The other night after sitting around enjoying a few drinks with Ade, the Soft Power Education group and our South African friend, Johann we decided it was getting late and it was time to head out. Some of the others stayed on at Traveler’s Corner for a few more, but Ade, Johann and I headed back to the hotel. There was a man on the corner selling meat on a stick. He told us that a stick of goat meat was 500/= and that the chicken on a stick was 1500/=. Johann was very convinced that the goat should be 200-300/= and the chicken should be 500/=. So here we were arguing with the meat stand man about what it should cost. Well, not arguing in an angry way, it was much more of an animated discussion where all the locals kept laughing at us. Ade was arguing in Swahili, Johann in Afrikaans, and me in Runyoro. I kept asking “Habwaki okunseera?” (Why are you overcharging me?)… Unfortunately I don’t know enough of the language to make much of the rational given. When it boiled down to it we are pretty sure it was mazungu tax and nothing more. So we left without chicken and that only left me craving chicken on a stick for the next five days.
Change Of Address!! July 26, 2008
Hey everyone,
Please note the Change of address
its not 225, not 445.
so now i have my own post box incase you send any letters or anything. my organisation is a bit disorganized, so this is a bit safer in the light of things NOT getting lost.
THANKS
Fight!! Fight!!! June 11, 2008
The two male baboons that live around my house got in a fight over something this morning. It sounded like a dog fight almost. Remember in highschool when there would be a fight and there was always the town crier who would let everyone know, “FIGHT!! FIGHT!!” One of the baboon was on the other ones tail chasing him all around the place, barking and making all kinds of noise. One of the warthog sows with the three piglets perks her head up to watch and so do two of the piglets, the third one comes running around from somewhere else to watch. Seriously, they all stopped eating to watch the baboons fight! It was hilarious to watch.
Questions/Comments/Concerns June 11, 2008
I know I don’t always think that I have something to write about, but that’s mostly as I am getting used to the way things are here. So I thought I would just ask if anyone has any questions about life, work, animals, et cetera here in the park or in Uganda in general. Leave a comment on this entry and I will create a new entry with the answers. Thanks!
Explanation June 11, 2008
Sorry for just throwing photos at you all last week. Let me offer some explanation. First of all, they aren’t all in order. The photos where we look like we are cold and in Europe… is Belgium on our 3 day layover. The rest are in Uganda, from various locations. I don’t have the photos in front of me at the moment, but I will do my best, just try to follow the path my brain is on because this is just going to be a ramble about the photos, you will have to match the info to the image on your own….
Most of them are from training. We spent the first few days we were in between Entebe and Kampala. That’s where I was cutting the Asian looking girl (Shari’s) hair. The long building that looks like a big picnic shelter, and really isn’t a hell of a lot more than that (there is a big tree on the right), that is were we received a lot of our talks during training. I think that photo was from our first big rain when the wet began. It is also the same day that we say the rainbow around the sun. Typically you get a ring around the moon before you get snow because of ice crystals in the upper atmosphere. Well, we got a ring around the sun and a huge rain storm with hail the size of small marbles.
Photos were it looks like we are at a bar with plastic furniture and a pool table (not sure if you can see it in the photos), is Classic View, a bar in Luweero where we would often go after a day of training for a beer or two. There were two other bars we’d go to as well, but their names escape me at the moment.
Where I am dressed up like pure Texas, was on homestay thankyou day. We did the electric slide for a couple hundred Ugandans in Luweero. Each family was allowed to bring up to four people and most did, and there were 56 of us, 52 families (x4…at least), plus trainers, and other official PC people around, so it was a big crowd. Several Ugandans thought I looked very smart (well dressed) that day. I have no idea what gave them that idea. I was under the impression I was meant to be in a skirt. In the pic with the big guy with the shaved head and the tall black girl—that’s Brock, who used to play pro ball some time back, and LaVera….they are the Real Texas.
The pictures with the zebra and impala are from Lake Mboro National Park. We don’t have either of those animals here. Most of the other wild beasties are from here at Murchison. (The bat I am holding was from training and was dead. However, I have had to catch two smaller bats since I have been at site. But please don’t worry; I know how to hold them so I don’t get bitten.) Almost all the bugs are ones that flew into the screened-in back porch at my house. Typically I have plenty of time to harass these creatures.
If it looks like a river, it’s the Nile. It cuts the park in half and gives me thrills when I cross on our shotty ferry. Who knows, one day instead of going across I may end up in Lake Albert! It’s happened before that the engine has failed and the ferry has drifted down river, although, not as far as the lake. At least I can swim if I have to! Lots of people here don’t know how to swim. I just worry about the hippos, buffalo, and crocks! (And the microbes that will make you sick!)
There is a pic of some meat and potatoes… that is goat. It was the first meal that I got to cook meat for myself in about two month’s time. The meat here is pretty tough and am giving strong consideration to giving up red meat for a while and sticking to fish… at least until I can get a meat grinder. At this stage it’s not a priority.
A picture is worth 1000 words June 4, 2008
nothing of any substantiality to report, but at long last! PHOTOS!
THANKS AGAIN MOM!
