Full circle

Back in February when I was making the layout for this blog I googled photos of Uganda to try and find a striking picture to use as the banner.  The one I ended up using is by far the most beautiful photo I came across (of course, this is before I came home with about 2000 photos of my own).
This past week I took a good look at the banner photo, and realized that this is Mgahinga National Park - the place that we spent our last 5 days in Uganda because it was too beautiful to leave.  To orient you a bit: in the photo on here, the volcano on the very far left - just the other side of the tree - is Sabinyo, the volcano that we hiked.  On it's summit you stand simultaneously in Rwanda, Uganda, and the Congo.  We opted to have lunch in the Congo that day.  In the middle is Gahinga volcano, which is where we tracked the mountain gorillas.
It all comes full circle!

 The more I think about it, the more I realize that there's no point in trying to summarize the whole experience in one post.  I just can't - there's too much to say, too many angles and aspects, too many stories to tell, too many people who touched my heart.  I just posted a bunch of pictures on facebook, and when I was looking through my captions the second time around I realized just how many times I used the word 'favourite.'  'This is Tatiana - she's my favourite,' 'Look at that smile, he's totally my favourite,' 'Giraffes are my new favourite,' and on, and on, and on.  [sidenote - you can see these photos here].  So, I won't try to summarize.  I won't try to tell you how it's impact my life, because I expect that I'll keep discovering the ways that Uganda has changed me long after I'm back and settled into the routine here.

I journal a lot, and in my journal I always use the first page for quotes that inspire me.  This one is at the top of the page, written before I left Canadian soil:
"There are many things in life that will catch your eye, only a few will catch your heart... pursue those."
In Uganda I found a few things that caught my heart.
Next step: pursue them!

Uganda-sick.

Yes, I'm home. (*tear*)  No, but really.  Tears were involved.

And yes, I'm already back to the North American pace.  Only because I've been forced to move back at this pace.  The African pace is much more enjoyable!

I want to write one final wrap up post though, but can't seem to squeeze it in amongst new placements, papers, reports, research and just good old catching up with friends (phew - at least there's one positive thing in there).

But it's coming - I promise.

In the meantime, now that I have a fast internet connection again, some videos for your viewing pleasure!!

First - meet Emma.  Emma # 1, actually.  There were 2 Emma's at Mengo and I adored both of them.  Emma 1 was a huge goofball... and a big teddybear.  Good combo.



Next:  From the riots back in March.  This is a video I took from the front porch of the guesthouse.  You can't see anything really (look hard through the trees on the right hand side though), but you can definitely hear how close they were.



And last, but not least (and probably not actually the last one - I'll likely post a few more now that I've got the hang of this...) a little gem from our safari.  This was just plain good luck that I had the camera rolling while this big fella decided to say 'hello.




Have I mentioned yet that I miss Uganda?

Tracking the Mountain Gorillas

We woke early in the morning to a beautiful sunrise and a very clear sky.  We took off by 7:30am with our guide Johns and our 'protector' Ben (i.e. the one with the rifle).


We walked for most of the morning through farmland on the border of Mgahinga National Park – a small natinoal park that is continuous with parks in the Congo and Rwanda. It was so beautiful. Hands down the most gorgeous part of Uganda that I’ve seen.

After about 3 hours Johns told us that we were getting close to the family. I got nervous. Really – like butterflies in my stomach kind of nervous. We then met up with another guide, who had tracked the troop earlier in the morning and had since been giving us directions. We kept walking. We passed two huge piles of gorilla poo. I got really, really nervous. We met up with a third guide, and at this point Johns told us to get our cameras ready. My stomach settled immidiately.

We walked through the dense bush, and 5 metres in front of us was a giant, black, beautiful female mountain gorilla munching on leaves with her baby doing the same beside her. It seemed surreal.

We spent the next hour with this family. There are 9 gorillas in total, including two silverbacks. We saw only 4 – and the silverback was a surprise. We were sitting and watching one of the females climb up a tree that appeared far too small to bear her weight, when a huge shriek came from behind us. It was the silverback, and it scared the shit out of me! Turns out that one of the guides was standing between him and the rest of his troop. We moved – quickly. The silverback then lay down to rest and we got about 10 metres away, watching him roll slightly, grunt occasionally – all in all it was kind of slow. Then he hopped up. Again, scaring the shit out of me. He gave a grunt, which the guards understood to mean ‘get outta the way.’ So, we got out of the way and he lumbered past us, not more than 5 feet away. (unfortunately no pics of this - the clearest view we had of him - but I do have a video that I'll try to upload once I'm on a fast internet connection again).

We spent the next hour watching them sit and eat and play and roll and grunt and scratch and climb trees. It was incredible. Oddly enough, the most memorable and striking things were the noises. The sound of the mama’s giant hand scratching her behind which sounded shockingly like wood on really coarse sandpaper. Being close enough to hear her grind the leaves between her teeth. Listening the the silverback's sighs as he slept in the sun.

