Photos: from top ...Here's looking at you Cousin Chimp ... Bicycles transport bananas and everything else ...tea plantations are soooo greeen ....Blind adults receiving instructions on use of new white canes from Marilyn ... our treehouse in the jungle ... a happy Ruth-in-a-treehouse'Til we meet again is how I prefer to think of it; my hope is to return to Gulu next year to pick up on the incomplete projects, to renew friendships that have meant the world to me over the last eight months, and of course to hug the precious babies and older children with whom I lived at St. Jude's Childrens Home.
Leaving was a painful decision but a logical one, with the timing partly determined by travels I had committed to with my friend from Texas, Marilyn. This amazing woman, who happens to be blind, is a full-time high school teacher and a doctoral candidate and yet she is constantly getting involved in new pursuits --this time to volunteer in Uganda. She wanted to share her knowledge and experience of blindness with the neglected and misunderstood disabled community in and around Gulu. Marilyn and her good friend from Dallas, Sandra, arrived the first week of June, bringing a supply of special white canes. We proceeded to distribute them and Marilyn presented several trainings for their use. In a three-week whirlwind of activity, Marilyn met with various groups of blind adults and children, their caregivers, and educators -- especially special needs teachers -- discussing both physical and emotional health and even teaching the basics of computer software for use by blind persons. She accomplished so much in a short time and I was pleased to participate and to help coordinate her schedule. She is an inspiration to many -- and I'm one of her biggest fans.
But then it was travel time. Before she came, Marilyn and I had impulsively picked two places on each of our lists of 'places to see before I die' -- Egypt and Morocco. After the tickets were bought I began to realize the impact --how impractical it would be for me to be in far north africa and then return to distant Uganda for what would only be a short time anyway, given the need to use my return air ticket no later than mid October. So the sad goodbyes were put into motion even though it felt premature.
Of course we couldn't leave Uganda without seeing more of this diverse, rugged country. With friend Bill, a Peace Corps volunteer in Gulu, and Stephen, the Ugandan driver for St. Jude's , we set out in a car Stephen had located for us which was itself a huge luxury compared to the bus travel I was accustomed to; we wanted the car so as to have flexibility once we reached the area beyond public transport. After an overnight visit with son Daniel in Kampala, we continued toward southwest Uganda, which is luxuriantly tropical and home to most of Uganda's national parks including the famed Bwindi with its gorilla tracking (budget prohibited our doing the gorilla chasing even if we chose to; the cost is now upwards of US $600 for the permit and guide and in some cases the walk to find them is physically very demanding). Our main destination was the Kibale National Park area, also heavily populated with primates. We were headed for the Chimps Nest lodge and its -- drum roll -- treehouse where we would sleep overlooking the rainforest and with hopes that the few elephants in Kibale might choose to stroll nearby during the night. (apparently sometimes they do, but we were not so lucky). Sleeping (if not actually living) in a treehouse has been on my bucket list for awhile so I was glad my travel partners also saw it as an adventure. It was. Built of natural products around an actual tree, some 20 feet up in the green canopy , it had a deck from which I could reach out and touch leaves, look birds eye to eye, and gaze down upon the lushness while watching for baboons and chimps. And to reach the treehouse, we had to walk through the forest about 10 minutes away from the lodge headquarters and regular bandas (cottages) --all part of the adventure and so tranquil.
Bill and I did the official chimp trek, sad that Marilyn wasn't feeling well enough to go (yes, intestinal disturbances show no respect). I had chosen this activity as one Marilyn could enjoy -- without actually seeing the chimps, she would definitely hear their loud hooting and hollering and would be out in the forest. We left her under the watchful eye of a lodge staff person and set off. We were a small group -- two Ugandan couples, Bill and me -- and our guide knew exactly where to take us to find the chimp families as he had already tracked them down for another group earlier in the day. It was fun to see these cousins of ours lazing about in the sun, napping, grooming each other or flirting with each other -- and only about 25 feet away. We probably could have gone closer without bothering them, but the guide had to be cautious and follow rules. The darkness under the canopy made photography challenging, for me anyway, and I didn't wind up with any good pictures, just good memories. (But I got copies of Bill's good photos!!)
