Africa is Where the 80's Came to Die

Although Jessica may have been the one who said it, I don't disagree with the statement.

Thursday was another day spent in town, and since we weren't supposed to go back into the field until Friday, we had the chance to hang around for the much acclaimed Kisoro market day. Market day is a biweekly event where merchants stream across the border from Congo in multitudes to try and sell all their crap for higher prices in Uganda.

The market itself is located on the far edge of town, and when in full swing, becomes a maze of people selling all sorts of crap like you couldn't believe. You know all those good will donations that you are making back in North America? Well, they're selling them here to anyone with a pulse and a roaming eye for irrelevance. I eluded to the local dress code in a previous post, and in particular to the prevalence of neon windbreakers. Well it appears that as we have started cleaning the 80's clothing out of our deepest, darkest storage areas, impoverished Africans are selling them to slightly less impoverished Africans to keep the decade alive - a mere 30 years later.



Tacky bowling shirts, tees from Superbowl twenty through thirty five and fine dress apparel are handily available - one traveler even managed to get his hands on an oversize 'Mountain Search and Rescue jacket" right from the heart of the United States. When I first got here and walked through the less transitory markets, I wondered how some of this stuff got here, but this market took it to a whole other level.

Meanwhile, back in the forest... Even though Wednesday was Darja's day to go into the woods, she was sick, and as a result unable to make it. We hadn't planned to be up there as we figured she would go, and went into Kisoro Tuesday night, resulting in none of us entering the woods with the standard tracker, ranger, and field assistant. It is no surprise then that they saw no less than 39 monkeys, 10 water buffalo, a viper, a rare three horned chameleon and a full grown silver back gorilla that had come up from the Congo. Conversely, Friday morning we saw about eight monkeys in 4 hours. Ha, ha, ha.



Thursday night was a lively affair, featuring us going to a local 'restaurant' where we got some of the best pork ever. Pig around here is pretty rare and as a result there isn't a lot of game in town. There is one place however that cooks a pig a day (if they can get it), and by god they do it right. We went at about three, on our way to market, and reserved five kilos to be shared among the six of us (2 Brits, our Slovenian coworker, and a Swede along with Jess and myself). At eight, we came back for the feast. They spend the majority of the afternoon smoking the pig, and then when it is time to eat, they quickly boil then fry it. The end result is some of the best pork I've ever tasted.

Served on a large metal tray, the food is brought out among a greasy array of potatoes and cabbage and requires you dig into the plate with your hands as if it were some kind of medieval feast. When we combined this with the altitude and strong Ugandan beer, it was the precursor to a great, but messy, night. After food we headed to one of the local div-, er, clubs and rounded out our night with more beer and dancing. Unfortunately we paid for this the next morning. As we needed to get back up to the park for 7:30, our punishment was bodha bodhas at dawn.

Now my first bodha bodha ride was less than savory, and featured me getting both slapped by a local and falling off (not related incidents) - but at least that time it was downhill, I wasn't slightly hungover or awake at an ungodly hour. True to form, about ten minutes into the cold morning ride my bodha's tire got a puncture. Right? RIGHT? Unfortunately for Jessica, it meant I had to share hers and I think it may have been the worst ride of her life. She was already a wreck and I think this ride was the finisher - by the time we hit the woods she was a zombie.

After the field, and an afternoon of sorta sleeping, we actually decided to head back into town. Although this meant another ride on those hellish motorcycle taxis, it went a lot smoother. Since it was mostly down hill, and I seemed to have lucked into getting a big one, the ride was smooth and uneventful. Furthermore, I picked up this horrid pseudo-backpack that has the footy player Ronaldo on it - making the carrying of my stuff on the bike a dream.

Friday was another sloppy evening, as it was a party to say goodbye to one of the long time volunteers here. I mentioned briefly before that there was a Swede. Sam, who had been volunteering here for seven months, was helping to set up a micro loan program for local start up projects. Seven months is a long time, very impressive.

Jess and I tried to get up for the boda bodas again, but as 6:30 came and went, the idea of riding up the hill to spend 5 hours in the forest became less and less appealing. As a result I was sent out to essentially tell the taxis to bugger off (with a little cash incentive to make parting easier). I do believe that we will try again tonight to make the trip up, although I do find it rather hard to ever get enthused for bumpy, uncomfortable motor cycle torture. It is a special kind of rape, because once they're done assaulting you, they have the gall to ask for money.

