Tonight I had the pleasure of driving with Harriet, my first female taxi driver in Africa... or anywhere come to think of it.
Harriet shone with positive energy and told me she loves her job because she loves to travel. When she drives a taxi she gets to meet people with all kinds of different backgrounds - and that's the thing she really loves about travelling; it’s meeting people.
She asked me if there were potholes on the roads in Dar es Salaam. When I told her yes, she said, “it must be an East African syndrome.”
But unlike Francis and John who told me their worries, Harriet told me her hopes. Hopes that some days Uganda would realize its potential. Hopes that Uganda would follow in Rwanda’s footsteps and eliminate corruption. Hopes that the future for Uganda is bright, if the right steps are taken along the way.
“Some day we will be here and there will be no corruption. It will be history,” she said.
She told me it was like in South Africa when apartheid seemed an impossible obstacle.
“Then no-one believed that there could be a South Africa without apartheid, but now, it’s like history, a memory of the past.”
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