Goodbye Kampala, Hello Entebbe.

Entebbe is so close to Kampala, yet it seems a world away.  The drive is barely 30-40 km.  It can take anywhere from a brief hour of travel time to a grueling four hours, depending on the infamous traffic of Kampala.  Yesterday it only took me an hour.  I began in the dirty, smog filled Kampala.  I’ve been there for nearly a week now, enjoying luxurious meals and fast internet while trying to cope with the buzzing traffic of people, cars, bicycles, and motorcycles without losing my patience.  My Nile-induced sinus infection has been lingering in the smog, red dirt filled air of the city, and my ears have been ringing with the sounds of shouting, honking horns, and screeching brakes.  After two months in the field and two days on the Nile River, bustling, restaurant-rich Kampala was a thrill.  By yesterday, however, this thrill had long faded, and I was ready for Entebbe.

I awoke from another sleepless night and lay awake under my mosquito net for a few extra minutes that morning.  I listened to the clanging dishes in the restaurant downstairs and the singing of the hotel maids as they scrubbed the hallway floors.  I could already hear horns honking and boda drivers shouting on the street below when I decided it was time to peel back my net and stumble out of my room and into the shower.  The showerhead was not working, no surprise, so I tried to duck under the cold water rushing from the faucet to give my hair a quick wash.  I threw on a skirt and a gray t-shirt and made my way down the steep staircase and into the bright sunlight of busy DeWinton road.  Boda drivers immediately kicked on engines and flooded towards me, honking, slapping seats, and shouting, “Mzungu! Where to! Let us go!”  Staring forward, I kept marching down the road and towards my usual café, where I spent the next several hours enjoying internet, reading, and sucking down my giant latte.

A few hours later, when I’d packed my bags (something I’ve become very good at) and went to the desk to check out, the hostess gave me a shocked look when I replied to her usual question of “where to next, Ah-lee-see-ah?” with Entebbe, then the USA!  “You will not return?”  She looked a bit hurt, so I reassured her that one day next year I would be back.  I walked downstairs and stared up and down the street at the available cabs waiting, trying to place my bets on which would be the safest, fastest, and least likely to try to rip me off.  I picked an old, beat up Toyota and asked the driver how much one should pay to go to Entebbe.  This is my usual test to see just how reliable and honest the man is.  He gave me my fair price, so we loaded my luggage and were off.  Within minutes I knew I’d made the right choice.  He had a sticker for a private Muslim school for girls on his dash (probably where his daughter goes) and reached below his seat to un-crumple a traditional Muslim cap and smooth it onto his head.  I thought of a conversation with my friend Will about how Muslim drivers are the best score in Africa.  Because Muslims are forbidden to drink, they are the least likely to drive you around while intoxicated.  Score.

I tried to appreciate my last few minutes in Kampala, to feel nostalgic about leaving the city, but I could find nothing but relief to leave the noise, the smell, and the constant madness.  An hour later, I felt like I was a world away in the tourist-rich, relaxed city of Entebbe.

Entebbe sits right on Lake Victoria, and is the location of the only major and international airport in Uganda.  This makes it an odd mix of tourists-meet-traditional-lakeside-African-culture.  I spent a bit of time on the other side of Lake Victoria when I was in Kenya, and found some similarities.  The lakeshores are beach-like, with sand and pretty birds.  Here in Entebbe the shores are littered with hotels, resorts, and small bars for tourists.  Local teenagers fill the beaches and water in the afternoons, swimming, flirting, and making noise like teenagers do.  The villages are rural African-like, with grass thatch and tin roofed houses, barefoot, half dressed children, and women in their layers of bright, mismatched fabrics.  The main road into Entebbe is amazing for East Africa with its pavement and painted lines, but every side street is the typical red mud, rocky road that I have seen elsewhere.  Like I said, an odd mix.

It is a good place to reflect though.  Some people like to spend their first few days here, but I prefer to toss myself headfirst into Africa, then spend my last few days in this resting place reflecting on my adventures and experiences, examining whether I’ve changed at all (in more ways than those usual, extra few starch-induced pounds, that is).

I’m staying at the zoo.  I read in my guidebook that you could stay at the very simple, yet safe hostel here for only $10 per night, and I loved the idea of sleeping at a zoo.  I spent just about every weekend in college leading overnight tours of the Pittsburgh Zoo, and sleeping there became a familiar, comforting thing for me.  So here I am, sleeping at a zoo in Uganda for my last few days in the country.  What I am calling a zoo is officially known as the Wildlife Education Center, and is a world-renown wildlife rescue and rehabilitation center.  Most of the animals at the zoo have been rescued from poachers or confiscated from the black-market pet trade.  It’s amazingly clean and well maintained for an African park, and I feel good giving my hostel money to help maintain their work.  My room is basic, but much larger than what I had in Kampala.  The hostel is empty enough that they gave me a free upgrade to a private room with two twin beds, two windows, and a desk.  Like my hotel in Kampala, there are communal bathrooms/showers in an outbuilding.  Hot water is unavailable, but the showerheads actually work and the toilets flush.  Best of all, I went to sleep with the sound of lions, and I awoke to the sound of screaming chimpanzees.  When I stumbled out my door toward the bathroom I heard vervet monkeys in the trees next to my window and instantly felt at home.  Yes, a good place for reflection indeed.

So here I am.  My last full day in Africa, again.  My flight leaves tomorrow evening, and all I have planned for today is writing, reading, sitting, eating, and reading more.  The zoo is close to a fancy hotel with a lovely café on the porch, and I’ve been walking back and forth here for meals down a red clay road where two tiny girls in bare feet shout “howareyou! howareyou!” from shy, beaming smiles each time I walk past them.  There is a beach within the zoo, and there is a chimpanzee exhibit where I plan to sit for at least an hour.  So begins my day of reflection, and my final step of departure.

