An image

My mum told me today that she wanted me to upload a picture of me. Hehe, I believe she wasn’t thinking about this, but since I am back on land, dry, and with only a couple of bruises and a blister as memories, there you have one in which I am pretty much in the center .

I think this rapid is the one they call The Bad Place. It’s in the first half of the typical rafting on the Nile near Jinja, in an area where there used to be the Bujagali Falls, until last week, when they closed the dam and Bujagali became a reservoir.

Little angels

 

Writing about the Little angels project without being able to upload pictures doesn't seem right. If I had good connection, I would upload a video, tell you that those without school uniform are in need of a sponsor, and I would let you to it. Well, no, I would add a picture of the room that was mine for three days, and then I would let you enjoy the little dancers. The connection got a fright when I tried to upload the video, so I'll have to turn to plan B.

The project was started around half a year ago by Duncan, a guy in his early twenties who was so grateful for the opportunities that he got thanks to his foreign sponsor that decided to pay it forward setting up a school for needy children and orphans by the Lake Bunyonyi. And there it is the school, simple and small, but giving the kids the chance to go to school. The level is not outstanding, but it's a beginning: at least they have a place to go where people do care for them. Fundraising takes a big part of the time of all the people involved, even the kids, but that's how it is, if one has to dance with the musungus (white people) to touch their heart and their pockets, let us dance.

I was given the chance to spend three days with them while staying with a family, getting a taste the conditions that people usually enjoy around here: the shower, a washbowl; the toilet, a hole in the ground (both with their own space separated from the rest of the world by walls, more or less precarious, but walls); the light, the sun, candles or a torch; the alarm clock, the birds – the sun helps but the windows are so small that it barely gets in; the kitchen, a small annex; the backyard, the plantation of bananas and matoke; and in spite of the proximity of the water, every drop that is used has to be fetched from the lake – an engineer, please, go to the area and design a system to get the water up the hill more efficient than plastic containers.

I was there as a volunteer but, doing doing, I didn’t do much. Most of the time I played with the little ones of the family: origami birds, throwing stones and bottle caps when I finally got hold on them, messing around with the touch screen of my computer (while the battery lasts). At school, I taught half an hour of Maths and the rest of the time I let them love me, trying to multiply the number of little hands that each of my fingers could hold. We also did some flips, but when the sun struck and I saw that the line was getting longer and longer and fights were starting, I stopped; my kidneys couldn’t get any more kids to fly in the air.

The impressions about Jinja, the sunset cruise on Lake Victoria and the rafting of the Nile stay for a future post. For now, just saying that I’ve come back alive and I’ve enjoyed it like a little child.

The stars

The stars of the wild chapter of the trip, by expense, effort and accumulation of good fortune, cannot be other than the mountain gorillas. We had the privilege and the big luck of getting permits at the very last minute to track the Rushegura group, and indeed we tracked them. Kicking the ground with my shin has left my leg looking like an impressionist painting and we got mud and water up to our ears, but seeing those creatures behaving with such familiarity in front of us was something simply incredible and worthy of any vicissitudes.

Mouths watered seeing the little one crawl on Silver Back’s back. The female that feeds the babies performed a meticulous nail cleaning under our sight. The games of the youngsters while the older made a lazy digestion laying on the ground were a real joy. The exhibition of power of the big boss left us petrified, although the guides translated the movement for us as a signal to the rest of the group that everything was ok – more than one got their heart jumping for a while thanks to the call to calm. The melting point was when the favorite female extended her arm towards the big guy, with a movement that could very well have been a caress, to let him know that she was also leaving with the rest of the group, and it was time that he moved his lazy ass. Shortly afterwards, the yet-to-be-named little one  played with the branches until mum passed by to follow the group in the migration. At that moment he just hopped on her back with a grace that we bipedal primates are incapable of hanging from a branch. We wanted more, but we accepted what we got knowing that invading their privacy once a day is already at the border of what such a susceptible creature can stand, and conscious of the GREAT fortune that we had had in contemplating those scenes.

That same afternoon we followed the Waterfalls trail to get another of those memorable “falling elephants and hippos” kind of rain (four days later my boots are still wet). The day was exhausting and simply unforgettable. It was very nice to share the sunset chatting with part of the gorilla-troop. A few hours of slippery trek under the rain don’t allow to get to know people at all, but sharing moments of that intensity somehow opens the paths for communication, gives something important in common, and makes it very easy to feel affectionate for whom just hours before where absolute strangers (and I owe very good friends to that!). Later that evening, the guard to whom we had invited for dinner and a beer as thank you for giving us the opportunity to track the group, offered us (good trap) a delicious dinner with African plates made out of fresh local produces. Yummy!! And what a nice guy. I am sure his new tourism enterprise is going to be a hit in less than a couple of years. Maybe I should have asked him if he accepts business partners; I could even find a stable source of income after all!