Mporampora (Slowly by Slowly) May 27, 2008
Firstly, apologies for the lack of communication over the last few weeks; life has been slow and programs sparse. At the end of April I was asking what the programs were for next week. The response commonly was along these lines, “Oh! That is May! We haven’t programmed for May.” I am sorry, but May comes every year, and as weeks progress, all it really is, is next week! So I entertained myself with books and bugs, as usual which keeps me plenty entertained, but doesn’t make much to roger home about.
However, a short trip to Kampala to speak with our country director as well as visiting friends and hearing about their projects seemed to fully restore my motivation and mental health.
Murchison is a massive park which really is dramatically underdeveloped—four small game tracks, a ferry and boat cruise service that frequently breakdown, two up-market lodges, one mid-range, and one budget. But what of bush camping, more game tracks, INTREPRETATION?? A lot of the things that we take for granted in the parks at home are lacking here.
I had only been back at site for a few days when I met up with a guy called Ade who works for Soft Power, a British organization affiliated with Leeds University that does infrastructure/aid work associated with schools and teaching facilities. Soft Power is going to work to refurbish our hollow shell of a dilapidated museum/resource centre. (Sound like a lot of work?? It will be!) It will be my pet project over the next year to curate the museum and assist Ade with its development. Luckily there is a wealth of information available.
The Nile divides two major ethnic groups in western Uganda—the Bantu to the south and the Nilotics to the north. The culture and history of these people is very rich and varied. So is the wildlife and habitat types in the park, histories of traditional land use and problems with poaching. Hemmingway vacationed here and his plane crashed….twice! There was even a film shot here (I think it is called Queen of the Nile, with Audrey Hepburn). There is a seemingly endless amount of information that can be shared, but is typically bypassed. Someone (either UWA or the Ministry of Education) spends a great deal of money on an annual basis to bring in truckfulls of children to visit the park. Yet aside from observing the animals I am not sure how much they actually learn while they are here. Developing the museum will be huge both as an educational tool for students as well as providing interpretation to visitors. We are also considering building informational display boards at the ferry landing on both the north and south bank. I am strongly considering contacting Kodak or FujiFilm for project assistance, such as high quality enlargements of photographs from the park. Currently photos being displayed are computer printouts that are showcased in one or two shoddy boards in the park. (If anyone has any contacts, please let me know!)
Other projects will include the possibility of establishing more game tracks and bush camping sites. I plan to have workshops on bush camping and backcountry skills, as well as general customer service.
Along with the establishment of the museum, a gift shop will also serve as a venue for marketing IGAs (income generating activities) from surrounding communities, such as screen-printing t-shirts, fruit drying, bead making, and handcrafts. I feel very strongly that along with helping the park to grow and develop, it is also important to help the surrounding communities with capacity building. If they see tourism in the park as a practical way to generate income they will be less likely to abuse park lands and animals (e.g. illegal cattle grazing and poaching). You can’t tell people that they must stop traditional methods of obtaining food and money without giving them a viable alternative. If these people are very poor and have no alternatives they are likely to risk arrest in order to feed their families.
Along with these opportunities will come the need to teach bookkeeping and accountability. So it seems that I have a huge project that is opening the window to a lot of other smaller projects. To say the least, once the ball gets rolling I will be keeping quite busy.
***************************************************
If you would like to help with the museum/resource centre:
Please send any resource books you have for any age! Simple children’s books (like The Mixed Up Chameleon) to high school and 101 level biology, ecology, geology, ect, especially if you can find resources for East Africa. Also, books to facilitate learning about the outdoors would be useful. You should be able to write off these books as charitable donations on your next tax return. Thanks for any help you can provide!!! My post address is provided in the top right corner of this page.
****************************************************
Bush Medicine or the Witch Doctor?? May 27, 2008
The other day when I was sitting with Zamzam, (the local council leader), waiting for the women to mobilize and I noticed a couple of the children were picking up there heads and looking around. I couldn’t spot what it was they were looking at until one of them picked up a stone and threw at some small green creature. A CHAMELEON! Being an avid wildlifer and generally very fond of reptiles, I ran over and picked it up. To say the least this COMPLETELY freaked everyone out!
The poor little bugger had apparently had a run in with some other bratty kids in the last day or two because one of his forearms was completely mangled. The hand was swollen, the skin was filled with dirt and some dirty fly and already found the wound and laid a slew of eggs. Since the meeting was already an hour and a half delayed with no sign of starting soon, and expecting that my mother would be calling sometime in the next 20 minutes, I excused myself.
On the walk back to my house I continued to freak people out with the green monster in my hand. Muzungu malalu (crazy mazungu). Luckily for me I am used to freaking people out and generally find it hysterical.