Sanyu Babies Home

I knew I was apprehensive about visiting the orphanage.  It was something, for some reason, I felt I needed to do, but I also knew it would have strong emotional effects, whatever those may be.  “Spending time at a place like that will force you to focus on everything but yourself,” my mother kept telling me over the phone, “you really should give it a try.”  I love children, and I prefer to experience as many sides of a place that I visit as I can so that I can feel like I almost know the place when I leave.  The intense poverty that East Africa faces leaves countless babies and children without homes, and it is a side of the place I am in that I could never ignore.  Still, I knew I was putting off the visit.

One day, finally, I hopped on a boda and made my way towards the Sanyu Babies Home.  It is a Catholic orphanage that houses abandoned or mistreated babies from one day old to four years old.  After that the children are either adopted or sent to other orphanages.  I had a brief meeting with the administrator in which she asked a few questions about my background, then how long I’d be staying in Kampala.  Then she told me the best times for me to come would be the next evening from 3:30-7:00 and Saturday morning from 8:00-1:00.  I was instructed to bring my documents for photocopying.

The documents were never photocopied the when I arrived the next day.  When I went into the administration office with my passport I was told to wait outside.  The secretary would be right with me.  Just outside the offices is a large pavilion with a grass thatch roof and picnic tables.  I was going to sit in here and read while I waited, but today there were balloons hung and a large cake in the center of the table.  Everyone was sitting around as though they were waiting for a birthday party to start.  In true American fashion, not wanting to intrude, I walked down the walkway and a set of stairs to sit on a cement wall and read my book while I waited.  This did not last long.  If there is one thing I have learned over the last 24 hours it is that these children do not wait for you to come to them.  They are not shy or polite or discriminatory when choosing whom to love.  That is not what life as an orphan does to these babies.

After I’d been reading for about five minutes a little boy of about four years old caught me from the corner of his eye and his tiny, snot covered face unfolded into a beaming smile as his hand began violently waving in my direction.  “HELLO! HELLO!” he began shouting as his short, wobbly legs began running towards me, his uneasy body teetering above.  I didn’t even have a moment to recognize that this child was coming towards me.  He just came running, jumping into my space, throwing his wiry arms around me until his hands clenched onto the back of my shirt like robot fingers.  His head was buried in my lap and he was mumbling in half Swahili-half English about my name and his name and what I was reading.  Within seconds I was surrounded by toddlers, tiny fists clenched to my skirt and my shirt, scrawny arms and legs reaching up and grabbing my hair and climbing into my lap.  I had no idea how to react.  I looked around to the adults for some guidance, but they all seemed completely unfazed by the display, distracted by other babies and toddlers in laps and arms and on the floor.  Another little boy with droopy cross eyes and a roly-poly belly latched onto my hand and started pulling me, “COME! COME!” he said in muffled English.  And that was my introduction.  No, “here are the children, here is where we work, here is what you will be doing.”  No, “what is your name? where are you from?”  No one ever asked me anything, the children just pulled me in and sat me down at the party.  Soon another volunteer handed me a baby, “You don’t have any baby in your arms,” she said, “and I need to go do something so hold Sylvester.”  Then she added, as an aside, “oh, and they were out of diapers so he’s not wearing one.  Sorry!”

The party happened to be for a little girl that had just been adopted.  What an introduction to the place.  I could tell instantly which girl it was.  She had braids weaved into her hair and this brand-new, nicely pressed hot pink dress with rhinestones on it.  All of the other children were covered in old food, dirt and snot.  They were wearing mismatched clothes of every size and wear.  Boys were in girls shirts and boys shorts.  Everyone had closely shaved hair.  There were babies with skin problems, poor eyes, babies that looked emaciated, some that were chubby.  Some had signs of parasite infestation, others looked perfectly healthy.  All of them had a distinct odor of urine, feces, puke, old food, and general mustiness of poorly dried clothing, and every one of them smiled back at you when you made eye contact with them.

The party began when the giant drums were brought out.  I’ve seen them in gift shops, but never seen them used.  The drums are just what you’d picture, large enough to reach the seat of a chair when set on the floor, covered in cowhide, and incredibly loud.  A couple of women sat down and drums and began playing.  The beat felt immediately familiar to me, and set little toddlers’ hips into swinging motion.  Then the words began and I felt a chill spread over my body, beginning at the bottom of my spine and tingling to the tips of my fingers.  It was the same song I’d sung over and over again at church camp when I was young.  Everyone know it and began clapping and swaying along, and the older babies tried to sing along.  The scene felt so oddly familiar yet shockingly African all at once.  All of these tattered bruised babies swaying to the same song that I did as a child, clapping and smiling all the while as I always did.

The party was scheduled in honor of one little girl’s adoption, but was also being celebrated for a four-month old infant that looked as if she was a premature baby born yesterday.  She’d just come home from the hospital the day before, and they were rejoicing at her improving condition and increased weight.  Increased!  This girl looked so frail and thin to me that she seemed not even alive, not even human.  Yet she was a girl, a living, breathing, feeling girl that had been abandoned and left to starve in the cold night.  Looking at her then, I could not believe she’d survived, or that she’d been worse when she first arrived.  In three days she was scheduled to return to the hospital for surgery, what for no one mentioned.  I could not help but wonder what a fight a child of this size must have when entering surgery.

You might think an orphanage is a fun place to be, an uplifting experience, but I am not going to lie and say that it was any of these things for me.  It was eye opening.  Uncomfortably, hauntingly, disturbingly eye opening.  Over the next several hours I tried to help, but I felt like I was wondering around looking dumfounded, lost, and silly.  Children were constantly crying.  Crying, fighting, falling, escaping, peeing, pooping.  There were so many babies (49 to be exact) and so few adults that it seemed a child stood no chance of ever really being noticed each day, and it was clear that being noticed was the only thing that any one of them desired in this world.  When one of my nephews wants to hug or cuddle the moment always seems fleeting.  They reach out for brief affection before running off to play and test their own independence.  Not these children.  They crave adult connection, interaction, and affection like nothing I have ever witnessed before.  If a child’s little robot fingers latch on to any part of my body or clothes, there is no prying those little hands open, no separating yourself from the child.  Everywhere I stepped there were little hands reaching up to me, begging to be lifted or hugged.  It was overwhelming, and that seems like such an inadequate way to even describe the feeling.