Thanks for reading,

Much Love,

Sean

Pictures?

I realize that my blog yesterday ended with a bit of a negative tone to it. I think that my homesickness is really just the manifestation of my frustration. The 'research' that we applied for was set up to attract biologists, and required the corresponding degree and experience in the field to be considered.

Therefore, when you show up to a place and realize that you're doing the work that anyone with a notebook can manage, it is inevitably frustrating. Partly because I feel like I have been duped and partly because I could be better spending my time seeing this country or it's many neighbours. Our Solution? We've had several talks with Darja over the past day and we've decided that our concerns should be expressed. Either this program needs to evolve to offer what it promises at a distance, or it should be targeted to everyone until such a time as they wish to make it more specialized.

I may have still come if there was simply a volunteer position to 'habituate and observe primates for two weeks', but don't offer me cake and give me crumbs. It's only been a week and I will give it more time, it is just really sad that such a valuable opportunity to do something real and novel is being squandered. Those are my qualms, maybe when voiced some changes will be made - as I have eluded to before, we are pretty much in on the ground floor, and I think our suggestions and even outward cynicism will be necessary to help this project advance to its full potential. This trip, and volunteer position, has been in my mind since I got accepted back in the summer - so I hope that it is understandable that I am a little disappointed.

Let me tell you the positives. Even the job of habituating these monkeys for tourism is important for tourism and adding money to the community. Win. Uganda is truly a beautiful country, and with the odd exception of course, the people are very friendly. Win. The staff and members of the other branches of the MCDO umbrella organization are all very friendly and helpful, and a pleasure to be around and talk to. Win. I already feel better after a couple days in Kisoro, and am in a much more positive mood.

Now as promised, pictures:


The golden monkey guest house is the headquarters for MCDO in Kisoro and is a great place to stay with very friendly staff. I believe the man in front identified himself as Saturday. I am not sure and even had to ask twice.

An example of the sort of hodge-podge nature of the clothing exhibited. These kids and their flashy suits just happened to pose in a way that looked like a Christian rock album cover.

The gate house to Mgahinga National Park. There are gorillas in there we're told, but we're trying to count on stumbling across them - instead of paying the $500 cover to anyone else.

Mt. Muhabura, the tallest of the three Virungas, stands as the constant backdrop of daily life in the park. Aptly named 'the guide' it can be seen for miles.


The pictures beneath are kind of an overview of the forest, and the pictures really don't do its magnificence justice. The first is a picture of the very high forest canopy, and the second of the thick bamboo that makes for the thickest parts of the woods. After that is an obligatory picture of the monkeys so that you know I'm really looking at them - and last but not least is a picture of our ranger, Ben, resting in a clearing. The low resolution of the photo doesn't really do it justice, but it is my favourite picture from here to date.

Mountains on the Horizon

The majority of our Saturday morning was spent in Kisoro - finally succumbing to the full extent of our jet lag, Jess and I found ourselves passed out well into the afternoon. Breakfast was had shortly after our eyes cleared and was a simple meal of a fried egg and toast. Interestingly enough, bread in Uganda is sweet, and made with sugar instead of salt. You may not think this would be weird, but it can really throw you off when you're not expecting it. Although personally I don't find it that bad, a few of the other tourists at the hostel were quick to point it out as the worst thing of note; recommending a local bakery that makes specialty salt bread.

Post breakfast activities were primarily confined to getting ready for our stay up in the national park. Since the park has no running water, we had to send someone to pick us up two boxes of water bottles. Twelve, 1.5 L bottles of water in a box for 3000 Ugandan shillings. For those who don't know the conversion, it is about a dollar-fifty. As we were practically heading out the door we ran into our research cohort, a Slovenian named Darja (Dar-ee-ah), who was just heading the other way into town. She warned us that it would be cold and that we'd have a lot of time to ourselves - she was right on both accounts. She promised us that she would be up Monday afternoon and no showed. I saw her a few hours ago at the hostel though - unfortunately she has come down with something and looked to be in rough shape.

The ride up to the park featured a cramming of us into the front of a beaten up pickup truck while it carefully traversed the wrongly accused 'road' up to the park. The road itself is uneven and worn, with huge patches of dirt eroded due to flooding in the wet seasons. The true miracle of the day was that the truck didn't disintegrate before we reached the top. The park and its buildings are very closely linked with the surrounding community, and as a result the trip brought us through the centers of a handful of local villages. Many of the locals are sustenance farmers. As a result it is sometimes funny, and maybe a little mean, to take the time to observe the local apparel - which seems to feature what ever they can get their hands on. Kids in suits, men in sweet 80's styles windbreakers and I even stumbled across someone selling an L.A. Kings backpack in the marketplace - I kid you not.

