Impenetrable forests, crater lakes, and surviving the rainy season.. with new photos

So I've just come back from the Ruhija side of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest yesterday. This is a huge national park outside of the western Ugandan town of Kabale. The journey was a fairly treacherous one - we rode for close to 100 kilometers on a very bad marram (dirt) road winding around the mountains that surround and include Bwindi. There are no guardrails and our taxi driver left a lot to be desired in his driving. However, we luckily were able to avoid plunging the hundreds of feet into the valley below and got to the forest (relatively) unscathed. We also were able to pick up a little Ruchiga, the local language of the tribe most common in Kabale.

Once arriving at the park, we were taken on a nature walk. This took us through several of the different botanical zones of the forest - bamboo, fern, etc. - and then on another path to track several different types of monkeys. While on the first path (a very narrow, twisting, difficult hike), we learned that a herd of elephants had come across the nearby Congolese border into the forest. We were able to see their tracks in one section of the trail which were enormous. They are among the only savannah elephants in the world to take up residence in a forest - usually the elephants found in forests are forest elephants, more adapted to that sort of living and smaller. While tracking monkeys, we were able to see a group of about 30-50 black and white colobus monkeys. They were relatively unafraid of us and we were able to get quite close. Bwindi is also home to half the world's mountain gorilla population with more than 300 - the only other large group in the same forest but on the Rwandan side of the border. Tracking mountain gorillas is $500, however, and that was quite a lot to our small posse of mzungus.

We survived the return trip as well, possibly more shaken up than we were on the trip into the forest, and headed to Lake Bunyonyi. Lake Bunyonyi is the the deepest lake in Uganda and the second deepest in Africa, after Lake Tanganyika. It was absolutely beautiful and we made some new European friends.

The rainy season is getting increasingly bad. It rained for three days straight until yesterday without taking a break at all. It has been raining for at least 2 hours every day for the past several weeks. November is one of the wettest months of the year; many districts are expected to flood. These floods are a huge problem; Uganda has already had several districts in the North and Northeast, most notably Teso district, affected by floods this year to a great deal of American media attention. These floods destroy livelihoods, years' worth of work in agriculture and livestock, schools, sanitation systems, water sources, and inevitably cause huge outbreaks of malaria (due to the increased mosquito population), cholera, and other water-related diseases. The government is particularly concerned due to Queen Elizabeth II's upcoming visit for the Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) meeting.

I'm posting some pictures both from things I've done earlier and a few from this past weekend. The weekend coming up should yield some more excellent pictures, hopefully, so be on the lookout for those.

Me crossing the border into Kenya. The border is completely unprotected. The woman in the photo is one of the wives of my rural homestay father. Her name is Helen. She was great, despite her constant complaints of her "mzungus not knowing how to eat."

The Hotel Des Mille Collines in Kigali, Rwanda. The name of the hotel means "Hotel of a Thousand Hills." This is the film Hotel Rwanda was based on, although the film was actually produced in South Africa. Paul Rusesabagina, the former manager of the hotel portrayed by Don Cheadle in the movie, has become an active figure in African politics. Rusesabagina became known after the genocide for protecting, with very little help from Romeo Dallaire or other outside agencies, hundreds of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in this very high-end hotel during the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

A Rwandan ethnic identity card seen in a genocide memorial site outside of Kigali. Instituted by the Dutch, the government of President Habyaramina (in power prior to the genocide) made these highly important markers for Tutsis and Hutus. It's difficult to see in a picture of this size, but the dead owner of this ethnic identity card was a Tutsi. Current Rwandan president Paul Kagame (leader of the RPF forces that ended the genocide) has made these illegal.

Exploring a cave formed by one of the waterfalls at Sipi Falls in Eastern Uganda. The other guy in the picture is Chase, one of my best friends here. Chase is a senior at Emory University. Note the headlamp - in a country where power goes out constantly or, oftentimes, doesn't exist at all, your headlamp is never far away. Ugandans find headlamps, or "torches" as they call them, hysterically funny.

Sitting around on a mountaintop on Ugandan Independence Day. This gathering involved lots of singing of folk songs and drinking of millet beer by the locals, which is what you see here. The bucket is where the millet liquid is and the yellow container is filled with hot water which is used to dilute it. We also sang a few American songs for the locals at their request.. mainly consisting of Frank Sinatra.

My friend Janet and I at our impromptu Halloween party. We are eating live ants. They are widely sold during the rainy season (which we are now very much in) and are considered a delicacy. The ants are very large. They're crunchy and are sort of tangy They're sold by the hundreds wrapped in banana leaves along the roadside. My costume is the result of four of the program's guys (including myself) deciding to go for a Peter Pan theme. Chase (seen above) was Peter, Matt was Hook, Mike was Wendy, and I, of course, was Tink. Janet is the rapper Nelly.

The cutest little girl I've ever seen and I on a mountaintop village just outside of the jungle.. literally. As I mentioned earlier, we visited the Ruhija side of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. After some hiking, we visited a very rural and remote village, bought some crafts from a local market, and talked some with local children. This little girl spoke English unlike most of the locals (who only spoke Ruchiga) and immediately came up and grabbed my hand. I don't have any photos of the actual jungle itself right now (they're still on my camera) but I plan to upload some soon.

A young mother in Kigali, Rwanda. This is the way that all African women carry around small children. This is a very typical scene for East Africa in another way: in the background you can see an advertisement for the MTN cell phone network, the biggest taxpayer in Uganda and the owner of extremely visible advertising in the biggest cities down to the most remote villages.

Lake Bunyonyi. This lake is near Kabale in Western Uganda. It is a crater lake formed from volcanic activity in the area. The water is also free of schistosomiasis which seems to be fairly rare of a Ugandan body of water.

One of the single mothers served by the Single Parents Association of Uganda. I have mentioned this organization in earlier blogs and the last blog I posted included a picture of one of the children living in this woman's compound.

Comments

[Linda Jo]

First off I would like to say that I am the very proud Mom to Michael, or Jevan as I call him... I have to say worried is an understatement of what I was when he told me of his desire to go to Uganda, but as I learned form the time that he was a very small child that nothing was going to hold him back. Jevan has grown so much on this journey. He has seen a side of life that most cannot comprehend, nor would we probably want to, but Jevan has embraced it wholeheartedly.
He has made us all so proud.
I have to add one thing though, to a child that didn’t eat meat for a long time, is eating live ants???
Who would have ever thought that???
Surely not his Mama…
:o)
Just be safe…
We love you, bunches…

[Amy Lancaster]

Love the pictures, Michael. Your blogs are very informative. What exactly are you researching for your ISP?

[Coles Hoffmann]

of course whereas having someone be tinkerbell is like a punishment to the pledges in sigma nu you choose to be tinkerbell elsewhere... love it!

I love reading your blogs! And I'm so happy about the pictures :) can't wait to see the jungle pictures.