Watching BBC's 'Top Gear' on TV, the presenters driving in the slushy mud of Uganda brought back memories of our days at Nakigalala in Uganda.
Driving any vehicle used to be an adventure, everything seemed to get stuck on rainy days. It was faster to take a 'boda-boda' (motor cycle taxi) up to our place on top of the hill than the 'matatu'(14 seat van) which we had as our only transport for a long time. The coming of the 4x4 Maruti Gypsy eased life a lot, though even that was 'too light' to cope with the mud on really 'bad' days.
The beauty of it was that in a few hours of sunshine, it would all dry up and you'd wonder what the fuss was all about.
I never really thought the mud driving of Uganda would be seen on international TV, but there it was- on 'Top Gear'. Is the world becoming small to the media?
There was a flip side to the whole East African adventure of course, which made it all feel very unreal to us living in East Africa. But that's the nature of television I guess- its fictional premises 'filmed' on real locations with 'real' people.
Reality TV? Is that the name for these new fictions/works ?
Seems the boundaries of fiction and non-fiction are no longer as they were (do I say good old days?). But were there boundaries ever or is it only a way of naming one's work? Don't really know.
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