I know it been a really long time, again, since I've updated. Things have been kind of crazy lately and I haven't had time to sit down at an internet cafe and write things out. But, I'm spending my last few hours in Uganda (before we head to the airport) at the hostel relaxing, packing, and getting things together in my mind and my journal. So, as I'm working on that I'll send out one last, long update from Uganda and then patch up what was missed back in the states. So, here we go....
The first thing worth mentioning is that we finished the fence! Our OCA group, the fifth OCA group sent to Mbale to work with FDNC, was teh first to complete thier project - what a great feeling and what a great project to have completed. What none of us really realized at the time was that this fence means so much to the community, particularly to Mai Jessica. The fence is the first step in getting government recognition of the special needs school and government help in keeping the school running. The school is currently running on a deficit budget and needs help from teh government to get up to "code" and fain as much support as necessary to help the children in teh community. By completing the fence we have helped the school make the first step towards government recognition and support.
We had a great, successful safari in Murchison Falls. Ka Tunza was an awesome organization to go with and I'm really happy we went. We spent the first day driving up to Murchison through Kampala after being picked up in Jinja. We made it up to Masindi that night, the major city just outside the park. On the way up to Masindi we stopped at the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary, a project started to try to reintroduce white rhinos into Uganda after the Ugandan population was poached to extinction during Idi Amin's reign in 1983. We were able to walk within about twenty feet of a mother rhino and her baby with the assistance of three armed (AK-47s) rangers who are with the rhinos 24-hours a day to ensure they are not poached. I took lots of pictures of Kori and Joshua, which I'll happily share when I return home (today :( ). We camped at Masindi the first night at a hotel and headed into Murch early the next morning (early as in 6:30). We drove to (and through) Murchison in a 22-seater truck with a balcony that we could climb on as well as sit on top fo the truck for optimal viewing during game drives.
The second day we drove through a forest just outside the park where we saw baboons (which we later learned to hate) and had a forest walk – pretty boring as there were no animals, only plants to look at for two hours. We drove through the beginning of the park and ferried across in the Nile in a boat that didn’t seem like it would hold anything. We picked up a ranger, Denis, on the other side and he stayed with us until we left the park the next morning – he too was armed with an AK-47. After crossing the Nile we went on a game drive to our camping grounds for the night. Along the game drive we saw some remnants of the LRA occupation of the North – as the UPDF still occupied an airstrip near Lake Albert along the Congolese border with Uganda. We also saw lots of oribi, hartebeest, warthogs, giraffes (about twenty feet from our camp), hippos, and elephants. We camped in the middle of the bush that night along the Nile delta – the border between Uganda and Congo (the Congolese mountains served as the backdrop to our camp).
About nine that night we got a class from the only other campers in the park that their camp – about fifty yards from us – was being disturbed by lions. So, we all got in the truck and took off in search of the lions. Along the way we saw two hippos out of the water and waddling around looking for food, scivet (raccoon-like creatures), field mice, and about fifty feet from the other camp – three leopards (something unprecedented in the park. Leopards are usually hidden in trees and alone not three walking around curiously inspecting camps). We retired to our camp site after seeing the leopards and after much talking, retired to our tents.
About four hours after retiring we were awoken by what our ranger called a monsoon. We had three inches of rain fall on us that night complete with lightning and thunder – and for me, a river about an inch deep underneath my tent causing my tent to fill with small puddles of water.
I was able to talk with the ranger about the upcoming Sudanese elections and he said he thought that the South would most likely vote to succeed but that he wasn’t sure the North would let him. Interesting perspective from a neighboring country that matches pretty well with sentiment in the States.
The third day we had an early morning game drive where we were able to see a lioness and her two cubs feeding off a newly killed oribi. We also saw patas monkeys (lots of them), giraffes, water buffalos, elephants, and two more leopards. After the morning game drive we packed up camp and headed back to the Nile crossing – along the way we passed through some oil inspections as there is suspected to be a heavy and deep oil reserve just under the national park. If it proves feasible the Ugandan government is getting ready to start drilling and drawing out the oil to sell on the international market – a move that has me worried for environmental and economic reasons and has many in the tourist industry both nervous and excited at the possibility (destruction of the forest accounts for the nerves but a spike in foreigners initially causes excitement). When we reached the Nile we took a launch cruise up the Nile about 30 kilometers to the base of Murichson Falls, a spot where the Nile crunches into a waterfall only nine meters wide and crashes through – a great site. We got off the boat at the base of the falls and hiked tot eh top, where we camped for the night. The fourth day we spent riding back to Jinja – a trip that took about six to eight hours from Murchison Falls.
When we got back to Mbale we learned that the little boy who lives on the compound had caught malaria – again. After recovering from bronchitis he ended up with malaria – luckily he was able to medication relatively quickly after contracting the illness. A few days after returning we said our goodbyes to the compound and the people we had all come to love – a very tearful goodbye – and headed back to Jinja.
We went white water rafting down the Nile this past Sunday – an experience I enjoyed for the most part. We went down twelve rapids – four grade five, the rest grade three or four. I was finished after the eighth rapid, so the end of the rafting wasn’t as enjoyable as the beginning. That being said, it was a cool experience and the Nile is awesome river (very warm). We, of course, managed to flip out boat six or seven time along the ride and I probably inhaled tons of water. When I washed my hair afterwards, the shampoo rinsed out brown with all the dirt/mud in the Nile. Not cool.
We spent yesterday wandering our Kampala and looking through the craft markets. It was really cool to see, but the prices were definitely much greater here (for Uganda) than in cities farther away from the capital, which surprised me a bit. We found a bookstore in one of the malls and I was really impressed with the number of books on African politics. I find it extremely interesting that books about African relations, development, and needs are more plentiful in Africa than outside. This surprises me because the audience the books are written for doesn’t’ seem, to me at least, to be an internal audience but rather an external audience (particularly where aid books are concerned). I managed to spend about an hour in the book store taking in everything they had (and the fact that most of the books were half the price they are in the states). I settled on a book by a journalist who set out to find Joseph Kony while he was still in Uganda.
To kill time before a “jam session” we wanted to attend last night we saw a movie called The Silent Army about child soldiers. It was definitely a gut-wrenching movie but proved to be true in every aspect. I highly encourage everyone to see it if/when it becomes available in the states – it was about the war that was pre-Alice Lakwena (the reason Joseph Kony rose to power in the North). It’s a hard movie to watch, but worth it. It’s one thing to read about child soldiers and get statistics but it’s quite another to actually see it in front of you on the big screen.
I’m going to sign off for now, there’s someone else waiting behind me and I have a journal to update before the plane. I’ll be back in about twenty-four hours (eight and a half hours to Amsterdam, ten hour lay-over, and eight and a half hours to New York). See you soon!
