going down the road with a crate on the back, and what was in that crate? A pig!So there you have it. While New York has their little yellow taxis, Uganda has their boda-bodas. Personally, since I can now say that I have rode in both, I will take the quick moving boda-boda of the taxis of New York any day.