On the main street of a ghost town

Sunrays on rusty rooftops, sweaty boda boda cyclists calling out as indifferent pedestrians walk by and lone drivers make their way on the near empty street.A town so famous, structures so infamous. As I sit on the veranda of a café popularly known as source and sip my soda, I cannot help wonder how slow the life around me looks.My neighbour,one of the kind that flocks the town punches away on his mobile phone just after reading a map guide in a booklet travel guide for Uganda, obviously anxious to find the source of the Nile. A few steps away, a group of dirty children camp at the entrance of a video store cum bar to catch some action on the screen. A few meters front of me, two men chat. Judging from their disregard for the scotching sun, it must be a serious issue.A handful of people keep strolling by on this main street, as if it were a weekend. How I admire the look of peacefulness and satisfaction on their faces or is it simply resignation to their slow pace of life? I study the street and realise that the few youthful men around stand out in their cars, jeans and elaborate hair cuts. As the evening grows closer, they become more apparent. I anxiously wait for eye catching females to pass in vain. The tight jeans are but a reserve of the night, I conclude when I finally see women clad in knee length skirts and loose blouses as if straight from their offices.While I am lost in my thoughts, a hawker sees it as a perfect opportunity to let his metallic ware catch my eye. His colleague as if to supplement this, brings his merchandise of socks, hankies, towels and combs closer to my table as well. But before I get taken up by the hawkers, finally two girls who couldn’t be a day older than 15 clad in the tightest jeans I have seen, steal my attention for a moment, making the men give up on interesting me in their merchandise.That encounter aside, 20 minutes later, there is still nothing exciting on the street and I am yawning. It has been a long day and I’m rather sleepy. Things I hate about visiting lone towns start to flow in my mind. Just as my eyelids make to meet, a mad man walks by singing cheerfully to himself breaking the silence on the street for a few minutes. And as the evening draws nearer, my system is begging for shut down. I wonder what would happen if I just lay ma head on the table and doze off right here on the veranda of the café.