Economics 101 from a Boda Boda guy

 I injured my ankle at the end of last year, and since then, I have been wearing an ankle brace and walking with a crutch, slowly rebuilding strength, distance and confidence. Today I misjudged and walked farther than my ankle could put up with. I couldn't make it back on foot, so I stopped a Boda Boda - motorcycle taxi, and climbed slowly and awkwardly.

The boda rider looked at me and said, "Madam you are walking like you are really in pain." I laughed and said, "yes, pain is winning today."

We rode in silence for a bit then he said casually, "At least you tried. These days even trying costs something. People are tired."

Huh? I asked him what he meant.

He adjusted his mirror. "People are tired. Everything feels heavy. Money is tight. Our money in Uganda stays the same but everything else does not."

I thought to myself that what he is describing is inflation.

He continued saying, "before, you could go to the shop with the same money and buy sugar, salt, cooking oil and soap. Now you stand there and start choosing which one will wait." 

"Chapati also," he said. "Have you noticed that it is thinner?" Not the price; the chapati itself. They have reduced the flour they use. You eat but do not feel full. He laughed. "Samosa is worse. You bite but you are biting air."

"Electricity is the one that really annoys me," he continued. "Yaka that used to last a week now finishes in three days. We even removed some bulbs to save electricity, yet we have these energy-saving bulbs.

"People are adjusting quietly", he said. "They are just removing things from their life one by one." 

Customers bargain harder now, not because they do not want to pay, but because everything is already demanding a lot of payment. "People do not bargain because they are stingy. They argue and bargain because they are tired."

At that moment, we passed boda boda stage with young men standing around, some leaning on bikes, all just waiting. 

"These ones," he said, nodding toward them, "they are not here by choice." He said most of them tried to get jobs. They looked and nothing came. They now have to do boda boda work because a man must eat. He said riding a boda boda was not his dream but it was what was available. He wanted to be an electrician. He talked about his friend who drives an Uber and parks at his stage sometimes. "He went to school properly. He has a degree. But now he drives people and waits for his phone to ring."

"That is our country," he said. "People are not lazy. They just have no where to go. These ones are not waiting for life."

I asked him what keeps him going. 

He didn't answer immediately.

"Hope" he said finally. "Hope is the only thing that has not increased in price, although it is costing us a lot these days."

I guess hope is what makes him fuel his bike in the morning. It is what makes parents take children back to school when fees are unclear. It is what makes people like Michael the boda rider joke about thin chapati.

"Madam," he said as he slowed near my gate, "when hope finishes, even money cannot help you."

I got off carefully, my leg in pain but my mind full and couldn't wait to write about it. 

From where my painful ankle is, the boda rider broke down economics in simple ways: inflation thins food, shortens electricity and empties pockets. Unemployment parks young men at boda stages, and graduates behind Uber steering wheels. 

But hope is what keeps people moving, even when everything else costs more than it should.