I’d been sitting at the party with little diaper-less Sylvester in my lap for thirty or so minutes when a sudden warm shock spread over my leg then dribbled down my ankle.  Yep, I got peed on.  I picked him up and held him out in front of me, looking around for any giggles or guidance as to what I should do, but no one seemed the slightest bit shocked or concerned by the moment.  I quickly rose in my pee-soaked skirt and rushed Sylvester into the nearest building, searching for a changing room.  Eventually I managed to find someone who showed me how to use a towel to form a makeshift diaper around him before I rinsed my own leg and returned to the party.  These children sure do know how to initiate someone.

After several hours of playtime it was dinnertime.  Women started grabbing babies and carrying them in by the handful.  I was ordered to grab a baby and move to the back of the orphanage in a dark room with tiny tray-chairs everywhere.  There were benches, individual tray chairs, and one long bench with a tray in front.  Not a single seat was left empty.  Babies were filed in and plopped down in their proper spot as a large mama in the center of the room filled bowls with rice, chicken stew, and avocadoes.  She shoved a bowl of food and a spoon in my hand and pointed to a row of babies, then kept shoveling.  The food was piping hot, and I was afraid to put it in a baby’s mouth, but most of them were all screaming for food at once.  Speaking of screaming, you have never heard the sound of chaos until you have been in a single room with 49 babies waiting to be fed all at once.  It is a deafening, disturbing sound that I cannot even describe here, and I hate when words fail me like that.  The crying was so intense that I could not sleep that night.  Every time I tried to shut my eyes I swore I heard the sound of more babies crying.  I stood there, amidst this deafening sound that was just a part of each day for everyone else there, and tried to shovel food into babies mouths, moving up and down the row as I gave each baby a spoonful.  I watched as rice ran down mouths and into laps, trying to monitor as closely as I could which babies were getting enough to eat.  It seemed an impossible task though.  Soon enough a nurse was grabbing the bowl of food from my hand and shoving a hot bottle of what smelled like a flour-water mixture into each of my hands.  I held bottles to mouths as best I could, trying to minimize choking and liquid running down chins and faces, but they were all just a mess by the time everyone started grabbing babies and heading into the changing room.

Once again, I tried to keep up, grabbing a soaking wet, porridge covered, screaming little baby from its seat.  I carried him into the next room, where there were piles of clothes in the middle of the floor, all sizes and types mixed together.  Two changing tables to the right were being loaded up with rows of three screaming babies to each.  The toddlers were in the attached room, all lined up on plastic training potties, faces still covered in dried rice stew and dark little feet caked in red mud from the day’s play session.  Women were scrambling back and forth, stripping toddlers, wiping down babies, grabbing for random articles of clothing.  A large-hipped, shaved head woman with a commanding presence pointed to me and then to the changing table full of babies.  I tried to gather my thoughts as best as I could, jumped in next to a few others, and started changing diapers as best I could, throwing random clothes onto random babies.  I wiped all of the caked-on grime from their little mouths and chins.  All the while, I was feeling more and more dizzy, almost ill even.  I knew I wasn’t sick.  My mind was just running out of space to deal with all of the noises, and smells, and heart wrenching realities being thrown at me at once.

As I finished with each baby, I tried to find his or her bed.  Nurses would point to one of the three rooms full of cribs and say something like “Briana” or “Norman.”  I wandered around until I thought I’d found the right crib, then placed this tiny, tired mass into it and gentled lowered their cocoon of a mosquito net over the bed.  No good night story, no coddling or cradling or whispers of “I love you,” like so many babies in this world get every night.  Just feed, wipe, change, plop in bed, and they all went to sleep immediately.  They expected no more from an adult than this.

The next day was a similar scenario.  Crying, screaming drama.  I arrived early enough to help with all of the waking routines.  Women were handing me wet, freshly bathed babies and sending me into the next room to rub their African skin with cream then dress them.  This was the first time I realized just how frail some of their little bodies were.  A little girl was shoved into my arms and the weightlessness instantly shocked me.  She felt like nothing, yet the intense focus of her chestnut eyes told me the child was much older than she felt.  As I rubbed the cream down over her smiling face, under her bony chin, and down to her arm, there it was, a strip of gauze wound around a plastic catheter insert.  The catheter barely fit into her wiry arm that was nothing but infant bones and a paper thin layer of dark skin.  The image shocked me.  I paused from my robot-like routine and removed my hands from her, suddenly acutely aware of my own strength and worried I might break her.  Sunken chestnut eyes stared back up at me, begging for more touch and interaction.  It took me nearly 15 minutes to pull a sleeve over her poor fragile arm, and I fought back the lump that rose in my throat.  I did not even want to wonder what this girl’s story is.

That’s just the thing.  You try not to wonder what each child’s story is, but you know there is a powerful one behind each set of eyes.  You know that each of these babies have endured things that most adults are not strong enough to consider.  Yet they forgive the world for this pain.  They accept it.  They know nothing else but to cling to the hope that someone will pay attention to them, show them affection, give them a few basic daily needs.  What else could a baby do or know?

