Week 11: Gorillas in the Mist

Every third step I took, a different cramp. My right calf. My left thigh. And so on…after 7 hours of hiking – the last 4 up a steep mountain – I collapsed back at our starting point. But it was all worth it – a chance to see mankind’s closest relative, the mountain gorilla. The mountain gorilla is on the verge of extinction, with only 706 remaining as of 2003 – all of which reside in Uganda, Rwanda, and the DRC. I was ecstatic that I was able to get a permit since only 32 are available each day and they are normally booked 3 months in advance. But it just so happened there was a cancellation last weekend, so I rushed to book it and headed to the south western part of Uganda, where the country runs into Rwanda and Congo (the DRC).

The drive over on Friday, through an area known as the Switzerland of Africa, was really part of the experience. The terrible dirt roads did nothing to take away from the splendid views, starting with lush fields filled with banana trees to mountains stripped and terraced for farming and, finally, to where we could seethe purple volcanoes of Rwanda and the Congo in the haze a few kilometres away:

The actual hike was on Saturday, a day which began with an even more spectacular (and equally bumpy) drive through mountains covered in fog (I can see where the title Gorillas in the Mist comes from!). After 2 hours, we reached the starting point for the gorilla trek. At around 8 am, we began descending into the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, pushing on for about 2 hours to where the gorillas had been spotted by the tracking team (which goes ahead earlier in the morning so we know which way to hike). It was eerily quiet the whole way when, all of a sudden, we heard some crackling of tree branches. Within a few seconds, they began emerging. One gorilla. Two. A mother and her baby. The mammoth silverback. We watched in amazement as they passed within 2 feet of us, paying no heed – well, except the baby which was watching us with some curiosity.

At this point, the gorillas were on the move to find some food, so we let them pass and then continued to hang out with them while the ate, played, and in some cases, rested. I was shocked by how human they are (they share 98% of our DNA makeup). A twelve year old gorilla was lying there with his head perched on his hand, which he would occasionally bring to his mouth to nibble on his finger. In the background, we heard another gorilla let go a really, really, really long fart. Meanwhile, the baby would shake the trees and look at us with a big smile on his face while the silverback ate leaves and watched us. I think the silverback may have been playing a game with me because he would keep ducking his head to where I couldn’t see him, and then would sit up and look right at me – over and over. It was a sight I will never forget and one that passed by in what felt like 5 minutes (though it was over an hour – the maximum permitted as a measure to protect the few remaining gorillas). Our visit ended with all the gorillas – except the baby – resting. The baby was busy making faces and keeping us entertained, when we sadly had to leave him to go back.

With the hike finished, I downed about a gallon of water before we drove back a slightly different route alongside a magnificent, island dotted body of water, called Lake Bunyoni. We finished the day in the lakeside town of Kabale, where I stayed overnight on the lake before heading back to Jinja on Sunday. A ton of driving (13 hours each way), but well, well worth it. In fact, the drive is a huge part of the experience, and while you can fly in, I would advise against that because it would take away part of the charm that is the gorilla trek!

Peek-a-boo:

Week 10: Rainy season ends in June, right?

Just when I thought the rains were over here -- and the rainy season used to always end in June -- they struck in full force.

This past Thursday, my co-worker Eunice -- I think she may be bad luck when it comes to rain:) -- and I had a business administration training to conduct in the village of Kinogoga. Our problems started when Eunice got delayed in Kampala. We were supposed to hold the session at 2:30, but Eunice didn’t make it to the office until 3:30. So as soon as she arrived, we rushed to order a special hire (basically a taxi) and started to make our way out to Kinogoga, where we had been once before. The place we were going is a quite a ways off the main road and, not surprisingly, we got lost. This was despite the fact that, as we were delayed, the pastor who is in charge of the women’s group we would be training had decided to come to the main road and make sure we got there ok. But there was one problem. I was sitting in the back seat, and he didn’t realize it was us in the car driving by him until after we had passed by and he saw my now quite lengthy hair from behind. So he sent a motorcycle to chase after us and guide us back to our meeting place by 4:15.

So fast forward about an hour and a half…we’re going through our training materials and have about 10 minutes to go when all of a sudden the skies let loose. Now, the place we were training had a tin roof, so it basically sounded like rounds of gunfire were going off around us. The pastor quickly informed us that we should probably get going because otherwise the roads would be unpassable due to the flooding. But as we were so close to finishing, Eunice and I rushed through the last few minutes by basically yelling over the pounding shots of rain. We then hurried out and made it back to the office safe and sound – at which point I realized that, contrary to my belief that he had held on to the directions, my co-worker Ali had given them to me and I had stuffed them in my pocket in our rush to leave! Oops.

