And...boom goes the dynamite

Due to popular demand here are the pictures you have been waiting for. As we said during the chimp tracking our pants had to be tucked into our socks since the fire ants are very quick to run up your leg. Kristen was the only one prepared but only had two pairs of socks (I was unaware of the nimble ant epidemic). I choose the more ridiculous of the pair, I figured I might as well go out guns blazing! Mike and MK had to purchased socks that...well let's just say they won't be wearing them again. Sorry we didn't take a picture of Kristen's socks but they were hers so it wasn't as funny.

MONKEYS!!!!!

As my handle infers, I LOVE Monkeys! So I've been lucky enough to be given the chance to report to you on our third day of Safari, Chimpanzee Tracking.
We starting with another early morning call at 6am, inhaled a quick breakfast, chugged our boiling tea/coffee and ran down to catch our ride to the 7am Ferry crossing back over the Nile. Thank goodness that 'Africa' time allows for a 5-10 minute buffer for all events, because due to issues the hotel was having in the morning providing us with our boxed lunches, we are running late and cutting it close!
We RACED along the bumpy road to Kaniyo Pabidi in the Budongo Forest, the wild Chimpanzee Sanctuary started by Jane Goodall. This is different from Ngamba Island (also a Jane Goodall Institute Sanctuary) because in the Budongo Forest there are no cages, no fences and no barriers between you and these amazing creatures.
Because we were going off into the woods and the red ants can be very bitey, we all had to wear tall socks, with our pants tucked into them (therefore keeping the socks fully exposed the entire time). I had brought two pairs with me on our trip. Chuck ended up borrowing my lovely striped pair. Mike and MK had to purchase socks there at the base camp, unfortunately, the only socks they sold were covered in butterflies, and birds and various other woodland creatures in lovely pinks and teals and yellows. To protect the innocent, those pictures have not been posted to this blog, however if you ask nice, I can show you when we get home!
Our guide Eva led the four of us into the forest, Mama Conche stayed back at the base cabin and made friends with the staff and other visitors (she had planned to continue reading her book, Freakanomics, but was far too social to even read one word of it). As we began our walk, Eva told us that it is not just the guides responsibility to track the chimps, but ours as well. We were to look at the ground for scraps of figs that the Chimps had just eaten, or for knuckle prints from them running through the woods. We were also told to smell the air for a very pungent scent the Chimps give off, and to listen for the sounds they make, ranging from their very deep grunts to the high pitched screams, and the swayed of the branches at they moved from tree to tree. We were all certain we kept hearing the chimps, but it turned out each time that they were just birds, or the black and white colobus monkey. Eva assured us that when we actually heard the Chimps, we would know, and how right she was... the sound was almost deafening! I cannot even begin to describe to you the sheer volume that these mammals put out, but whatever you are imagining, multiply it by ten, and that is what we experienced.
We continued to follow the noises they made until we spotted our first Chimp. She was alone, but quickly jumped down from her perch and led us to the direction of the others (she was pretty slick however, and ditched us at a turn). We continued through the woods (rarely staying on the few paths than run through) until we found the group. There are numerous groups that make up the community of Chimpanzees in this section of the Budongo forest, each having between 6 and 15 chimps per group. The group we came across have about 13 or so. To our luck, they were so loud because they had just trapped and killed a colobus and they were fighting over it. The colobus monkey is the ONLY one that they will eat, and they were certainly excited about this one. The alpha male of the group had taken the meat high up into the tree, and the remainder of the chimps hung around in the surrounding trees, waiting to get their share. One particularly entertaining chimp decided just to lounge back and watch this all take place, completely unconcerned with the possibility of getting a share for himself. Our guide was great, she took us directly underneath where the chimps were eating and fighting over the meat. A few minutes later, we hear crashes noises and whoops and screams coming from another part of the forest. As the Chimps dropped to the ground you hear a loud thumping noise, sounding like the beating of a drum. Another group of chimps had heard that the group we were watching had meat, and was coming in to get a piece of the action, and there we were, standing right in the middle of the excitement. A few seconds later, the meat fell to the ground, and about 10 chimps bounded from the trees, to the ground to go after it, and ran off! It was unbelieveable, to be right there, in the midst of it all with them. And how gracious they were to let us be a part of their environment. They are absolutely amazing. We wandered around for a few more minutes, tracked a couple other chimps/groups, and then headed back to meet up with Mama Conche, who had thoroughly enjoyed herself perhaps as much as we did!
Back on the road again, we headed to the town of Misindi, ate our questionable boxed lunches, and returned to Kampala for the evening, where Mama Maria was already at the house, cooking her famous chicken dinner for us and several other members of the family who came by to see how our adventure had gone. What a great way to wrap up an incredible adventure!

Nile Boat Safari

After lunch in the lodge, we met our driver outside and he drove us down to the dock to meet the boat for our boat ride to Murchison Falls. As we parked, we caught a glimpse of a family of baboons jumping into the back of a parked pick up truck and grabbing a bag of trash. We drove up to get a better look - the male baboon sorted through the empty food containers to see if there was anything worth eating. He passed on the empty Heineken can but it was pretty wild to witness his dexterity as he open up crumpled bunches of tin foil and check everything out.