Later that day I was holding a baby that I realized was in desperate need of a change.  This seems the most basic daily need for a baby.  I carried him back to the changing room, only to realize there were no diapers around.  No pampers, and no cloth nappies or towels.  I went into the nearest administrator’s office and asked where the supply was.  She gave me an annoyed glance, then stared back down at her desk and replied, “I gave you the last one an hour ago.”  I wasn’t sure what she wanted me to do then, so I kept pushing, “so should I just wait?  Or should I go somewhere to get more?”  “There are no more,” was all she kept replying, then finally gave me a look that read, you can leave my office now.  I went back to the changing room and stood over this baby in a dirtied diaper, face covered in dried food, eyes seeping tears, and felt completely helpless.  Completely and utterly helpless, that’s what this feeling for the last 24 hours has been, I thought.  I did not know what to do.  I did not know what to do about this baby with no clean diapers.  What to do about this place that needed so much.  What to do with the realization that this was one of thousands of such places, and that thousands more babies existed on the streets in far worse conditions.  What to do?

I honestly have no idea.  I left that day with a heavy heart, feeling completely drained, dismayed, and yet grateful that I’d forced myself to confront this side of my beloved East Africa.  I’ve decided sometimes that’s all we can do.  We can confront an issue.  Confront it, acknowledge the complicated manner, and hope that when the chance arises you will have fostered the compassion needed to do something.  It may sound like a cop-out or a way for me to cope with the troubling issues that I encountered, but the human mind is usually compelled to resolve such conflicts somehow.  This is my temporary resolution.  Head-on confrontation.  I know some of those haunting moments will never leave me, and I am thankful for that.  Haunting moments are what motivate action.

It's good to see you again, Solitude.

I am lucky to have a career that constantly provides me both intellectual and personal transformation.  Each trip to the field leaves me with a greater understanding of my subjects and countless new research questions, but it also leaves me a different person each time.  Or maybe it leaves me the same person, but always reveals something about myself of which I was never aware.  Either way, I never seem to realize anything has changed until the end, and I think that realization came yesterday.

I had one of those quiet, no-plan days that you can only really enjoy when you are traveling on your own.  The last week I spent traveling with one of the interns from the site before seeing him off to the US.  While this was fun, it was the first time I’d really traveled in another country with someone else, and I realized that I find it more challenging than I’d ever expected.  I knew I was fairly independent, but I did not realize until I was surrounded by other people 24/7 all summer just how much I value solitude.  When I tried to tell my mother and my boyfriend about this, they weren’t at all surprised.  I guess it is something that everyone else was aware of but me.  Either way, I’m trying to revel in some solitude now.

Perhaps the problem that I had with this desire in the past was that it conflicted with this idea I got from somewhere that being seen alone certain places was something to be ashamed of.  I never realized how much I felt this way until yesterday.  To say it out loud seems silly, but how many of us feel someone would only go out to eat or to a movie alone because they are forced to, and how often would we feel sorry for them?  I’ve done these sorts of things on my own a lot before, maybe even more than the average person.  I’ve moved places on my own, and I always spend those first few months going places all alone, but after that, I never really do.  And when I was in Nairobi alone, or even Kampala at the start of this summer, I spent evenings locking myself up in my room, sadly waiting for the morning to come and missing my life back home or in the forest. I think a part of me has always been afraid to really enjoy the comfort of this solitude rather than just accept and submit to it.  When the solitude was no longer an option, however, I began to crave it.  So yesterday, perhaps for the first time, I made the decision to really enjoy it.

After running some errands in the morning (doing one thing in Uganda always seems to take at least twice as long as expected) I treated myself to lunch.  After that, a movie.  When my advisor suggested months ago that I try seeing a movie, I was skeptical.  Why go to a movie theater in Uganda when I can spend my money sitting in a digital, sound-enhanced theater back in the US?  I’ve discovered, however, that when one of those moments where I just feel completely overwhelmed by Africa and can’t take another cultural complexity, sitting in a dark theater and watching an American-made film will make me forget everything, including where I am.  So when the café was too crowded, the internet was not working, the boda drivers were harassing me more than usual, children were staring, I threw up my hands and said, “it’s time for a movie.”  I drug my tired dusty feet into the middle of the empty, dark theater and plopped my heavy, tattered pack in the seat beside me.  The silence, the darkness, the absence of anyone staring at me or harassing me, all of it just elicited the biggest sigh of relief that I have felt in weeks.  As the picture started (of course 15 minutes after the scheduled time), I felt my tired traveler-body sink deep into the chair and my mind left Africa for a solid two hours.  I had no other person to focus on, and it felt so great to be so alone with the characters on the screen.

After the movie I decided that I needed more spoiling.  Last week when I was with my friend we went to dinner at a fancy Indian restaurant with another American researcher living in Uganda.  It was the best Indian food I’d ever tasted, and the restaurant was beautiful.  I’d already taken a trip to the US that day, so why not take a trip to upscale India?  I had a few phone numbers of other mzungus in the area that I could call if I felt desperate for human companionship, but I decided I wanted to revel in this food experience all by myself.  I went back to my hotel and put on the new dress I’d just had made for me.  I was saving it for a special occasion, to really impress someone.  I decided tonight that I needed to impress myself more than anyone.  I put it on, added some nice make-up and my new earrings, and was out the door.  Should I take a boda-boda?  No way, I was taking myself out on a date.  I splurged on a taxi to the restaurant (a whopping $5 fee).

I arrived at the restaurant a little after 6:00, only to discover they don’t open until 7:00 (seriously, Uganda?).  This left me with a great opportunity to sip a girly drink and read my book at the bar next door.  An hour later, I was at my restaurant, and I hesitated when the staff had to ask me three times, “someone else will be joining you then?”  I almost felt a twinge of embarrassment wash over me when I said, “no, just me,” but I paused to push this feeling back.  Then I realized that this should be flattering.  These people were having a difficult time believing that this young woman would ever have trouble finding someone to take her to dinner, or that’s what I decided to tell myself.  After all, most of the world refuses to acknowledge that someone might choose solitude over the company of others.  This thought made me smile, and it made me proud of this new, more confident me.

