Village near

It was a Saturday and we were headed for a friend’s wedding reception off some village in Mukono District. The reception was hosted at a garden under development, the grass fully grown and trimmed to a sensibly smart size.

We had driven for over three kilometers and going but the celebrated garden was not being seen anywhere. Having grown from a village setting also, the trick to finding locations is to keep asking and asking people who seem indigenous by their appearance. It situations like this, boda boda (motor cycle transporters) are handy.

Approaching a junction where there were two divergent roads, asking was necessary. So I did. Do you know this garden? And how far is it from here?

The gracious lady with such onerous gait of certainty pointed us towards the direction. ‘It is just so near from here!’ ‘You will find a school ahead of you, bypass it on the left and you will find the place’.

So I said thanks to her and off we went. In my heart came the thought and quickly I voiced it. I hope it’s not the ‘village near’. If you have been to villages around the country, there are times someone tells you a place is just near here but you end up travelling miles and miles.

Once upon a time we were travelling to some up country home and we were told that the home is three kilometers from the main roadside but we traveled over 15 kilometers before we could finally arrive. Another time, in Rwanda, we were told the village we were headed to is just is just near and we drove over forty kilometers before arriving.

I can’t tell if there is a problem with measurements or because such distances are walk-able in villages that familiarity breeds contempt for distances.

This time round, my instinct awakened and was not going to be duped to simply believing a place is near in the village, especially where it’s my first time. Thank God this time round, it was a ‘town near’ and shortly we were there and we ate.