People we met beforehand told us it would be lifechanging. I don’t think I would say that – but it was defniitely an epic experience.

Langour

"Langour is underrated.  It is not possible to be immobile in modern urban society except by dint of constant effort.  Holding on tightly to the riverbank and fighting the current is not langour.  Nobody likes that.  But bone-lazy idleness, hours and hours spent staring at the sky and remembering books and birthdays and graet kisses: this is a pure pleasure that eludes the productive in all their confident superiority.  Langour is sunny and hot.  It is at home near the sa and is best appreciated in environments of beauty and limited promise.  It contains within it the idea of boredom, but is also coloured by idle fancy, and the understanding that some things proceed best with limited attention.  Fishing, for instance.  If you're always reeling in and checking your bait, you'll only worsen your chances.  Relax."
- Kevin Patterson, The Water in Between

Rwanda has been a place full of langour.  It's been lovely.  All the more lovely because oddly enough, here our relaxed paced is only accentuated by the surprisingly quick pace of the Rwandans around us.  The past few days have been full of delicious food, cold beers drank slowly, long walks in the sun, and good conversations.

I don't feel like I've really learned all that much about Rwanda and certainly there is more to explore, but we're moving on; North to Uganda where the people are friendly, the pace is slow, and the mountain gorillas roam.  Yup, that's right - we're going to track some mountain gorillas!

Rwanda - en Francias...ish

I have travelling ADD.
I was totally content in Kampala, but once we hit the road I’ve been ready to leave each place we’ve been to within 24 hours of arriving. [Note: Kenn is reading over my shoulder and has instructed me to change this number to 3… he might be right.] I’m not sure why – Kenn has described it as having ADD. I think I’m just on the hunt for something… but I don’t know what? The tourist-y activities that surrounded us in SW Uganda were okay, but I wanted to explore without the required $10 guide. So we’ve come to Rwanda to explore a new culture, new city, new language, new food, new people – all things new. And it’s been a really interesting contrast to Uganda, that’s for sure. I’m tempted to say that it’s not like Africa… but then Kigali is right smack in the middle of Africa, so that would be nonsense. Really, it would be more correct to say that it’s an economnically thriving Africa, a side that you don’t see in many countries. The roads are smooth, the motos only take one passenger and you BOTH wear helmets, there are crosswalks and cars actually stop to let you through, the food is delicious, the people are friendly but not in an overwhelming ‘HEY MZUNGU!’ kind of way. I’ve also seen more white people in the past 2 days than I had in the previous 6 weeks combined, and the prices here reflect that. “Ah, cést plus l’argent” is a common cry - regardless of whether or not it actually makes sense, the frugal Dutchie/poor student within me feels better for having said it.
But it’s beautiful, and it’s new.
Today I had the urge to move on again, but on Kenn’s (wise) insistance, we’re going to stay and explore things more fully here. We took a solid couple of days to travel here… we like to call it the scenic route… so it only follows that we must spend a solid couple of days actually being here.

The biggest adventure has been getting along with a new language. Turns out that I don’t remember my grade 10 French as well as I thought… but Kenn describes this better than I can:

“We're looking for accomodation at "St. Paul's". I'm pretty sure St. Paul's is a church. I ask a man "Ou est St. Paul's?" He becons for us to follow him. I want to confirm that St. Paul's is a church but realise I don't know the word for church after I've started the question .... "Qui es St. Paul's ... pour le Jesus?" Blank stare.

I camp - Je tente.
We camp - Nous tentons.

Shannon speaks better french than me, but she's too busy laughing at me or being embarrassed by me to ever use it.”

He’s right, I really am too busy laughing at him or being embarassed by him to try it myself.

So – Kigali hasn’t been what I’d expected (actually, a lot of this week hasn’t been what I’d expected), but the adventure continues! Or, rather, l’adventure continuez.
Is that right?! Probably not.
Crap. (Crapé?!)

Bumpy roads and spitting cobras - let the touring begin.

Kenn and I are now on the road. We decided that we would head to the Southwest of Uganda – a land packed with rolling hills, crater lakes, lowland rainforest, highland valleys, and sky-piercing mountain ranges. It is beautiful!

After our first days spent touring caves and lakes around Fort Portal (see Kenn’s post on this here), we decided that this would be a great opportunity to head into the Semliki Valley – a lowland rainforest that is continuous with the Congolese Uturi forest, the largest in Africa. There were two things I didn’t anticipate about this trip: 1) how incredibly beautiful the drive would be; 2) how absolutely terrifying the drive would be.

Myth: A matatu that drives full speed around blind corners on the edge of a 100 metre dropoff with only it’s blaring horn to protect you from any oncoming vehicles is really, really scary.