So I sat with my book and ordered a full meal.  I should take this moment to mention that I have spent two months eating nothing but starch and beans, literally.  Indian food is some of the most diverse, flavorful, rich food that there is in the world, and it was just what my tired taste buds were screaming for.  It was the greatest experience of this trip to Kampala.  I did not have to share my naan!  I did not have to rush through my meal, to conceal how much of it I was eating (the whole thing, of course!).  I savored every bite, focusing in on the beautiful food in front of me and the sheer pleasure that eating gives me.  Food is, after all, the only thing I love more than running.  The pleasure that food like this can give one is far too good to be diminished by the distraction of conversation building.  Guilt-free, food-induced solitary pleasure.  Naan-dipping, flavor-bursting, finger-licking food pleasure.  That was my evening.  After I ate I decided to savor the moment and the atmosphere by reading alone at my table for a while.  Why rush out on an evening like this?  When the taxi dropped me off at my door I decided I was not ready to give up on my evening of gluttony.  I slipped into the small market next door and bought a Cadbury chocolate bar.  After rushing to my room and into my pajamas, I sat down to my DVD full of pirated chick-flick movies that I’d bought on the street and reveled in my gluttonous finale to the night: chocolate and bad romantic comedy

White Water Rafting

My first post-research adventure: white water rafting.  I was skeptical, I was hesitant, but in the end I committed to adding this to my list of things-to-do.  I went rafting once before in Pennsylvania.  I knew those rapids would be nothing to those that I encountered in Jinja, and I remembered well the way that fear dropped into the pit of my stomach like a cement block when I saw the white water rushing over, under, and around rocks as the raft moved closer and closer at an unstoppable speed.  Did I really want to pay money to feel that again?  Apparently I did.

Jinja is located just a few hours east of Kampala.  It sits right on the mouth of the Nile, where Lake Victoria empties into the famous African river.  The town is most famous for adventure tourism, especially white water rafting.  It is, in fact, considered one of the required experiences for hard-core rafters or kayakers.  Rapids are graded on a standardized scale of 1-6, 6 being considered impossible.  The Nile is full of grade 6 rapids, and I registered us for the most popular grade 5 rafting tour.  Why did I do this?  Probably peer pressure, no, definitely peer pressure.  The worst part of peer pressure is that it can make you do things, but it cannot erase your fear.

I felt like that rafting day was this dark looming date.  First we departed Semliki for Fort Portal, where we spent one night before moving on to Kampala.  Usually this would mean taking the early morning bus to Kampala, holding chickens and children and fending off vendors and people asking me for my money.  This time I got lucky though.  A friend of a friend working in Queen Elizabeth National Park was driving her car through Fort Portal and on to Kampala that day, and she was nice enough to offer a lift.  It is amazing how much stuff two people can accumulate in a compact SUV after two months of living in the field.  I squeezed in the back between some suitcases and a couple of boxes of pizza for the road.  I felt like a queen with a working seatbelt and no stranger trying to sleep on me.

Once in Kampala we crashed into the same old hotel that I spent my first week in: New City Annex.  The rooms are cramped, the beds, are tiny, and the stuffiness means just breathing makes you break into a sweat.  But there are hot showers, and electricity!  In the morning we were off to Jinja.

The landscape on this side of the country is a completely different scene from western Uganda.  The west is full of mountains and escarpments, the most beautiful rolling hills that you’ve ever seen, and I’m from Appalachia.  The hills in western Uganda look like a geology lesson to me every time I see them.  I suppose for most people that sounds incredibly unromantic, but to me science holds the most romantic beauty in the world.  What I mean by that is that when I see these bursts of earth cutting through the landscape, I can’t help but picture the plates beneath the earth grinding and surging and pushing against one another until these amazing hills just burst into our realm like a hidden feature humans were never supposed to see.  Blankets of green and yellow cover them like they’ve been painted on, and the haze of the thin air at the top makes them look like just that, a painting.

Eastern Uganda is a different story.  This part of the country is characterized by water and valleys.  The land is relatively flat.  Most of the time you are not even aware that the largest fresh water body in Africa, and the second in the world, is not far away.  It is only when you approach Entebbe or Jinja that you are aware of the treasure that the east holds.  As we drove into Jinja I could feel the air dampen.  The mosquitoes emerged, and I knew we were close.  Then we crossed the Nile over a rusty bridge.  There it was, this famous river that I’d met so many animals named for, read about in so many books, seen on so many nature documentaries.  Our shuttle pulled into a small hostel with a garage full of rafts and kayaks out front.  I felt my stomach sink when I saw those rafts.  My palms, I realized, were sweaty and sticking to one another, and that sinking feeling in my stomach churned as I thought about the expedition it was time for us to board.

We had a quick breakfast and some briefing from the head guide, an English South African named Jane, before we were fitted for jackets and loaded into shuttles.  I felt unable to talk, to laugh with the others, or to think about anything else but how nervous I was about this rafting trip.  When we got to the river we were told to strip off our shoes and socks, leave all watches, jewelry, anything we wanted to keep behind in the trucks.  I hopped out of the bus and felt that familiar red clay sink under my toes.  My thoughts about the rafting danger were only temporarily distracted by my thoughts on the ground dwelling parasites of Africa that like to enter human hosts through the thin skin between their toes.  Is knowledge really power, or is it fear?

We sat on the ground for an extensive safety briefing.  The water was laid out before me, so calm, quiet, like glass with these rafts tossed onto the surface.  How could this same river hold deadly rapids?  There was not another sole on the water but us, crazy mzungus looking for a little adrenaline rush to our bloodstreams.  It was a cool, cloudy day, and the color of the haze in the sky seemed to match the haze of apprehension that was clouding my brain right then.  Still, I focused in on every safety instruction given.

