The Ssemakula family and the breakdown near Jinja
A family of five from Kampala tells the story of the day their car died on the Jinja road with no phone signal, how the children coped, and the game that got them through four hours of waiting.
Packing the car for six hours
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Show notes
The six-hour pack
Before any games, the car has to be packed so that nothing needed in the next hour is in the boot. Wanjiku walks through her system, built over a decade of Nairobi to Mombasa runs, and then opens the game bank.
- The three-zone rule: reach, stop, and boot
- Snacks that survive heat: what works and what became soup
- The sick bag, the wipes and the change of clothes you will need
- Leaving at 5am and why the children sleep through the worst traffic
- Two games for the first hour: Spot the Matatu and Story Chain
Next week, a family from Kampala tells the story of the trip where the car broke down.
Transcript
Jambo and welcome to Are We Nearly There, the show for families who travel by car and the parents in the front seat trying to hold it together. I am Wanjiku Kamau, I write about travel for a living, and I have three children and one very tired estate car. Today we are talking about packing, because every bad road trip I have ever had started with something important being in the boot. I will give you my three-zone system, tell you which snacks survive the heat and which ones turned into soup near Voi, and explain why we leave at five in the morning even though it is cruel. Then we open the game bank with two games for the first hour that have never failed me. Let us load the car. You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts.
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