Our driver was great and knew where to place us so that we would be first in line. We got great seats in the shade (so our our fairer skinned companions could be shaded from the equatorial sun) as the boat loaded up with over 40 other passengers. On the ride up the river, we saw tons of hippos and crocodiles, as well as dozens of different species of birds, all beautiful, such as the kingfisher and Ugandan crested crane. We motored past groups of hippos wallowing by the banks and saw a few baby hippos too. Crocodiles basked in the sun with their mouths wide open to cool off...towards the end we pasted a group of at least 10 crocs hanging out together. At the end of the ride, we reached Murchison Falls, where the Nile is forced through a very narrow rock passage, making for a dramatic view. After the boat ride, we got back to the lodge, enjoyed a nice happy hour with mom, dinner and then packed up to head out early the next day for chimp tracking.

Our Morning Game Drive

After the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary, we arrived at Paraa Safari Lodge in Murchison Falls National Park, settled into our rooms, and ate dinner on the outside patio overlooking the Nile River. While getting ready for dinner, we heard children in the next door rooms whooping and hollering...when went out on our balcony there was a big baboon right below us. I went back in to change, and went back out a few minutes later in response to even louder excitement: the baboon was walking along the balcony railing of Chuck and Kristen's and Mama Conche's rooms!

After dinner we watched a group of musicians and dancers around a bonfire outside. I don't know how it happened but Kristen and I were pulled up from our front row seats to join them! And thankfully Chuck recorded the whole thing on video (it was actually really fun). We requested "wake up knocks" at 6:00AM for the next morning then went to bed. In the AM we grabbed breakfast, then hopped into our mega Land Cruiser by 6:45. The sun was just rising - our guide told us that the sun rises very quickly here and he was so right - in the blink of an eye the sun was shining above our heads. Mama Conche opted to relax at Paraa while we went out on our drive and got a lot of reading in while we were out.

Our 4 hour game drive took us all over the park and we saw TONS of animals. There were just so many antelope-type animals: Ugandan kob, oribi, bushbuck, waterbuck, Jacksons hartebeest, topi and more. Then came the big game - herds of water buffalo, African elephants, and giraffes. Oh yeah and tons of warthogs, guinea fowl, and a bazillion different types of other birds. When we stopped to observe a group of kobs, we noticed a very small baby whose legs were a little wobbly still. Our guide told us that it was probably only a few hours old!

Our Land Cruiser, driver and guide were great. The top of our Cruiser popped up so we stood up pretty much the whole time while we drove all around. We drove past Lake Albert and saw the Democratic Republic of Congo across the way. But unfortunately we didn't find any lions - Murchison has an estimated 150 lions, but they had gone to a part of the park without roads so we couldn't see them. Oh well - next time. :)

After returning to our hotel, we took very much needed showers, ate lunch, then headed down to our boat ride on the Nile!

White Rhino

Keeping it simple...here are some pictures from our three day trip up north to view the White Rhino (more grey than white), go on a game drive and water launch then we did some monkey tracking.

We observed the white rhino without fences after walking through the brush for about ten minutes. There are a total of six rhino in the sanctuary but we only observed three. They respond to commands by name and were very well behaved. We only got within 30 yards of them before two of our group decided that was close enough...I won't name names, but one of them was Mom and the other wasn't one of the girls. It was amazing to be that close to the rhino, especially without fences.

Living in the life of luxury...

Last night, MK and I cooked dinner for the family. Not sure if we could find the ingredients in Uganda to cook a delicious Italian-American dinner, we headed to Garden City (the shopping center in Kampala) in anticipation... what did we find there, just about everything we needed... Mozzarella and Ricotta for Baked Ziti; Pesto, Chicken Breasts (thank goodness we didn't have to slaughter our own chickens), Zucchini, Peppers and mushrooms for MK's amazing Chicken Parmesan, and pears and Gorgonzola for our 'salad' (we can't eat lettuce here), that we topped with dried gooseberries (so delicious, they taste like candy)! So as you can see, their stores have expanded significantly since the last time the guys were here, and we are eating very well!
Everyone enjoyed the meal and we had a great time making it!
This morning, Chuck and I went to Jengo Pre-school with Mama Conche to meet the teachers for their first day back at work. We brought all of the classroom decorations and toys that we brought for the children. It was great to see Mama Conche at work with her staff, and it sounds like she has a great year planned ahead for the children. They will have 4 seperate classes this year: Playgroup (18.5mos-2.5yrs), Toddler (2.5yrs-4yrs), Middle (4-5yrs), and Top-Class (5-6yrs). The teachers still have a lot of work to do before the rooms are ready for class to start on 3 Feb, and the carpenter has to finish building the fourth classroom (last year there were only three).
Mid-day we came back to the house to find Mike sleeping (finally) and MK reading. We decided this was an excellent plan and joined in. I fell asleep reading on the back porch, while Mike, Chuck and MK continued reading (Chuck is now on book #3).
We are heading to Murchison Falls tomorrow for our Safari for three days. Again, living in luxury, we are staying at a Five Star Resort with an enormous swimming pool, and air conditioning. Haha, it almost seems like cheating! We will start the day off tomorrow at 730am when our driver arrives at the house, from there we will head to see the White Rhino santuary, then continue on to the resort for the night. The next morning at 6am we get up and go for our game drive and boat ride, the third day, as we make our way back to Kampala, we will stop off for chimp tracking (YAY! MONKEYS!) For all of those nervous parents out there (Mom), Mama Conche called the embassy and they assured us it is 100% safe for us to be there.
Well, I can smell the garlic coming out of the kitchen, indicating that Mama Conche has dinner almost ready for us.
Stay tuned for incredible photos when we return from our trip on Monday!