The big excitement at Chimp's Nest was defnitely not a happy ending for Marilyn. Our treehouse was multi-level, with the bathroom being some dozen or so steps down via a narrow, winding, open stairwell from the level where we slept. With her usual quickness in memorizing the lay-of-the-land, Marilyn had been maneuvering the steps just fine -- even the steep ones for climbing up to the treehouse. But on the second night there, somewhere around 3 a.m. I was awakened by a blood-curdling scream (as they say, and if any scream can curdle blood I have no doubt this one could). It came from below and my immediate panic was that Marilyn had fallen down the stairs. Because I'm about half-deaf and don't sleep with a hearing aid, I could not make out what she was saying. It was pitch black, which doesn't bother her a bit but greatly disables me. When I finally groped around and found my flash light (and by now Bill has arrived to help) and made my own fumbling way down the scary steps I found Marilyn standing in the bathroom, slightly panicked and trying to figure out what had attacked her. She held out her hand for me to see and sure enough there was blood oozing from several small puncture marks on her finger. She explained that while doing what she'd gone to the bathroom to do, she suddenly felt a bite on her hand. She had tried to shake it off -- whatever 'it' was -- but when that was unsuccessful she had used her other hand and literally pulled the 'it' off. We barraged her with questions. Was it feathered, fuzzy, sleek? How big? What did she hear? Marilyn is more alert than most of us to all kinds of sensory input and to remembering details so it was possible to rule out pretty well the most obvious suspects. Because of how she had grasped it with her cupped hand, she could say it wasn't a snake, it didn't feel big enough to be a bat or a rat, it was more like a hard shelled flying thing, she thought. And whatever it was had made a quick escape with the open window appearing to be a likely way out -- not to rule out a few cracks in the wood flooring, but don't forget we're about 20 feet above ground level. After a fitful night and nightmares for poor Marilyn we awoke to find her hand was swollen but not enormous and was beginning to show blue bruise marks. We had fortunately met a young female physician during our chimp trek who had even come back to the lodge to give Marilyn a free consult about her 'tummy' problems and now we phoned the very kind and helpful doctor to ask for advice. Her questioning ruled out that it was poisonous (or we would have known by now) and cast doubt that it was any of the common rabies carriers. So we were told to continue the antibiotics she was already taking and to see a doctor if anything got worse. Story to be continued, back in Kampala.
The attack put a damper on planned activities, as did the extreme bumpiness of the roads which jarred sensitive 'tummies' and it took what seemed to be forever to travel short distances. So we didn't get quite far enough south to get our photo standing "on" the Equator, didn't visit the nearby hot springs (after finding out you can't go in and soak yourself because the water is boiling) or the cave, or take the cultural tours with music and traditional medicine. And it proved to be a little too far to visit the Pgymy village, while we were still debating whether it was a good thing to go and support them financially in the tourism-gawking that is their only ready source of income after being displaced from their own territory and discriminated against, or to refuse on principle to participate in something so culturally insensitive as to make their physical size a sightseeing destination.
Scenery in this entire area of Uganda was beautiful, with a decidedly more tropical look than northern Uganda. We saw one of the several large lakes (volcanic?) and a wetland sanctuary that is a major site for birding. We learned a few things about local floral and fauna from the friendly 'docent' at a small education center where we got to handle things like baboon skulls and and hear about the environmental protection program, trying to teach people to plant fast-growing trees on their land, to make up for so many trees that are burned daily for firewood and charcoal. On the drive back to Kampala we enjoyed the incredibly-green tea plantations, laid out in such careful-but-artistic shapes on the hillsides along the main road. We stopped to picnic at the same spot where we had stopped on the way out, where our presence sitting on the grass under a tree had attracted a gathering of children across the road whose entertainment it was to stare at us and wonder why we were there.
Back in Kampala, we consulted with Daniel's doctor friend, Ian, who felt rabies risk was small but not something to ignore. Next, a visit to The Surgery, the favorite clinic of ex-pats living in Kampala, brought a similar, cautious recommendation: Since there's no way to know what bit Marilyn, she should begin a rabies-prevention series of injections. Not good news for someone who has a needle phobia and who, like most of us, has heard horror stories about painful, awful rabies injections. What we have learned is that modern medicine has greatly improved the treatment so that painful injections into the abdomen are usually no longer needed, only a prick on the arm. It's a series of four, specifically spaced out for day one, day four, day (I forget but it fell while we were in Egypt and that' s a whole other story) and then day 18 ? or 20? .. anyway after she would be back in the U.S.
Marilyn and I spent our last few days in Uganda lolling around and enjoying Daniel's hospitality and his beautiful home and grounds. We had time to get a local tailor to sew our Africa print skirts, make some further travel plans, and before we knew it we were off and away to Entebbe Airport for our 2 a.m. check-in for our flight to Cairo. Adieu, Uganda. I'm so thankful I got to know you.