I got into a boat with my friend Austin and two couples, one from Denmark and the other from Holland.  My sinking heart seemed to lift a bit when the lead guide, Jane, hopped into our boat with a new guide in the final stages of his training.  I suddenly felt much safer.  We ran through a few practice drills in this placid region of the river: how to get back in the boat, how to sit if you are near rocks, how to hold paddles so you don’t hit someone.  All of this seemed to release a bit of the tension that I was feeling.  I could feel my tensed muscles easing up a bit.

Then we approached the first rapid.  Silence fell over the boat, and nervous laugher turned to focus.  Had everyone else really waited until now to get afraid?  As the boat tipped and waved over the first one, all I could see were walls of water around me, and all that my mind would let me hear was Jane’s voice screaming “Left paddle! All paddle! Left Back!”  When we made it over I felt every muscle in my body give away tension I didn’t even know I’d been holding, and my body collapsed into giddy giggles.  Soon all of us were smiling and laughing as the boat gently eased down the glass-like river once more.

The second rapid was a grade 5.  This is the most difficult rapid that tours will take you on.  We were presented with options from our guide.  Move in one direction and we will probably not flip, or experience anything too intense.  Move in another direction and we have a 50/50 chance of staying in the raft.  Move in yet another, and we will probably all be thrown from the raft.  I was not prepared for this.  Choices?  My eyes darted back and forth searching for signs of motivation in the other riders’ faces.  The decision: we would take the 50/50 chance.  I was feeling brave after the last rapid, so I agreed to it, though reluctantly.

As the sounds overwhelmed me and the water sprayed into my face I suddenly realized we had no control over that raft.  The wall of water that rose in front of me this time did not stop rising.  In fact, it began to fold, closer, and closer, and then a rush of panic filled my veins as I realized that I was under water, and not in the boat.  I could not see, could not feel, and could not breathe.  The water pulled me in a hundred directions at once, spinning and flipping me as I pulled and reached for the surface that no longer seemed to exist.  Then I felt the boat, but I was not on it, I was under it.  I tried to surface, but my head kept bouncing against the raft, and I was gulping water in a desperate attempt to breathe.  This felt like an eternity, but it was probably only ten seconds.  Then I found it, air, sweet air, rushing into my lungs.  My hands were clinging to the boat before I even realized it.  Jane was yelling commands to flip the boat, and someone was pulling me in by my lifejacket.  Then I felt it again, that release of tension.  This time it was compounded by adrenaline and cortisol that still rushed through my blood and all that I could do was laugh.  It was minutes later that half of the Nile seemed to rush out of my nose, the effects of which I’m still feeling in the form of a sinus infection.  Was it worth that adrenaline drug that filled my veins?  I’m not sure, but I did enjoy that feeling right after.

We made it through four more rapids that day.  In between we rowed and chatted and laughed at stories while surrounded by glass-like water and birds of every shape and size.  And I survived.  More than survived, I actually enjoyed myself.  It was back to the hostel that night, then back to Kampala in the morning.

Goodbye, Semliki.

I have not written in a while, and I’m not sure where to begin with my last few weeks.  My time in Uganda has turned from a slow time of adjustment to a slow and drawn-out departure from place after place, and ultimately from yet another important time in my life.  Of course my first, and perhaps most important departure, was from my little tent in the wildlife reserve.

I left Semliki in a whirlwind of events.  This was not at all the way I’d expected to do so.  An undergraduate from IU and I had decided to leave at the same time so that we could travel around Uganda a bit together, saving some money and maintaining a little extra safety with a party of two rather than one.  For the final day in the forest, the entire research staff decided we should go somewhere fun.  I’d been to the waterfall once before, but never to the less accessible overlook above the waterfall that gives famous views of the whole reserve.  The group decided on an ambitious hike to this overlook, then back down to the bottom of the waterfall.  It would take most of the day to get there and back, and would make a perfect opportunity to bid this beautiful reserve a temporary good-bye.

Just like on any other day of chimp-tracking, the alarm on my cell phone rang at 5:45 AM.  I’d already been laying awake on my sunken, tiny bed for nearly thirty minutes, ever since the cook in the tent next to mine had rushed into the kitchen to begin breakfast preparations.  The swift, heavy steps of his gumboots over the gravel path to the kitchen woke me each morning, and the sounds of metal pots clanging and fuzzy African music over a radio were never far behind.  If the staff does not wake me by then, the roars of the nearest group of colobus monkeys almost always do.  When my alarm sounded, I fumbled around my bed for the headlamp hidden under my lumpy pillow and clicked it on.  My eyes reflexively squinted as the light instantly filled my tent, and my hands reached forward to peel away my mosquito net and invite the world in for yet another day.

I am always the first researcher awake in the morning.  I slowly move through my motions of sniffing long-sleeved shirts to find the one that most closely approaches clean, throwing on a pair of muddy pants, fumbling for binoculars and clipboards, and packing away my jar of peanut butter for emergency forest-snacking.  When I enter the kitchen the staff is usually still rolling a large pile of dough for the day’s chapatti supply and warming the kerosene stove under the light of their own headlamps.  I move past them, all of us barely awake and mumbling “hello” and “how is the morning” as I press my coffee and pour hot water over my oats.  As my breakfast cools, I always count my sample-collection supplies for the day.  10 ethanol-filled tubes, check. 10 pieces of parafilm, check.  10 latex gloves, check. 5 silica-filled tubes for wadges, check.  I stuff them all back into my giant plastic bag, put this into my already over-filled pack, and sit down to wait for the rest of the team to stir.  My least favorite thing in this world is talking to other people as soon as I wake up, and waking up first is the only way I’ve managed to steal just a few minutes of time to myself each day in the crowded, secluded research camp.

The researchers usually begin to emerge from their tents within a few minutes.  I hear the zipping and unzipping as everyone moves about, gumboots crushing gravel as everyone moves from tent to bathroom to kitchen with their packs half-ready.  The guys grab chapattis and tea, and we wait in line to fill our bottles at the tank of boiled water as the sun begins to bleed shades of pink and orange over the escarpment.