We reached the place after a forty minute drive (for 14 km!), just as the sun was starting to set. As a result, the unpacking in our powerless banda was done in the company of candle light. The bandas are concrete huts and as a result tend to trap in the cold air - much to our displeasure. You see, since Uganda is just north of the Equator, it happens to be winter right now (Darja wouldn't lie to us). This means that at an elevation of over 2000 m things get a little cold. We were just starting to feel this as the sun was going down. To be positive though, the air in the grounds smells like sweet flowers always, and the many birds begin chirping happily at first light. It gets dark at night though, pitch black. The mountains seem to attract an entourage of fairly constant clouds to the area, such that with the moon and stars covered there is absolutely no light.

Sunday was spent exploring and getting a feel for the area. We had lunch with the local rangers for the Uganda Wildlife Authority (a weird affair consisting of odd corn bread, potatoes, beans and something they affectionately referred to as 'paste') who were all very friendly, and took the time to explain the names of the mountains. As you may have guess, the Virunga Volcano national parks of Rwanda, Congo and Uganda actually contain volcanoes. Three in fact, that loom ever omnipresent over the back drop of the for lying forest. Mt. Muhabura, an oft mist covered monolith, is the biggest and translates locally as 'the guide'. This volcano stands as a beacon in the sky, allowing its use as a compass for many miles. The second tallest, Mt. Sabyinyo is named accurately for its shape. This multi peaked mountain literally means 'old mans teeth' as it has three jutting peaks, and several deep gorges. Wedged between the two, is the comparatively smaller Mt. Gahinga. Gahinga is a word used to describe the piles of volcanic stones that are created when the local farmers take them out of their fields.

Monday was the first chance that we had to enter the forest to view the monkeys, and they nor the forest disappointed. There are two zones to the forest, the first being the woods proper, and the other being an outlying area of scrub brush that is recovering farmland - as the community was evicted from the park back in 91. I can say that it was a truly unique experience that not ten minutes into the outlying zone we came across the foot prints of elephants, gigantic in size, that were only from the night before. Also evident was the many prints and droppings of the water buffalo - the presence to which the armed guard in our entourage would attest. Truly walking in the foot steps of giants.

The forest itself is stunning, one of the great African jungles. The jungle is a mix of traditional tree cover, but also includes sections of very dense bamboo where quarters are tight and imposing. When we first entered the bamboo a mist was creeping its way silently across the upper canopy to create that truly time lost feel. The monkeys themselves were quick to arrive on the scene and we spent hours on Monday morning watching them. Our target group is composed of about sixty members, featuring a dominant male, a few subordinate males and the rest females and juveniles. The animals are beautiful, and were fun to watch.

The extent of the research unfortunately is rather basic. Although I realize that part of the aim is to just habituate the monkeys, the best I can describe what we are doing is research by consensus. We spend hours watching the animals and then have a meeting back at camp to consolidate the day after. However, there is very little novelty and ingenuity - we're not testing hypothesis, merely writing behavior on a sheet day after day over the same time period. The general hope right now is that perhaps when the head research gets back in the next week and a bit we will have a little more freedom. The expeditions are led by a local field guide who although knowledgeable about this forest, seems timid and unwilling to waver from the guidelines that were undoubtedly set for him. I had the chance to talk to him and I found out he is a local man who went to school for arts in Kisoro, and I assume very happy to have such a position - and I don't want to jeopardize that.

I had been having trouble sleeping up until last night. Perhaps, considering I still woke up at 5:30 local time this morning, I'm not out of the woods yet. It has been a collaboration of a bunch of factors, the primary one being that it can be hard to go to bed at nine knowing that it is really only one in the afternoon at home. More so though, I think I have just been having problems shutting my brain off when it comes time for bed. I'm not sure how to feel, as much to my surprise I have found myself quite homesick over these past few days - or possibly sick for anywhere but here.

This is truly the strangest place/thing I've ever done. If the volunteering doesn't change it is possible that we might get our fill after 2 months and spend March a little more mobile - South Africa?

We'll talk. I'm getting kicked out of this internet cafe as it is closing!

