Into the Heart of Africa

For those of you who recognize the line in my title: yes, it is from Disney’s Tarzan and no, I haven’t started quoting random movie lines. Last week I took a little trip to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in western Uganda, to go gorilla tracking. As I hiked into the forest with seven other “trackers,” six bag-bearing porters, and a guide with an AK47 in hand, I just couldn’t help feeling a connection with Jane from Tarzan as I anticipated my meeting with a family of gorillas. It was a really cool trip. We hiked for an hour and a half through banana plantations and dense forest. It was such a beautiful, sunny day. We started hiking around 9 a.m. after being given strict gorilla-tracking rules (wash hands before leaving, don’t sneeze or cough in their direction, don’t get too close, etc.) and headed up a mountain. The gorilla-tracking business is actually pretty efficient: as it is so darn expensive to spend one hour with gorillas, there pretty much has to be a guarantee you’ll find them. Every morning professional trackers head into the forest to start looking for the gorillas well before the tourists show up, and by the time our hike commenced, the trackers were hot on the gorilla’s tails and guiding us to them via walkie-talkie.

After a fun climb up the mountain (which I honestly wish was longer—I could have hiked all day) I got to spend one hour with nine gorillas: a silver back (the big guy you don’t want to mess with), his three wives, three teenage sons, a daughter, and his littlest son who was under a year old. Unfortunately, the gorillas were asleep most of the time, but we still enjoyed watching them stretch, scratch themselves, fart (there was a lot of gas passing) and groom. The baby gorilla was adorable—toddling around between mom and dad, and curiously peeking over his mother to check out the weird creatures staring at him. The mom wasn’t too keen on the paparazzi taking photos of her little one and kept trying to remove him from our sight, but he was a stubborn little thing and to our enjoyment, continued to peek at us. We also watched one of the teenage sons eat lunch, tearing down branches and small trees for his meal. It was a great time, and we were literally 10 feet away from the mother and baby and perhaps a mere 15-20 feet from the silverback. I was amazed to discover, just like Jane did, that the gorillas really do travel, eat, sleep, and live in family groups. And they are so powerful—their hands alone are things from which to respectfully distance yourself. They are truly awesome creatures. Unfortunately, I wasn’t as lucky as Jane was, to find both gorillas and a gorgeous, wild man in the forest, but as my permit was solely for gorillas, I feel I got my money’s worth (and I came back with both boots).

The rest of my Easter weekend was pretty low-key. We spent two nights in the forest, at a small retreat center with large, private canvas tents. It was a real vacation, too, as I took full advantage of every opportunity I had to sit on our tent’s porch with a book and cup of coffee. The eight-hour ride to and from Bwindi, although long, was so beautiful that I would take that drive any day of the week, even just to relax. On Easter I went to the Anglican church again and really enjoyed the service. It was wonderful to worship in that church again, and I have a feeling I will attend it on a regular basis. The service was very upbeat, and I was overwhelmed by the joy of the congregation as we celebrated Christ’s resurrection. The rest of the weekend was rather uninspiring, spent mostly watching movies and finishing my book. But as it rained all day Sunday, and I simply desired to relax, reading and watching movies turned out to be a real blessing. Apparently we’re headed into the rainy season. Now, I saw the intense rain during the dry season, and am a little hesitant to experience the rainy season….Any thoughts on how to air-dry laundry when it’s always damp and rainy?

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People have asked me how I like living in Kampala. I can’t help but say that it’s an emotional roller-coaster. I genuinely fluctuate between love and hate for this place in a matter of seconds, and my feelings can change multiple times a day. I definitely have a love-hate relationship with Uganda. But a friend of mine, who has spent a good amount of his life living outside of the U.S., recently told me that such a relationship is ideal when living in a new place, and I think that’s true. Although the disgust I have for this country can be overwhelming at times, the love I have for it is equally violent. And if I have to experience great frustration in order to see beauty in its people and to love other parts about it, I’ll take the frustration.

One of the most beautiful people I have met here is a young girl, not more than 10 or 11, whose name I unfortunately do not know. She lives in my apartment complex, but way at the other end of the complex from me. I have only met her twice and I’ve tried learning her name but didn’t understand it (I’ll have her write it down for me when I see her again). But I met her both times as I was walking home from work. Granted, both times I was coming home from work an hour later than I should, so I wasn’t in the best mood. As I caught up with her the first time, I immediately noticed that her right eyelid hardly opens. But she looked at me out of her left eye and smiled, and as I smiled back, her grin grew into the brightest greeting I have ever received. Her whole face lit up; she’s just beautiful. I quickly said hello, and began to ask her about herself; where she goes to school, her grade, her name, and her family. She and I chatted the few minutes it takes to walk home, and I left her feeling so joyful (her smile was so contagious I couldn’t help but smile myself!). Meeting her the second time was a reminder that there are blessings everywhere—even in my walk home from work. And if I hadn’t stayed at work an hour longer both times, I wouldn’t have gotten to walk home with her. She is so sweet, and so eager to practice her English and make friends—just like me. She has taught me a lot about being thankful, finding joy in the small things in life, and connecting with people. She’ll never know what a gift it has been to walk home from work with her, but I hope to run into her again—even if it means staying late.

That is all for now, dear friends! Lots of love to you all!

P.S. Pictures to come soon! I wanted to post this entry as soon as possible and didn’t have time to get pictures up before bed. Check back in a couple of days!

A couple of stories from the past week.

Risky Business:
After dinner this evening my roommate and I happened to choose a boda-boda driver who clearly had very little regard for his or our safety. How do I know? Because when traffic came to a standstill and quickly backed up in front of us, our boda nearly became a new layer of paint on the van ahead of us. Our driver’s response after slamming on the brakes? “Oops…”

Let me ask you this:
Why do people party on weeknights?
Why do people invite 100 of their closest friends to party with them, just outside their populous apartment building, on a weeknight?
Why do people think that their neighbors would prefer to listen to singing rather than sleep?
Why do people think that one hundred voices singing one song over and over again, at the top of their lungs, for seven hours, is something I want to listen to on a weeknight?
My boss says I should have just joined the party. I felt more inclined to throw rocks. I didn’t, but I wanted to.