On this day we all moved together.  The cooks packed us extra chapattis with an added surprise that we only discovered once in the forest: egg-omelets rolled inside, one of my favorite Ugandan specialties.  Just as the sun itself was over the escarpment, we began the downhill trudge to the darkened forest entrance, our heavy boots pulling us forward as we stomped down the steep, muddy slope.  This being the last day for two of us, spirits were high and everyone was chattering as we descended and began the long hike to our destination.

Most of the hike was as usual.  Then we began the ascent.  I usually pride myself on being in good hiking shape, but I felt myself begin to huff and puff.  We stopped for a break after 2-3 hours of hiking, everyone covered in sweat and spider webs.  I think all of us spent that ten minute break staring at the steep, vertical slope before us, knowing this was the next, much more difficult step in the day’s hike.  And we began climbing.  When I say climbing, I mean climbing, not hiking up hill.  Hands gripping roots and rocks, fingernails clumped with dirt, gumboots sliding out from under you, climbing.  One by one, with me at the back, we climbed.  Everyone ahead of me was shouting things like, “watch for the rock!” as boulders tumbled past each of us that narrowly slid out of the way.  This climb seemed to last hours, but it was probably only 20-30 minutes of pulling, and scraping, and sliding until I grabbed the final rock and pulled my tired arms over the top.

Still brushing my now black palms against my pants I slowly turned then gasped at the sight before me.  This is my Ugandan home, I thought in astonishment.  Hills, and trees, and savanna, and every African landscape that you can imagine stretched before me in one indescribable picture.  Green, brown, blue, yellow, and every shade in between.  All of us sat on a rock and enjoyed our chapatti surprise with some added dirt from our hands.

The descent, believe it or not, was more painful than the ascent.  I knew to expect this from running.  Running downhill always does far more damage on my body.  This time, it was scary.  Each of us went, once again, one by one, down this huge hill.  We each improvised our own technique for safely reaching the bottom without breaking a bone or running into a tree.  Mine: the ass-slide.  Sorry, delicate readers, but there is no other way to describe it.  I sat down on my butt and slid to the bottom.  After that, we made, believe it or not, another climb.  This time to the foot of the famous waterfall.  As we climbed rock after rock I realized my arms and legs were like jello.  My hands were blistered and even bleeding, and sweaty hair was splayed out in all directions and caked with dirt.  The waterfall is always a sight worth the hike.  No, it is a feeling worth the hike.  The cool mist of the water on your sweaty face, the sound of the sheer force of such a natural geologic formation, the completely new landscape and life that surrounds the oasis of water.  It all can only be described as a feeling, because it employs all of your senses for the experience.

I forgot to mention the best part of this day.  I still managed to pick up two samples along the way.  My last two poop samples for the summer: DNA samples number 101 and 102.  When I started the project my goal was twenty.  That’s right, I wanted to collected at least twenty DNA samples to prove that my dissertation idea would be feasible.  I collected those in the first two weeks, and went on to collect 82 more, and then it was time to say goodbye.

The plan was for Austin and I to stay for dinner that night, then leave for Fort Portal in the morning via taxi.  When I got back to camp, however, my phone was full of messages from Nadia.  Nadia and her boyfriend Keith are the managers of the nearby safari lodge, the only other inhabitants of the Toro-Semliki Wildlife Reserve, and the saviors of my sanity.  It is hard to believe I’ve only known Nadia for two months. 

When I arrived at camp I never thought the absence of female companionship would bother me so much, but it did.  Within two weeks, however, Keith and Nadia showed up with cold beer, plenty of amazing stories, and just as many laughs as we all so desperately needed.  Nadia quickly became one of my closest female friends.  I’ll never forget the first time this punk-dressed, tough-talking South African girl took me to her house, shut the door to her room, and called out to her rescued squirrels in soft, sweet Africaans, snuggling and coddling them like a mother to children.  That is how she treats all of the animals in the park that she rescues and provides either temporary or permanent shelter for, like her very own children.  I found a rare match and confidant in Nadia, and I’d been dreading our goodbye.  Her boyfriend was just as entertaining.  I call him the new crocodile hunter, because that is literally what he is.  He loves animals just as much as Nadia, but in a different way.  He’s spent his whole life catching and chasing and following African wildlife, no matter how dangerous they may be.  Keith has hundreds of unbelievable stories and scars to match them.  The pair would make for great reality television, and have made for equally great friends to all of us.

The safari lodge that her and Keith manage rents rooms for $500 per night, yes that’s right, there are people that pay $500 a night for accommodation in Africa.  Nadia was leaving me messages because two guests had just cancelled.  She had meals and two rooms prepared, but no one to stay in them, so she was inviting Austin and I to spend our last night there.  While I felt bad leaving everyone at camp early, I was excited to have one last, great evening with my friends at the lodge, so Austin and I shoved all of our belongings in our bags in a hurry.  Still dirty, sweaty, and dressed in field clothes, we made our way to the lodge.  Once there, we had hot showers, amazing food, and unforgettable friends waiting for us.  In the morning we ate a quiet but wonderful breakfast, as we all knew we were secretly dreading our goodbyes.

But the time did come.  It always does.  They drove us to the forest edge in their giant game-driving open land rover where the taxi waited to take us to Fort Portal.  David, the driver, began loading all of our bags, strategically arranging all of our belongings in this tiny car the way that only a native Ugandan can do.  Meanwhile, we all stood in somber, heads down stances, wondering who would say goodbye first.  We pointed out some tracks on the ground, turning to familiar conversation topics like the species of cat most likely to range here, or the number of elephants that must have traveled together over there.  Finally, when the bags were loaded, David looked at me like, what on earth are you waiting for? And we all hugged, holding back our tears.  I was saying goodbye to my friends and my reserve all at once.  Looking around at the hills and the savanna made me just as sad as seeing the tears that my new close friend was holding back.  Finally I shoved myself into the car, and we sped away from Toro-Semliki.

