I’ve been here in Uganda for a little over two weeks. I’m practically local. Well, in a pretend hypothetical world.
Yesterday I was walking the bright rust colored road to town and met a man named Patrick who knew a friend of mine. He explained to me he knew I couldn’t have lived in Africa long. I naively inquired how. To which he informed me I was the whitest "mazungo" he had ever seen. but not to worry because my skin would become as black as his if I stayed long enough.
It’s hard to believe it’s already February as I sweat through these sultry days in the high 80s 90s.
A couple days ago I went on Safari in south west Uganda on the Congolese border. The road from Mbarara (where I’m staying with Brent and Jen) was unreal. There were potholes in the red roads but nothing like the massive ones that swallow whole vehicles in Kazakhstan. There were six of us packed into the Toyota Corolla, which apparently is capable of fitting 11. Just how fitting 11 in that clown vehicle, aside from stuffing people in the trunk and halfway out the windows, is yet to be determined. We rode half sitting on each other’s laps a bit over 2 hours passing soft, rolling, green tea fields and banana plantations, and small villages before we reached the national park where we would begin yet another adventure. As we drove down from the hills knowing that we were now in the middle of the park I spotted something in the trees and actually swinging from tree to tree. I don’t think I could have kept quiet had I wanted to and out popped a loud "BABOONS!!!!!!" accompanied with a sweeping gesture and silly grin that I’m sure none of you have ever seen.
After that we spied some crazy looking birds, eagles, then some water buffalo, water buck and then warthogs and A BABY ELEPHANT! And we hadn’t even made it to the main gate. Brent, Jen and I ate lunch on top of this hill that overlooked a lake full of hippos and crocodiles. We sat under a tree and had warthog visitors. I read a sign that said "Leave the mongoose alone and they will leave you alone. Mess with the mongoose and they WILL bite. Rabies is a slow and painful way to die." On cue a possy of 10-15 mongoose raced by from under some bushes passed our tree and scuttled around the building. I admired them from a healthy distance. A stray elephant wandered into the camp. We watched wide eyed as she played with a tree and tried to squeeze into a makeshift kitchen. The woman who ran the café came out and scolded her. I couldn’t believe this was life here.
A huge lizard appeared from the bushes, green striped yellow and slunk around the edge of the bush; And started to make its way up toward us. I thought I’d practice my stealth and "stalk" the great "Gila Monster."…in case you didn't know, Monitor lizards are poisonous. apparently they bite like the dickens when cornered. I , unfortunately did not know this as i was "tracking" it down a hill here in the bush of Uganda. my gila monster was really a Monitor Lizard...I was tripped by a root that jumped out at me (also dangerous items) and tumbled a bit down the hill. that sort of scared him a bit and he took off running away from brent and jen. so basically i saved them. you might not see the correlation, but it's true. the thing was FAST. and a couple meters long. if i wasn't there to tumble he could have turned on them. i dont' have to justifiy this.so the moral of this story? come hang out with a jenna and she saves your life.yeah.
the safari:
We awoke before the sun rose, and were warned about the grazing hippos as we walked alone down the road. Apparently, though hippos are vegetarians, if you get between them and the water they will charge you and they will bite. They are considered the most dangerous animals in Africa, responsible for more deaths than any other animal. In the darkness I saw something in the shadows, but remained calm. And calmly switched places with Brent farther from the hidden hippo. J no worries. That day was amazing. We drove past a crater lake that had rings of salt as a tree has rings of age. We passed all sorts of animals waking to the morning sunrise, and then saw a lone hyena looking for his breakfast along the road. A HYENA! Wasn’t expecting that! We wound through the waterbuck mating grounds saw HUGE vultures and then everything was still. We stopped the truck and noticed that every animal out in the great field was still. Heads up, bodies poised, all were looking at something in the distance. After a few minutes we drove off over some small bumps and around a few bush clumps and came up on two male lions. Hakuna matata.
On the drive back through the park (which in no way felt like a park aside from our land rover skirting around bush and along the dusty track back to where we were staying) may have been my favorite part. Everyone else sat down, satisfied with the safari, already recounting the animals of the day, and naming animals they would have liked to have seen but didn’t. I remained standing and let the rush of the wind sooth my hair back and just grinned. My eyes tried to take it all in, tracing the valley, the shapes of the trees, the color of the sun burnt grasses and the contour of the water buck and water buffalo of which we had already seen so many, but were still amazing to me. I could not feel anything but full.
How had I gotten so lucky as to deserve to see all of this? Africa, Uganda, these special wilds. It seemed a lot like church out there, alone on top of the vehicle skimming across the land. Not church in the organized religion sense, but in a deeper, quite reverent way.
Green -Green meets dirt-brown and clay-orange
Bright teeth and smiles on dark skin and troubled pasts
I’m in the middle of something almost incomprehensible. Penury of wealth and no dearth of beauty this place is filled with something special.