This week actually was a lot of fun, but I do have to mention my first real bug encounter. Well, aside from a Botswanan flying cockroach bouncing off my chest during lunch one day.. Anyways, so I woke up on Tuesday and opened my eyes to see, chilling on the outside of my mosquito net not 6 inches from my face, a giant cockroach. Now, I’d seen plenty of roaches around the house, as well as some mice at the gas station where we check internet, but needless to say, I am now tucking in my mosquito net as tightly as I can! That said, my story definitely pales in comparison to another intern’s from the same day. So Maureen gets back from work on Tuesday and decides to go for a bath. Sounds like a good plan, but for one problem – a giant rat is staring at her as she enters the bathroom, at which point she calmly reversed course and sought out her host sister for assistance. I think some things, no matter how long you are in Africa, you will never get used to, but she handled it quite well!

Anyways, hard to believe I have just 2 weeks remaining in Uganda...it has really been an amazing, eye-opening experience and I am definitely going to miss the people and the lifestyle here...but I suppose I'll have more to say about that in a few weeks time!

Week 9: Affecting Government Policy

OK -- so the title may be a bit of an exaggeriation. But we were sitting Thursday with one of OGLM's donors when OGLM's director, Chris, mentioned that based on a conversation he had with me, the Ministry of Microfinance in Uganda agreed to allow the recipients of their grant funding to charge interest and that my ideas would be appearing in the paper in the next few weeks. I don't think my name will be there, but hey, the ideas still count for something! Basically, what happened was, when I arrived, OGLM was planning to offer zero-interest loans in line with the government's policy. But I urged them to reconsider by putting together an Excel spreadsheet that showed how unsustainable a zero interest policy would be. With inflation at 8% and defaults and operating costs also chipping away at the seed grant, in 10 years time, there would remain just $15,000 of the orginal $150,000 fund. So Chris spoke to his contact in the Ministry, and the Ministry agreed that charging interest made a lot of sense!

The trainings also continue to go very well -- my favorite part has to be with the grannies and women's groups at the end of each session. If they like what they learned, they have a huge dance and sing along. So last Thursday my supervisor Henry and I were dancing with 70 older women as they sang songs! Very cool...so far we have trained about 170 people on savings and are moving on to business administration training soon.

Grannies dancing:

So to continue with a topic a few weeks ago about the people, I have to describe my homestay family. This weekend, for the first time, everyone was home. Before that, Agnes, the mother, was studying for a masters at Makarere in Kampala, so she and her 1 year old were there until now. Agnes is really nice, and the daughter Mercy is adorable. She was very wary of me at first but now comes up to me with a soccer ball as big as her and a smile from ear to ear as she tries tossing it to me. Peter, the homestay father, is really one of the smartest people I have ever met. He has had opportunities to work with the WHO and the UN but is aiming at bigger and better things. In addition to being a doctor, he is working in public health, pursuing a PhD and frequently writing in the national papers. I hope he comes to NY so you guys can all meet him. I mentioned Ben, Peter's brother, earlier -- we are still hanging out a lot, and now Peter's nephew Moses is around as well. Moses is studying agriculture and is such a happy go lucky guy. He is alway laughing at my attempts to speak Lusoga:) and is a great cook on top of that.

And I should also talk a bit more about our coordiators, who I mentioned briefly before. Jen is from Canada but has worked in Mexico, South Korea, Japan, the Gambia, and Uganda as well...she is really cool to hang out with and also was instrumental in my securing grant funding (my grant proposal was successful!). Berna is also a lot of fun -- she is Ugandan but also lived in Scotland around the same time I did. So she has this ability to transition between the Western and African world seamlessly...so when we do something dumb, she's always quick to point it out;).

Week 8: Half way there

So it is pouring rain outside and I find myself in the village of Kamuli, an hour and a half north of Jinja. We (my coworker Eunice and I) have just finished a training session on savings for 37 grannies who are taking care of HIV/AIDS orphans. We are eager to make it back home, but the path to the main road where we get the public taxi (a matatu) has turned into a river of red mud. So we have to call a bike to take us to the road...and that's where the adventure begins. After 30 minutes, only one bike shows up, so we both hop onto the back of it and are crawling along at a snails pace when, sure enough, one puddle gets the better of our bike and we start to capsize. Luckily, it happens so slowly that we are able to jump off just as the bike falls into the mudpuddle.