Survey: What should I do before I leave?

You all know that I came here this summer to conduct my dissertation feasibility study.  I am hoping to collect enough genetic samples to complete a dissertation about chimpanzee reproductive strategies, ranging patterns, and dispersal behavior without the complete habituation that extensive behavioral observation would require.  To get the funding to do this, I first needed to prove to major organizations like the NSF that my methods would, indeed, be feasible.  So I hoped to come here, collect a few samples, and prove that I returning would gain valuable information on these chimps.

From the start, the poop collection went much better than expected.  I am currently up to 91 genetic samples in less than two months of work.  I have decided that this means I deserve a little reward in the form of extra travel around Uganda before I leave.  So, I’m going to give myself about a week to travel between Kampala, Jinja, and Entebbe before I fly out of Entebbe and back to the US.  I’d like to get your advice on what types of activities I should do.

I am going to list potential places to visit/things to do in Kampala, Entebbe, and Jinja.  I want you to comment with the two from each list that sound like the best idea.  I’ll take the top votes, visit those places, and post lots of pictures of the trip!

1.     Kampala:

a.     Kampala is the capitol city of Uganda.  I spent about a week there trying to take care of official business when I first arrived.  This time I’d like to spend more time trying out one of the many cool spots in the city.  I’m thinking I’ll get at least three days in Kampala.

                                               i.     Mengo Palace

1.     This palace houses the ruins of an underground prison which was built by the famous dictator Idi Amin.

                                              ii.     Buganda Parliament

1.     Buganda is the predominant tribe of Kampala, and still has its own independent parliament, including a king.

                                            iii.     Uganda National Museum

1.     I’ve heard it can be a bit run-down and depressing, but there are a lot of pretty cool exhibits with artifacts, local art, and interesting background.

                                            iv.     Religious Centers (I thought maybe I could visit one or two of the major religious centers in the city)

1.     National Mosque

2.     Namirembe and Rubaga Cathedrals

3.     Kampala Hindu Temple

                                              v.     Tulifanya Gallery

1.     My guidebook says this is the nicest  art gallery in the city, with a lot of good local art.  Also, there’s a café on a terrace that serves nice sandwiches and coffee.  I thought it might be a good spot to have lunch one day.

                                            vi.     Sanyu Babies Home

1.     This is an orphanage that mainly houses children whose families have been affected by AIDS.  They have a small craft shop and a nice hostel to stay in, of which the proceeds help the children.  They also welcome visitors to spend time serving meals or playing with the children.

                                           vii.     Ndere Center

1.     Every weekend the Ndere Troupe has a traditional drum and dance performance at this local club.

                                         viii.     Grand Imperial Hotel

1.     There is a weekly traditional dance performance here by the Crane Performers and a fancy dinner buffet with things like lobster and local tilapia for about $30

                                            ix.     National Theater

1.     This is a very old building that still hosts interesting events and performances.  There is a weekly performance by Percussion Discussion Africa that looks like it might be cool.

2.     Entebbe:

a.     Entebbe is just 30 or so miles outside of Kampala.  It sits right on Lake Victoria, and is where the only international airport in Uganda is.  When I flew in here before, I hopped a cab straight to Kampala.  With rush-hour traffic it can take as many as several hours to get to the heart of Kampala from here.  I have a Tuesday evening flight, so I’m think of spending the one-two nights before just staying in Entebbe.

                                               i.     Uganda Wildlife Education Center

1.     This functions as the only major zoo in the country, but is actually an animal rescue center.  They have an excellent reputation for rescuing local animals from poachers and international trade, and it is apparently a very large, well-kept place.  They have a hostel on site where you can stay for just $10 per night, and it’s apparently pretty nice by Ugandan hostel standards.  I’m thinking of staying here while I’m in Entebbe, and spending one or two days at the zoo.

                                              ii.     Entebbe Botanical Gardens

1.     My guidebook says it’s not to-die-for, but a pleasant spot next to the Wildlife Center

                                            iii.     Beaches on Lake Victoria

1.     There are a lot of beaches to lounge on around Lake Victoria.  Apparently they get packed with tourists on the weekends, but sit fairly empty on weekdays.  It might be a good spot to spend my morning before the flight, or a lazy afternoon.

                                            iv.     Katereke Prison

1.     A historical site from past revolutions in Uganda.  Apparently the site itself is not too incredible, but the tour given is very interesting.

3.     Jinja:

a.     Jinja is a town that sits at the start of the Nile just an hour or so outside Kampala.  It is a very popular adventure-tourist destination.  I might spend one or two days seeing the Nile here.

                                               i.     Four-hour mountain bike tour through villages along the Nile River

1.     For about $45 I can take a guided mountain bike tour through local villages.  Lunch is provided.

                                              ii.     Horseback Safari along Nile River

1.     About the same price as mountain biking, maybe a nice alternative for seeing the area.

                                            iii.     Sunset canoe cruise on the Nile

1.     They provide dinner and a relaxing canoe ride near the source of the Nile.

                                            iv.     Boat ride to source of the Nile Gardens

1.     Apparently the Source of the Nile Gardens are not as frequently visited, but is a very pleasant spot to get lunch and take some photos.  You have to take a boat from the main port to this spot, which sounds like a nice experience too.  Some of the boat rides even offer fishing and you are likely to see hippos along the way.

                                              v.     White Water Rafting

1.     I’m not much of a fan of White Water Rafting, so I’m not really sure this is something I’ll want to do.  It’s an option to keep in mind though.

                                            vi.     Community Walks

1.     To raise money for local schools and orphanages, you can pay $5 to tour these places, meet local people, and eat some local cuisine.