Personal Space

I’ve been thinking about personal space lately.  Most ugandans have no sense of personal space and are not bothered when someone has to sit on their lap in a taxi, someone asks you to hold their turkey, people are shoved like sardines in the back of the bus so you can’t even move your hands, or when they ask thirty of you to sleep on the floor of a garage.  In that situation, it’s kind of like the lion’s den in Lion King or the wolves in Jungle Book – everyone sleeping on top of each other and being happy about it.

Is it wrong of me to expect different treatment?  Maybe.  But I have no problem with asking people to get off my lap.  Or, in tonight’s situation, getting out of the taxi because I refused to be driven by a man with a woman sitting in his lap at the steering wheel since the back was so full.