And fortunately, that story ended just fine when we got back to Jinja 3 hours later relatively mud-free after riding in a 14-person taxi crammed full with 22 people. A taste of life in Africa:). Work here is actually going really well though. I have begun both the staff and community trainings and the evaluations are coming in really strong. It's exciting to be off and running. The staff training so far has focused on structuring a microfinance program while the community trainings are on basic savings. In the coming weeks, I will be training the staff on starting and administering a microfinance program and training the community on business administration. So wish me luck! It's amazing how fast time is going here and there is so much to do in the remaining 3 and a half weeks.

Speaking of which, this is actually just past the half way point of my time in Uganda. I know this because we had our midterm retreat in an absolutely amazing area on the Uganda-Kenya border called Sipi Falls:
We stayed at a campsite with a view of the lowest falls, which tumble 300 feet over a cave. The higher falls are about 450 feet high and we had a chance to hike to where we could see them. Unfortunately, it was too cloudy to see much of one of the tallest mountains in Africa, Mount Elgon, which was about 50 miles away. But it was a great chance to catch up with the other interns and just relax (aside from the grueling hike:), and we had the added bonus of driving through Mbale, the site of the most recent Bond film, Casino Royale. And we actually got pictures of two kids fighting Bond-style...I thought it seemed appropriate (not to worry, they were just messing around).

Week 7: The People (and Whitewater Rafting)

Last I wrote, I mentioned that it was a great end to a great week. This week, it was a crazy end to a crazy week. That's because I got to catch up with two of the Columbia people I ran into briefly in Tanzania, Dan Yurt and Whitney Horsey-Sherin. They have been here in Jinja a few days volunteering with Soft Power, so this past weekend we got to catch up in the midst of their crazy travels. For some reason (namely poor planning) their itinerary started in South Africa, went up to Kenya, down to Tanzania, over to Spain, across to Greece, back down to Uganda, and up next to Italy. But regardless, it was great having them around. The highlight of our weekend hanging out together had to be whitewater rafting on the River Nile.

Rafting here is absolutely insane -- we went through 12 rapids, including 4 class 5s. The first and last rapids were waterfalls, but our boat only capsized once (in another class 5 called the G-Spot). The biggest highlight for me was on a rapid called 50-50 (50% of boats usually flip). Our boat was just about to flip on top of a rapid about 6 feet high when I found myself standing on top of the boat, which was more or less at a 45 degree angle, on top of this wave. Somehow I managed to surf for a few seconds until the boat settled back down...a total rush. Dan was also able to stay aboard though Whitney went for a swim! Another big highlight was a rapid called Overtime, where our raft went down backwards off a 10 foot waterfall. I really can't imagine rafting any better/crazier than this!

It's funny though -- I just realized that in my blogs so far, I've spent so little time talking about the most important part of my experience here so far: the people. So this time, I'll talk about my co-workers and fellow interns.

First, my co-workers, starting with my supervisor Henry. Henry is a great guy who is always so soft spoken, but occasionally, he comes up with an unbelieveably funny, inappropriate joke that cracks up the whole crowd. Then there is Ali, the resident playboy. My other co-workers say he has psychological powers that are the root of his success -- having seen him in action, I think it may be true. Eric is the resident jokester and news reporter. He somehow knows everything that is going on in everyone's life...even finding pictures from another intern's camera at an internet cafe and printing them out for everyone to see. Chris, the supervisor, is a crazy guy and generally the life of the post-work party. He comes from a really well off family and is doing NGO work because it is his passion. His wife Barbara also works at OGLM and is always on my case about trying to get married. I told her to give me a few years...

Then there are the other interns. Will, the only other guy, is a master guitarist and singer. Unfortunately, we don't see much of him because he is usually working till about 11 at night. Marion and Jennifer go to school together back home and are the resident party animals since their NGO also runs the big rafting campsite while Lauren from California started a trend of speaking with a strange British-ish accent that I and a few others unfortunately have picked up on even as she dropped it. So now she is always making fun of me -- I have no idea why we talk this way but I think it is an attempt to enunciate more so people understand us. Mary from Notre Dame lives on my side of the Nile, so I often get to hear stories of her crazy host family, while Lisa is a Whartonite who works Saturdays even though we don't have to. Finally, there is Maureen, who is always jetting off to one place or another so much so that we barely see her.

Aside from that, work is now in full gear, but I will save those details for next week!