Kisubi!!!

Yesterday was our trek out to Kisubi, the village between Entebbe and Kampala where our mother grew up. The Jjengos own a lot of land there and many of our family still lives there in the village. We stopped by the house of our aunt, Mama Fina, the first house in line and we said hi to her. She was busy preparing for the school year, as she owns and runs a school nearby.
Next was on to Kojja (uncle) Fau's house where we said hello to two of his sons, Moses and Mike. We spoke with them briefly before hopping next door to mom's farm. Mom is trying to start a demonstration farm where people can come and learn how to plant and grow a farm. This farm has banana trees, jack fruit, oranges, and po-po (papaya). She hopes that the farm will be self-sufficient someday, but for now, we are enjoying the banana's and po-po's daily!
After the farm, we visited mom's family house where she and the rest of her 1o brothers and sisters grew up. Chuck and I had been here before (both on our visits in '87 and '01), and the one thing we miss the most is the giant tree in the front yard. The tree is now dead (it is picture below in the artsy blog entry), but it used to be the greatest tree for climbing. You could climb to the top and just look all around the area. It is missed.
After taking some pictures out front, we walked around the back of the house to pay our respects to the family graves. The plot in the back is where some of my mom's brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews and parents are buried.
After the family home, we went on to visit an orphanage down the road. There we met some of the 45 children that live there. The orphanage is Catholic owned and is run by a nun, Sister Rose. The orphanage is located right on Lake Victoria and they grow pineapples on their land hoping to make the orphanage self-sufficient.
Our last stop on our trip to Kisubi was to stop by the house that we stayed in when we came to Uganda in 1987. Dad, do you recognize the house?

Down time

So while it appears that every day spent here is an adventure, traveling between Kampala, Kisubi, Garden City and Entebbe, seeing the sites and sounds and meeting people, we actually do have a lot of down time. In that downtime we have taken to sitting in mom's back patio in relaxing chairs. It is hard to describe how gorgeous the view is from mom's hill or the surrounding hills and valleys. The weather is cool in the shade and toasty in the sun, with some of the most dramatic storm clouds passing over us, and occasionally opening up. In this time outside, we have taken to reading...and the speed at which some of us consume words is staggering. Chuck is almost finished with his second book and Kristen is well into her second as well. Mike is only halfway finished with his first book, as is true with Mary Kay. At whatever speed we are reading, we all enjoy the quiet relaxation of reading...

Chuck's camera gets Artsy!!!!

I just wanted to show everybody some really cool pictures that we have taken over the last week. All but I contributed to these spectacular pictures. Please vote for your favorite picture on the poll to the right!!!!

Inauguration Day!!!

Well, if you guys haven't figured this out yet, we are a bit behind on our blogging and we are attempting to catch up. Hopefully by the end of today we will have updated you on what is going on in the Pearl of Africa.

We spent Inauguration Day running errands around town and seeing more of Kampala. In the afternoon we arrived at mom's friend Lynne's house to party. Lynne used to work for Mom through the Peace Corps; now she works for the US Embassy here in Uganda and is provided a very nice 4 bedroom house (at least - maybe even more bedrooms!). Mom and Kristen planned the menu and brought all the food: Obama 'bobs, Malia Macaroni (pasta salad), Democratic Dogs (hot dogs), Barack BBQ (BBQ chicken) and for dessert, "I Can't Believe Our President's Chocolate Cheesecake!". It was a lot of fun and and the food was delicious!

The folks at the party were mostly non-Ugandans: a few Germans, a few Brits, a bunch of Americans, and a few Ugandans too. We couldn't believe the crowds on the National Mall! Really astounding. We watched the whole ceremony and most of the parade through the Armed Forces Network (which was interesting in and of itself - all the commercials were for military people). During the ceremony, we Americans stood at the the appropriate parts, and we all cheered and high-fived when Obama finished swearing in.

We stayed over at Lynne's, and when we awoke in the morning, we turned on the TV to find the Obamas still party hoping from Ball to Ball. It was a strange experience getting a full night's sleep and knowing that you guys were still up partying (you better have been!). I hope you guys in DC - and outside of DC - had a great time celebrating. (Dad and Sue - I hope you've recovered from your hangover by now).