Fact: A matatu that drives full speed around blind corners on the edge of a 100 metre dropoff without blaring it’s horn to protect you from any oncoming vehicles is really, REALLY scary.

We took the 2 hour journey in a jam-packed rickety matatu with babies on our laps, flying around blind corners with enormous dropoffs only inches away (the tires definitely left the gravel a few times), all for the sake of getting to this rainforest.
We got to the rainforset – went for a walk – saw some monkeys and big trees – but otherwise it was truthfully a little bit disappointing. The highlight was probably seeing a 2.5 metre spitting cobra. We heared it before we saw it; it was hustling down a tree trunk trying to get out of sight as we approached and made a ruckus as it hit the ground.

After seeing the cobra, we walked on and soon looped back. As we were crossing the same point that the cobra was first seen, there was a loud rustling in the trees overhead. I turned to our guide, Moses, and asked, “What kind of monkeys are up there?” Moses looked at me, fear in his eyes, and responded with a thick accent, “spitting cobra.” The look on my face must have been quite rewarding because he burst into laughter and continued to laugh at his joke for a solid 5 minutes afterwards. I jumped at every rustling in the bush for a solid 45 minutes afterwards. Jokes about deadly snakes - not funny!

I'm now sitting in a cafe in Rwanda drinking the nicest coffee I've had in 2 months. We just arrived in Kigali and I'm really looking forward to exploring (and testing out my grade 10 French) - Internet seems to be more common around here, so I'll be sure to update a bit more often!

xoxo

Saying goodbye

7:30am

I woke with equal feelings of excitement and sadness. I’m excited for what tomorrow brings, and I’m glad that I have this to offset the dread of saying goodbye and of wondering what will come of these kids that I’ve come to adore so much.
I’m sitting outside on the porch, eating my long-awaited celebratory bacon and eggs while Lisa Hannigan sings softly (and appropriately) melancholy in my ear. It’s raining outside. This also seems appropriate.

12:30pm

I’ve just said goodbye to Tatiana. This will be my hardest goodbye. I’ve done everything I can to provide the OT here with a comprehensive and appropriate treatment plan for her – but I have very little faith that it will be followed through on. She’s such a bright girl and has been completely underestimated until now.
We played on the slide together most of the morning. We’ve somehow developed this game of cat-and-mouse where she’ll aproach the slide and wait for me to chase her up into it, giggling maniacally the whole time. In this past week, whenever she sees me, she’ll run to the slide and start giggling just in anticipation of this. I’m going to miss her. Samson and David weren’t here today (related to the tombs being burned down – today was the end of the official week of mourning for the Bagandans) – I’m actually kind of greatful that my last goodbye with them was a lighthearted one.

4:30pm

Goodbyes with everyone else were fine – mostly because I’ve realized that I’ll have to pass back through Kampala on my way to the airport in 2 weeks, so it’s just ‘goodbye for now’instead of goodbye forever.
Jen & I sat on the porch sharing our last Nile Special (well, her last Nile special… I’m sure Kenn and I will indulge a time or two). We sat there looking out at the view and reminisced about the past 6 weeks. Such a short time but I feel like we learned so much. We talked about our highs and lows – about what we’re most looking forward to about going home – about how we’d stay here in a second if given the chance. It was nice, but had an air of finality that was definiteiy present.

7:30pm

Returned from my last trip to Sanyu. Here I’ve trained another volunteer how to stretch Francis, how to support him in sitting (and the overwhelming benefits of getting him into sitting as often as possible), and taught her more about CP. She’s the only other volunteer who isn’t intimidated by him, and she’s promised that she’ll look after him for me. I also got some things to set up in his crib – as per Ross’s fantastic suggestion – in order to give him some stimulatino in that crib that he’s stuck in most of the day. When I put him back into his crib after the toys were set up, he looked around and held his head in midline (albiet briefly) – it was the first time I’d ever seen him do that. He was actively looking around, and it was fantastic. An unexpected side effect was that the other kids came by his crib to play with these toys. This means one of two things: 1) the toys will be ripped off in a matter of days, and/or 2) maybe this will also provide Francis with a bit of social contact, too!
It breaks my heart to leave him, but I feel strongly that I’ve done what I can for him, and I have high hopes that volunteers will continue to make sure he’s looked after.

12:30am

Went to chicken ghetto for our last dinner. It was delicious, as always. Following this, we went to the Emin Pasha hotel – a very swanky place that doesn’t really feel like Kampala, it feels like another (higher class) world, but it was redeemed by the music. Oh the music! Sax, trumper, 3 kinds of drums, guitars, and 4 of the most enthusiastic singers I’ve seen in a long time. It was so great!
Now, off to bed – my first night camping – and tomorrow morning Kenn and I take off for the West.