Part 1, Chapter 5 Summary

When Garrigan finds a matatu (or minibus) going to Mbarara the next morning, it is not quite what his book about Uganda led him to expect; the book had described the matatu's in picturesque terms. It is impossibly crowded and uncomfortable, and when he takes off his jacket to cushion the seat a little bit, some of the other passengers make fun of him, calling him "white man".

Some of the passengers are wearing Western-style clothes; mostly they are civil servants who have been fired by the new regime. One of the passengers sitting behind him is a student at the university in Kampala, who is on his way home to Mbarara, and he knows Doctor Merrit. His name is Boniface, or Bonney.

There is one serious incident on the way: the bus stops at some sort of roadblock, and a...