Thanks for reading,

Much Love,

Sean

Airplanes, Rwanda, Uganda

Airports are weird places. They exist as large buildings full of people in transit, such that no one in an airport is ever exactly where they want to be. Those arriving from travel abroad are still a ways from home, those working wish their shift over - and those about to depart haven't a clue what they're in for. Therefore everyone in these locations are connected by a common displacement. With this is mind, you can understand that upon arriving to Kigali, Rwanda after twenty-one hours of travel, the last place we wanted to be was facing down customs and immigrations officials - being informed that we required a visa issue at home to enter.

As we came to understand, the visa regulations for Rwanda had been changed as of November in regards to Canadians. Now apparently Rwandan officials did not rush to get the word out, as our guide book and official sites still said that Canadians could receive them at the border or airport. As a result, we found our selves as the last people in front of customs at 9pm local time being told that the place we should go is 'back where we came from'. Not an option. Luckily, Jessica and I happen to be very lovable, and we adopted our most exacerbated and near-tear faces we could muster (part act, part pure exhaustion and frustration) and managed to guilt the guy into letting us into the country. I would meet a woman from Ottawa later that night who had had the same problem a week earlier - but had known the number of a local to pull some strings.

We were picked up at the airport by a young local named Jack, who I can only ballpark to be around my age. He was friendly and spoke considerable English despite telling us he was terrible at it. Rwanda, like many African countries, is predominantly French speaking. Such that sometimes exchanges between myself and the locals were confined to both of us trying to explain what we wanted in parsed English/French semi-speak. The biggest problem I had was that I actually instinctively kept falling back to Spanish when spoken to in French. Bad habit I suppose?

The hostel was nice and clean, and occupied by six students from Columbia University in New York. Talking among them was a man from Burkina Faso, a country in west Africa, that ensured me that when I come out to his country I would and must stay at his house with him and his wife and daughters. I didn't have the heart to tell him that chances were slim of me making it out there, not that I could have articulated it anyways - as he was another French speaking African.

We were picked up at our hostel (the Chez Rose) this morning at around nine o'clock and began the twisty drive to the Ugandan border. Kigali is a rather breath taking city. It's core is built in the valley between and extending up the sides of two great hills. As you wind your way around the different levels of the city, your gaze is drawn to the city limits which provide a vista of endless mist-capped mountains and terrace farms over rolling hills. The closest cities I can equate it to is a mix of Quito and La Paz, the way it is built at elevation into the sides of hills.

Outside of Kigali proper, urbanization is relatively non-existant. Farms and houses seem to melt into each other as well as the surronding landscape, with the one large paved road of Rwanda acting as the spine of the country. This road is also similar to Bolivia in a way such that the further from the capital you were, the worse it could be. Non-stop lines of people walked the shoulder of the road, and even in the most empty looking of areas there would be locals traversing the shoulders with various things being carried on their head. The diversity was amazing - people in suits, rags and everything inbetween carrying the crops from their fields. There was even one unfortunate boy who had no legs that was shuffling himself along on his palms...

The ride to the Ugandan border took about an hour and a half, with the first real town we came to being Rungheri, a mere 25 km from the border. The road is by no means straight, and twisted and turned up and down the spines and ridges of the rolling hills. The driver, like so many others in developing countries took the road at a pretty good clip - the difference being that for whatever reason, his car had the drivers seat on the wrong side - such that sometimes as he went to pass, the impomptu English/French silence would be loudly interrupted by meing say "NO, NO, NO!" as he thrust me, and my shotgun seat over the center lane into the path of an oncoming truck.

Border crossing was non-eventful, and we were greatful for it. Knowing that we would not be able to get back into Rwanda once we emigrated, we prayed very hard that nothing would cause an impasse on the Ugandan side. From there, we were retrieved and brought to Kisoro by one of the organization workers named Edison. Our arrival was punctuated quite enjoyably by reggaeton over the car's speakers, and a whispering of Muzungu by the people that saw Jess and me through the open window. It literally means white person.

The day in Kisoro has been fairly eventful, we checked into the Golden Monkey guest house and then set off with Edison to see the town after a brief nap. We managed to find a bank and some rubber boots for the Jungle. The poverty here is at a level I've never experienced, and it can really take you aback if you're not prepared for it. However, the people at the guest house, the organization and the town in general have all be very kind and friendly. It is about 10:50 local time, and we only had dinner about an hour ago - vegetarian chilli, very good! I think however that I will wrap this up and try to get some rest.