So when I got back to my house I made a decision. Surgery. And since I didn’t have a razor blade and couldn’t be fussed about explaining WHY I would need it I went to my medical kit and removed some gloves, anti-bacterial wash, scissors, antibiotic ointment, a needle and floss. Granted this is always something I’ve said I COULD do, cutting up a live animal is something I hadn’t done yet. I am very used to labs, slicing open any variety of dead animals to identify and remove various organs, tissues, and so forth. But this was a first for me. So I cleaned the scissors in hot water and the wash and made the first cut where the arm was the most mangled. No reaction, easy enough. Now I had to make the real cut—just above the elbow joint in the upper arm. I got all the way through the flesh and when the scissors hit the bone the chameleon made a loud hiss and a good effort to bite me. Can’t say I blame the kid, but I apologized, told her to bite the bullet and completed the cut. I kept pressure on the cut long enough to stop the bleeding then stitched it up with a sewing needle and floss. Bush medicine.
So now word is spreading that the crazy white girl has a three-legged chameleon. (Her name is Grace by the way, because she is a Slender / Graceful Chameleon, and as far as I can tell, she is really a she and not a he. This is probably a win-win-win situation for me. I wanted a pet, but cannot have domestic animals in the park, and I have bad allergies to furry animals. Graceful Chameleons like to eat beetles, arachnids (spiders), and arthropods (centipedes, millipedes), so I have bug control. And probably the best reason for having a chameleon, security! People fear dogs, but you can win them over with meat.
There is a lot of folklore in East Africa about chameleons being evil creatures and bad omens. Chameleons and their body parts are common in witchcraft. They also believe that they have a venomous bite, which is also inaccurate. One example given was that if a chameleon crosses your path from right to left that you should turn back immediately. If you continue, someone that you meet on the remainder of your journey will soon die.
So as a generalization, people here REALLY don’t like chameleons, I am crazy, and I am housing an evil being at my residence.
Not much to say May 14, 2008
This has been an unusually slow week. I took a wee bit of time to come to Kampala to try to kill a couple of birds with one stone.
I have a lot of project ideas rolling around in my head like loose marbles- museum curration, creating intrepretive infomation boards in the park, developing bush camping sites, creating IGA (income generating activities) for the communities around the park. Its just that thinkgs take time. I have found a ranger to work with who is motivated and has a lot of good ideas himself. The ideas area all there, really, there are enough ideas to keep me fully occupied for at least two years, its just a matter of settling a lot of logistics to get things moving.
If anyone wants to check out the park, this is the official site:
http://www.uwa.or.ug/index.html
I sent my mom a disk of photos since the internet here is terminally slow. She can upload them and i will link the site to my facebook account as well as this blog site.
I appologise for not having much to say. i will clear the dust off the old brain cells for next week!
Amusing quips and antidotes May 5, 2008
1) On my Sunday trip to the Masindi market one of the women I bought some vegetables from called me back after an unsuccessful attempt at buying red beans. The conversation went something like this:
Woman: there is a man I know, he thinks you are, uh, handsome!
Me: AH! Neebo*, you mean pretty! Handsome is the word for the man!
Woman: Yes! Ah, pretty! He wants to know if you will ever marry!
Me (with a huge, stupid smile on my face): Oh Neebo! I will probably never marry! I am too much for one man! Do you know what it means to be a handful??
Woman (makes a face of confusion)
Me (quick to think): Ah, let me explain. (I pick up one tomato). This tomato is easy to carry because it is only one. (I put it down). But if you tried to carry all of these tomatoes at once, that is not easy. You would have your hands very full. That is like me!
Woman (cracks up): OH!! You are difficult!!!!
Me: You have NO idea! Tell Sebo that he is confused. Tell him I am very difficult and he doesn’t want me!
Woman: (Yells to the man… probably somewhere in his 40s, what that I am difficult, it is all in Runyooro/Rutyooro (the local language).
Man: (laughs at me….that is a common response to most things I do here)
Me: Sebo! I am difficult! Trust me, you don’t want me!!!
(to the woman) Okale kurungi! (Stay well) See you next week!
*Neebo is basically the equivalent for m’am. It is a polite/formal greeting for a woman.
**You all have Chris Ayers to thank for me sharing this one. I mean I always think I am funny, but I am typically also full of crap too. So with Mr. Ayers’ laugh, which I took as his seal of approval, I bring the rest of you the story.
—–
2) Talking to my mother on the phone (again, approximately what was said):
Me: yeah, I think I got a bit burned on my face when I was out this week.
Mother dearest: GOD! Be careful! You know you live at the equator? The sun is hot there!
Me: I have an agreement with the sun.*
Mother dearest: Wear sunscreen.
Me: I decided a while ago, I am not going to wear sunscreen here.
Mother dearest: You know, you live in Africa, but you aren’t black.**
Me: Well damn, I am going to keep trying!
*I have an agreement with a growing list of things here– the sun, the warthogs, the bugs, I just don’t know how well they understand their contracts.
**Funny to me, who gets called Mexican/Hispanic (depending on how pc the person is) at a regular basis at home, in addition to getting called mullato, half Chinese or Indian, or whatever else non-white nationality someone happens to think I am. Now here I am and my mom is exclaiming that I’m not black! You know every time I take my clothes off, I get concerned! I have these freak arms and head that just don’t match the rest of my body, by a wide degree of shades. I’m VERY two toned here. (Sha-ka-kon, what did I tell you?? I knew this would happen!) However, the Ugandans appreciate my effort to become black. They show this by smiling and What? LAUGHING AT ME!