Taking a breath

Last week has been just crazy with wildlife, rain and mud. We somehow managed to move around in a country in which the definition of highway dangerously merges with that of muddy path full of holes, we camped under sun and rain, and we got so wet that we didn’t get really dry until we got out of the Impenetrable Bwindi and back to the “civilization”. If I try to make a summary of all the things I’ve seen I am pretty sure I’ll leave something out. Depending on the moment one thing or another comes to my mind: animals, people – locals and as strangers as myself -  landscapes, means (and ways) of transport…

Camping among hippos and warthogs was something. At the beginning it was difficult to catch some sleep, but I think it was more the sleeping on the floor thing and the loud wind than the company. Seeing the King of the Wild walking around the savannah, stopping here and there to mate with his travel partner was… surprising; one never thought of Simba having such little resistance, if you know what I mean. The elephants, which from the distance and in the shade of a terrace made that simple breakfast a feast, and in the close distance from the boat, accompanied buffalos, hippopotamus and crocs making that one a memorable afternoon,  allowed us to see them one last time, just before we run out of light, right at the border of the road, as if we weren’t the species that almost finished them up. The hippos – yes, I need to name them again – playing the soundtrack of our trip, dropping by our neighborhood, swimming in the river that separated us from Congo or in the channel through which we enjoyed the boat ride. What a beautiful animal! The chimps that, comfy high up in the tree, didn’t ask for much of a walk for us to see them, but made us twist our necks. The antelopes, the gorgeous bushbacks and the others, more reddish, all around the savannah, alert when the lioness was near by, magnificent postcard under the tree next to our tents. About the stars of the week I better talk in another post since this one is already over the attention span of some .

I have been resting these days in the lovely Byoona Amagara, in Lake Bunyonyi, enjoying the views, the good food and the library (almost three books in two days!). Now I am looking for a quieter and, hopefully, more involved chapter of the trip. In the few days I am going to spend wherever I stop I doubt I am going to be really useful to anyone, but I hope to get to know some of the projects that are running far from the high spheres that I always hear associated with the same corrupted word…

If you ever go to Uganda

Bring your NEW dollars, year 2000 or more, with no trace of anything, no scratch, specially, not folded on the middle because they tend to get a tiny cut that you won’t see but they will find, just bring them as taken out of the oven, or they will be as useful as the monopoly notes. If they are new, they are accepted in many places, specially at the National Parks, which are the most expensive places around here. With other currencies you’ll have to get change at the bank. I don’t know if they are so picky there, I’ll let you know if I try. I would say they didn’t look at them so much when I got the first Schillings at the airport…

(someone told me this is a general issue around Africa)

Spanish tortilla

It’s been more than a week of this now, but I didn’t find the moment to put the picture before. It’s funny how in different parts of the world we tend to assign nationalities to dishes without giving much of a thought to whether they come from those places or not. It surprised me when I arrived to Uganda the fact that you can find Spanish omelette in every menu around here. It was even more surprising to find out that what they serve is what in Spain is called French omelette.

In any case, as it is already a tradition, wherever I go I end up making a real Spanish omelette o tortilla española. In this occasion it was a team work since there were two of us from Spain (the other two Spanish members of the crew had left already; 4 Spanish women and 1 German guy, we beat them in this game). We had to improvise quite a bit. The pan, thicker than usual for these affairs, worked pretty well and did not get stuck to the potatoes; the oil was not olive oil, of course, but that is a luxury anyway, so the sunflower seed oil counted as part of the original recipe. The fire, to focused on the center of the pan, almost burns our delicatessen; the plate… The plate was the most creative part of all. Do you remember those colorful stools from the 80’s that had some storage space inside? Well, the lid of one of those was the plate to turn the tortilla. The best of all was that, ones made, it was already on the table.

The dinner was Hispano-Nigerian, both in the people and in the dishes. Everything was delicious but, since I am not sure how to write the names of the African dishes, I prefer to leave the picture and avoid kicking one more language.

Wet party

This morning was amazingly sunny. It seemed as if they had called the sun in to make the Baganda King’s ceremony pretty. Everything was ready: tents, cake, drums, the pretty dresses… Everything was running smooth. The drums were playing and they took turns to sing. Someone sang real bad and if I were not sure that it had nothing to do with it, I would say he got the one up there controlling the tap angry. All the elephants and hippos of the savannah, my word. Rivers every where, waterfalls down the stairs, pools at the basketball court (location of the ceremony).

The drums never stopped, though, not even when the heal fell over the metallic roofs competing to be the main contribution to the soundtrack. Someone should set up a meteorological station here and study the phenomenon. The worst “cold drop” is nothing next to this spontaneous storms (and that’s a direct translation of a meteorological phenomenon that occurs every Fall in the area where I am from; basically, at the end of the summer the contrast between the temperature of the air and the sea causes the sky to fall apart in minutes, we get flooded – because even though it happens every year we are not prepared – and shortly after the summer is history and we can leave a most pleasant autumn and winter. That is, of course, if there have not been major problems for privileged us).

                                    

 

                 

 

Just moments later it was sunny, of course.

Now you see it, now you don’t see it

The course is over and we are finishing up packing and leaving everything ready for the KIU students to use it in their research projects. As Sadiq says, this is only the beginning. I really hope it is. This kids have a great potential apart from a lot of motivation and they deserve the opportunity to demonstrate what they are capable of.

After sleeping as much Sunday as I could, the week starts with the accumulated laundry, planning the visits of the next few weeks, switching my mind to trip to Africa mode. Before I leave the course completely behind – although I doubt I am going to be able to do so – I am leaving you here a few pictures of how it was and how it is now the stage where the play took place, knowing that everything will shortly find it’s more permanent location in the new research laboratory of the Western campus of KIU when the equipment that we brought joins the equipment for molecular biology that has already reached Monbasa. The beginning of a new era in this corner of the world…

                 

      

Some students working on their lab classes or their mini-projects.

   

All the material waiting on a bench to get ready to leave. Most of all this is staying and will be the foundations of the new research lab.