Fort Portal and Kibale National Park

November 6th

So much of my faith has been restored in America today! For the first time in my life we have a President I am excited about. I can’t believe it. It almost doesn’t seem real. Even the locals are excited about it. The front page of all the papers have headlines reading "OBAMA!". I was stopped in the market by an older man. He said "Where are you from? Who is your president? Is it Bush?" I replied "No sir, it's Obama." He pulled a poster from out of his jacket. It was a poster of Obama. He then put his arm around me, hugged me, kissed the back of my hand and said "He is one of us! I love you!" I guess if I'm going to be the center of attention in the middle of the town market then these are pretty good circumstances to be under. I could think of much worse things to have happen but still, I was embarrassed. Everyone there was laughing. Luckily I was done with my shopping so I saluted the man and said the only two things I know how to say in his language, "thank you, goodbye".

October 31st
Friday afternoon we pack the car and head north to visit our friends Steve and Sarah in Kibale National Park. Sarah is also a medical geography phd candidate at the University of Washington. She is doing research into diseases shared by humans and monkeys.
It’s a gorgeous day for a drive. Our destination is approximately 235 km away and, depending on the condition of the road, the drive should take us between 3.5 and 4.5hrs. Amber and I are excited to go to a new place and to try out the new car and to listen to the music mixes I made this week for the drive.

Just west of Mbarara and for the first 80km or so the landscape is mostly agricultural. Matoke fields, the staple crop for Ugandans, is a type of banana. I’ve grown to like it a lot and to be able to tell if it’s of good quality or not. The countryside is so lush and wet. The growing season is year round here and there isn’t any need to irrigate. Uganda is very fortunate to have Mother Nature looking after them so well. They haven’t had the famines like you hear about in Ethiopia and other countries. The sun is out but there is rain in the distance. Soon we go up and over a short mountain pass which reveals a tremendous view of the Great Rift Valley. This valley, created by some rather drastic plate tectonics, is an intersection of dry grasslands and swamp from the east and the Rwenzori Mountains on the western border of Uganda. This is also the valley the River Nile is flowing through. The grassland we are now in has been designated as Queen Elizabeth National Park. It is home to a lot of wildlife including elephants and antelope so we are hoping for a chance encounter. The scale of things is tremendous, reminding me of Wyoming from I-90 looking south to the Big Horn Mountains. We pass a sign depicting a head on collision of a bus with an elephant but this is as close as we get to seeing an elephant. I must tell you, because I’m rather shocked, that the road is by far the nicest road I’ve seen in Uganda. I was told it was recently rebuilt by the Chinese as an aid project I think, to prepare for a visit from Queen Elizabeth herself. In the end she never came but sent Prince Charles instead.
3hrs and 45 minutes later we arrive in the town of Fort Portal and meet Sarah and Steve and at a popular hotel for a post drive beer. There are many brands to pick from here but they all taste similar. Lagers and Pilsners go well with the climate and, even though there is no IPA, I’m happy to have something cold to sip. Our first night of the trip we stayed at The Rwenzori View Guest House. A lovely B&B style inn built by a brit named Maurice. Breakfast is simple and lovely, served around a large table and shared by all the guests. This encourages conversation of course, which is dominated by Maurice, but that is quite alright for he’s got some interesting insight on Uganda. He has been here for some 35 years and has in that time served on the city council. By his account the country is a rapidly changing place not only in landscape but in social aspects as well. The conversation predictably turns to the election in the U.S. You at home, believe me when I tell you that yes, the rest of the world is watching. Even in our small town in rural Uganda the newspaper headlines are all talking about Obama.

Saturday morning and Steve and Sarah have gone to town to do their shopping for the week. Their cabin is about 45 minutes outside of town down a dirt road and inside Kibale National Park so they only get to town about once a week. After a relaxing morning writing in our journals, Amber and I follow to pick them up and head to their cabin for the next night. Their lifestyle is much more rough than ours. I feel pretty lucky now to have a toilet to sit on and a bathtub that I fit in. They have a latrine, meaning nothing but a hole to squat over, and the hot water in the shower is solar heated so it takes a couple hours to heat five minutes worth of hot water. And that’s if the sun is out. They live in a rainforest and the big thing you have to watch out for there, other than the aggressive baboons, are mango flies. These flies land on wet clothing and leave their larvae which then hatch and burrow into your skin to develop into a fly. If you get one you have to cover it with nail polish to kill it and then, after a day or two, extract the dead larva (EEEWW!!). All laundry is left to dry under bug nets that are treated with insecticide and once it is dry it is then ironed for extra posterity. I never saw a mango fly and I never want to.

Kibale National Park is well known for monkeys and chimpanzees. A lot of people go there to research them and tourists go for guided tracking tours. Over the course of the next 24hrs we see probably fifty of them. Among them are Black and White Colobus, Red Colobus, Red-tailed, Blue monkeys, and Grey monkeys. If I ever manage to get pictures up you’ll see why they’re called blue monkeys. They are so fun to watch jump from limb to limb. Each species has their own style of climbing. Some are better than others.

The drive back was also glorious and we took a detour into Queen Elizabeth for lunch at a very posh lodge overlooking a lake. Jacana Safari Lodge is about 14km off the road but every bit worth the detour. I’m talking breaded fish served over sautéed vegetables and covered in a mustard sauce with rice pilaf like you don’t get in Mbarara. We will definitely be back here. The car performed beautifully, we had a great time and D.o.g. was happy to see that we didn’t leave him for good.

I’ve been here for a month now. It’s starting to feel natural and comfortable. I have only learned a couple of words in runyankole, the local language, but I am able to go to the market and do the shopping. We will be getting lessons soon. Amber has hired two research assistants and I’m sure we could ask one of them to teach us. Perhaps while we’re out in the field doing Amber’s research. They’re starting initial interviews next week and I will go with some of the time just for the chance to see more of the countryside. I’ve been spending a lot of the weekdays working on my writing and playing music. I’m very lucky!