Hello...Life without Ammenities!!

Where to begin…as was the case in Kenya there is so much that happens in the first few days of arrival that I couldn’t possibly talk about it all. I’ll do my best to highlight the things I feel are most important. Before anything else, let me say though, that I love everything and have already learned so much! Overall, everyone is so nice, I really like the project, and life is very primitive, as I will get to, but it’s actually really nice to be in the middle of the forest without much…I’m sure by the end my opinion of this may change, but it’s refreshing for now. There are minor things here and there that are aggravating me and Alex, mostly in terms of expenses we are responsible for, but most of this is due to the fact that life in the field never goes the way you initially plan, and so you have to have plan B, plan C, plan AZ. Alex and I are trying to go with the flow on these things, but stand our ground on some things we think are unfair. I will not waste time talking about these minor irritants though, because the majority of my experience here, to date, has been very positive, and I think will only continue to be.

Let me bring everyone up to date on what I have been doing for the past several days. On Thursday we took the Post Office Bus to Masindi, it was about a 6 hour ride. Alex and I were absolutely exhausted, as we had only slept a few hours the night before. The hotel we stayed in had something in the beds that was making both of us itch terribly. We were afraid that it was bed bugs or something of the sort. Alex fix for this was to cover her pillow with a plastic shopping bag, to keep the bugs locked in the pillow and away from her face. Now this is a good plan, in theory. I, myself would prefer to sleep on the bugs as opposed to a dirty bag that had been all around Kampala, but this seemed to work for her, sort of, though we really just ended up not sleeping. And every time I tried to fall asleep, I’d hear her plastic bag crunching underneath her head. It was very amusing... I’m laughing hysterically just writing about it now. You probably had to be there to see the humor in it, but I think sleep deprivation made us both a little giddy that night as well, which made everything hysterical to us. We were able to perked up a bit, the next day though, and Alex and Josephine (one of the other volunteers) fought hard for 4 seats on the bus. It’s pretty much a mad dash for seats with elbows flying and lots of pushing…thankfully they were able to save 4 seats for us all, while Zinta (the woman we’re working for) and I loaded ALL our bags onto the bus. Once we arrived in Masindi we had lunch at a local hotel and then went shopping for some items we needed, after several hours we finally made our way out to the field site Zinta is working at, Sanso, had dinner and went straight to bed. Yesterday we slept in a bit and then met with Zinta to go over the data collection methods. After hearing, in more detail, what we will be doing, I am even more enthusiastic about the project and think it will be a profitable study…hopefully!

I got to see my first live chimp in the wild yesterday!! It was amazing…though my heart hasn’t been stolen away from the monkeys yet. We have blue monkeys, redtail monkeys, black and white colobus and baboons all living in the same forest as the chimps, and I found myself drawn to them a lot more than the chimps. I’m passionate still about what I’m doing here, but I think I just might be a monkey girl, as opposed to an ape girl (hahaha, I know you’re all laughing at that), we’ll see by the end of this experience though.

We heard the chimps screaming in camp while we were going over the data collection. While Zinta spoke with a woman and we had a break, we walked up the trail a bit to see if the chimps were on the edge of the forest. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed in the forest yet. The Budongo Forest Project has a rule that people have to be quarantined for 5 days before they can enter the forest with the chimps. This precaution is to make sure the people acclimate to the new environment here and don’t get sick. Thankfully by tomorrow we have past that time and none of us are sick yet! Alex, Josephine and I walked up the trail a bit and there they were, 3 of them peacefully feeding in a tree. We all crouched down and watched them for awhile. The rest of the group, still in the forest, began screeching again and the 3 we were watching all started screaming back and jumping in the trees, it was really incredible to watch.

Today (Saturday) has been a pretty relaxing day. Alex and I have mostly sat around all day talking, which has been nice as we have been running around and moving every night since we got here. We had the opportunity to go out to our field site today though, to see it and what supplies are there so we know what we need to purchase. As I mentioned briefly in one of my emails, it is a very, very basic set up. We have 2 cement huts with no electricity or running water, an outhouse toilet, that doesn’t flush, and bucket showers. However, our camp is in the middle of this beautiful forest, with not much else around. It is so beautiful and quiet, very relaxing. I’m sure Alex and I are going to get bored at times, but overall I think we’re going to really enjoy our time there. Unfortunately right now the roofs are all leaking on all of the huts and we are just starting to enter the rainy season, which is not good. The roofs are supposed to be fixed sometime before September 17th, which probably actually means they won’t be fixed before we leave. Alex and I are not too happy about this, especially since we have to pay rent to live in a non-functioning place, but we’re going to see what we can negotiate because of this, also taking into consideration when the roof actually gets fixed. The leaking roofs and the fact that it is going to be pretty difficult for us to get food (there’s no villages close by and we have no vehicle) may make the living experience more difficult and unpleasant than we perceive at the moment, but we’ll have to see. Overall, we are very excited and cannot wait to arrive at the site on Monday and finally settle a bit.

This is a lot for now, so I will leave you all with this and will write again when I can. Please be patient as I the lack of electricity and our physical distance from internet will make it very difficult for me to be in touch often. I’m doing really well though and hope everyone is also. Miss you!!

Good-Bye Again!!

I hope that everyone has a wonderful few months. I will be in touch as soon as I can with an update on my journey to Uganda. I'll send information on my phone number and address then as well.

I'm going to miss everyone so much! However, it's time for, as Mike put's it..."take 2" of my journey to Africa. Hopefully this trip will turn out better than Kenya!!

Will write more soon. Good-bye!!!!