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.
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