Tomorrow we head up to the National Park in the early afternoon, and I really have no idea what to expect!

Hope you all are well,

Much love, take care

Sean

Bon Voyage

This past week has managed to sneak past me rather silently. Like the many grains of sand in an hour glass, each remaining moment before my departue has slipped away quietly and without emphasis.

That is, until now. Now, as I sit her in the early morning hours of Wednesday, each passing minute of the clock seems to echo and reverberate my welling emotions in a cacophonous way. Having just completed packing, the preperations final, and my exit fast approaching - all my thoughts can now finally and fully turn to the full scope of my trip at hand.

Packing is such a weird process. Every piece of clothing in your closet becomes your favourite and every doodad in that junk drawer essential - such that you can hardly imagine spending even a day without them, let alone months at a time. As a consequence you usually end up with a pile of desired carriables that dwarfs your bag in magnitude.

To clearly illustrate this, about six days ago I was looking at the daunting task of making all of this fit into that backpack:

I was trying very hard to sift that pile out - but it is funny how sentimental you can get with a t-shirt or any other piece of clothing. "Oh T-shirt! I bought you a month ago, and you mean nothing really to me, but I would die without you!"

So, sarcasm aside, I have managed to finish packing. The answer was to be really honest with myself. I took a lot of the articles and said to myself "could I live without this", and the answer was overwhelmingly yes for all borderline items. Thus, the final result is this:

Now this is still a fair amount of stuff, but I managed to leave my bag with some room to spare. If all holds true and I ditch some things, and pick up others along the way, I think I have struck the correct balance with this pack to get me through Africa. The way I look at it, I had a larger pack for South America and packed it to the brim - and that was only for a month trek. Pats on the back for everyone! Good work, Me.

Fourteen hours to flight, and I think it is time for sleep. I am full of lots of emotions, including aprehension, nervousness and even a little fear - but above all else there is an excitement that overwhelms everything.

Wish me luck, Africa here I come.

Lots of love,

Sean

Game Face

I can clearly remember 'Christmas' in my youth essentially spanning the whole month of December. Due to a combination of childhood greed and anticipation; a birthday and Christmas double extravaganza; and a general buying into of the holiday spirit and tradition - by the time the first of the last month rolled around, I was usually out of my head with excitment.

There is a specific age range as a kid where everyone in your family, extended or otherwise, considers you young enough to still buy gifts for. Therefore I can remember clearly that in the first week of December, the parcels for me would start arriving in the mail. Even though they were days early, I would beg and plead to open them, and often got away with it. Now, the real thrill was that even as the 7th approached and past, the packages often continued to come regardless of whether it was the week prior, of, or after the day of my birth.

It was usually for some simple reason, such as trying to reduce their postage, but not infrequently my birthday presents that arrived later, from relatives further abroad, would be nonchalantly harmonized with Christmas presents also intended for my chubby, all consuming paws. Thus, the effect became that December was my month, my Birthday and Christmas were obviously deeply linked, and that the greatest alias for the twelfth month that ever should have crossed your mind was 'gift month for Sean'.

Needless to say, my perspective has changed fairly drastically. The old cliche that giving is more satisfying than receiving is certainly true - but when you couple it with my disenfranchisement in religion and a general contentment with my age current, then the reason for the season was sort of lost to me. New birthdays no longer unlock privledge and responsibility, the holiday holds little spirituality for me, and I no longer need tubs of lego to pass the time. The consequence is that I've been given a blank slate for the definiton of the holiday season:

The holidays for me are a time to be with the people you like, drinking spiked coffee, and taking that little bit of pleasure out of giving to another. No, I'm not big on corporate Christmas, or Jesus Christmas, but I am big on Christmas being a little looser in definition. Therefore, I wish you a very merry Christmas, regardless of how you spend it! The holidays are what you make of them - so I'll see what I can do.

I feel like the pressure is really on to get the most of these last few days in Canada. I am just twelve days away from leaving for Africa, and I won't say I'm scared, but I can feel a energy building in me. The scariest thing isn't that I'm going, but that it still hasn't really hit me that I am - and it probably won't until I'm on that plane at a 45 degree angle, watching the ground disappear. Packing is being finalized, and everything is falling into place - it is about time to adopt my game face.

Game Face
def. a confident swagger you bring out when you are getting ready to tackle something difficult, or when you are about to take on a challange. Or when you are getting down to buisness.

Thanks for reading and Merry Christmas,

Sean