Experiences by Group 3, Emily, Joshua, Rebecca & Maggie

After a week in Uganda we have already spent a lot of time with our new group members Joshua and Maggie. They are studying a MBA program in project management at MUBS.  Emilie and Rebekka are visiting from CBS, studying Business and Development studies. Even though we all come from different cultural backgrounds and age, we knew straight away that this was not going to stop us. 

Our overall topic is the informal sector. The first days we spent on discussing what we wanted to focus on. We finally decided to look further into the informal transport sector and specifically the boda bodas. We want to investigate the relationship between the role of their associations in mediating between the government and the boda boda riders. For those at home who are not familiar with the term “boda boda”, it is a motorbike that is used as taxi to drive people around.  It is the fastest and most convenient way to get around Kampala - especially in rush hours - though it might not be the safest.

Last weekend we went on a trip to Jinja to explore the source of the Nile. The bus ride was quite long, when we finally got to the boats taking us out to the source itself, we managed to lose one of our group members.  Luckily it all worked out in the end and after some waiting we took the bus together to Adrift Nile Lodge where people had the chance to do water rafting and bungee jumping. There were only a few people who had shown interest in the rafting, but with a bit of group pressure 10 people ended up doing it. Emilie and Rebekka on the other hand decided to really experience the boda bodas and took a three hour ride to a small island on the Nile. This turned out to be a good idea when we got to see the terrible sunburns of the rafters J