Last post from Africa!

I've been sort of busy in the last few days and also lazy, so I
haven't had time to post. Which means I have to talk about rafting
the Nile River, the Murchison Falls Discount Safari, my trip to the
equator, and leaving!

Last Saturday, over a week ago (!), I went with another volunteer to
raft the Nile River. We hit up to class five rapids and the last
class five, called The Bad Place, had me thinking I might drown for
a few seconds, but it was a thrill. The crew in my raft was great,
mostly British and then an Irish brother and sister (the brother, on
my recomendation, came on the Murchison trip Monday). This crew
of British guys were doing really interesting things - two were
interning at hospitals and two were doing research for their theses.
Between those two and some people on the Murchison trip and talking
to Leslie and reading the paper, I've got a lot to think about
regarding Ugandan politics, African-Western relations, and the
value and role of international organizations, especially the ICC.
But the Nile. The rapids were great fun, the lunch was excellent,
but my favorite part was probably laying back on the raft chatting
with the rest, or jumping into the Nile for the long stretches of
flat water to go for a float or swim down the Nile frickin river!!
It was quite exciting, and absolutely gorgeous. Fields on the banks,
people washing clothes etc, and long stretches of incredible scenery
plus all sorts of beautiful birds up close.

Sunday we went to see Madagascar, which was a great little bit of
the west here in Uganda, but also good fun because we knew we were
about to see many of those animals in the wild. We stayed in Kampala
at the Red Chili Hideaway, which runs the budget safari, and left
Monday. Our driver, John, was quite a speed demon, and he's the only
man I've met in Africa who will leave exactly when he says he will -
which meant we were first in line for everything, very nice. He had
20 kids from 4 women, not atypical here. The drive up to the falls
takes quite a while and for lunch I had the best sambusa in all of
Uganda. That afternoon was the hike around the waterfall, which
until 40 years ago was a 12 foot wide area that all of the water
pouring into the Victoria Nile went through. It broke out into
another tumbling mass but the falls are still incredibly powerful.
The accomidation was nice, tents with beds in them! Comfortable.
We had a great group of people on the trip and that night we sat
around the camp fire singing to the guitar, though nobody knew all
the words to anything the guitarist knew all the chords to.

(It brought back a good deal of camp nostalgia, and of course he
didn't know any of my camp songs! Hard to believe this was the first
summer in half my lifetime that I haven't been to camp!)

Tuesday we woke up quite early and went on the game drive. We only
saw one lion out of the pride of 11 in that area - the other cars
saw the rest - but she was gorgeous. Just chillin in the shade while
the antelope and deer roamed around. We must have seen 4 or 5 types
of deer, plus water buffalo. There were packs of elephants 15 at a
time, or more, and one got a bit angry at our car and started to
charge! He was shaking his head, flapping his ears, stamping his
feet, and threw his trunk over his tusks. The driver revved the
engine and the guide had his gun cocked. But he didn't actually
charge. Those things are HUGE. We also saw lots of giraffes which
are the most magestic animal I've ever seen. Absolutely gorgeous.
It was a scorchingly hot day up there on the savanna. And the
scenery was great too.

Then there was the afternoon boat ride when we saw plenty of crocs
and hippos. But the great excitement in the hippo department
was that night. I'd gone for a walk to look at the stars - I've
never seen the milky way so clearly! - and was back at the fire,
about 10:30 or so, talking politics of Uganda and accademic
philosophies of interationally focused grad programs (I'm so ready
to get back to classes!) when somebody mentioned that there was a
hippo in the campsite. Hippos are not small animals, mind you. They
are as long as a car and as high as I am and they will charge people.
It was chilling by my tent, munching the grass, and lumbered around
the camp site for quite some time while everyone snapped pictures
of it. She didn't even seem to mind the flashes, or the Italian
tourists who'd all emerged from their bandas in the tightest boxers
you'd ever seen - we had a good laugh at them.

So then I wanted to go see the stars again before I went to bed,
and the hippo had wandered off into the corner of the campsite and
disappeared. As I start down the same road I'd gone down before,
out of the bushes she comes. I kept my distance, but she got mad
and made the angry hippo noise and flapped her ears so I backed
off and waited a good 10 minutes. I then continuted down to this
junction and took the same track I'd taken before to get away
from all the light polution. I figured with 4 main roads and all
the bush I wouldn't run into her, but sure enough there was a pile
of fresh hippo shit on the track. I proceded with caution to a
clearing with huts which had a brilliant view of the sky, but I
was a bit nervous due to the hippo munching noises I could hear.
I didn't get charged, and I made it back OK, but it was a bit scary.

The next morning was even earlier; we left in the dark. We drove
about an hour to a forest reserve where we went chimp trekking.
My god those things make incredible, hair raising noises, it's so
cool to hear them chatter. We could see them on the ground and
in the trees, and the guides took us off the paths to get close. It
was really cool, a good compromise for the $600 it would have been
to see the famed gorillas.

Thursday I went into school one last time. I was a bit disturbed
because Sarah told me that Tuesday, one kid had gotten every exam
question wrong and the teachers had made him beat himself to the
point of drawing blood while they sat around and laughed. Exams
created chaos in the school so I didn't get to say goodbye to all
the kids. Friday I went out to a village just to kind of get more
of a taste of that side of Uganda. And yesterday I was a big dorky
tourist and went to the equator. We brought bottles of water with
us to try and see if it would go different directions and straight
down on the line. Turns out there were funnels and buckets of
water there! And it does drop straight down on the equator. It
was my first time in the southern hemisphere besides the stopover
in Nairobi when I didn't get off the plane.

(Skipped the sese islands - oh well, I'll have to come back to see
Lake Victoria and a variety of other things. But I wanted to spend
a bit more time seeing real Uganda, not tourist Uganda. Don't know
how the equator trip fits into that logic...)

I'm currently shitting myself over British Airways who have sent me
an email saying that as of Friday they have no idea which fights to
and from Heathrow will be cancelled or delayed. Well, I've always
wanted to get bumped so I could get 600 Euros to travel with, but
now is NOT the time given that I have to be back at school Thursday!
So I'll stick to my current plan, leaving here (Mukono) after lunch,
going via public taxi into Kampala and then Entebbe, staying at the
place Leslie always does for airport pickups, and showing up at
the airport at 7am. I'm also fairly certain I'll be over my cabin
luggage limit, but they will have to deal.

What's really concerning is that the last Entebbe-London flight didn't
leave so all those people will be trying to get onto my flight. Gulp.
And I have no desire to get a delayed bag with clothes I need
delivered to Boston after I'm in Philly, full of dirty laundry.

On the bright side I've just seen the baseball standings for the first
time since Wednesday and boy are they pretty.

Anyway. Leaving. I'm certainly excited to get home, but there will
be many things I'm going to miss, even if I can't identify them all
right now. It's definately going to be shocking to be back in the
western world, and as much as I've missed many things it will be a
huge adjustment to make in a very awkward period of time, what
with having to go right back to school. I will not miss the latrines,
or having to walk with my head down to avoid the men, or the polution
that's so bad it makes LA's air seem pristine. I'll miss little
things, probably it'll be a very hard change to get back out of Africa
time and the "it's OK" attitude about everything.

And as I have only 4 minutes left, having spent an hour online, and
I haven't really packed at all, I'd better sign off. I'll definately
be posting a decompression post, maybe a post about adventures with
British Airways (hoepfully not!), and I do have a lot to say about
the politics here and international missteps and the difference
between the out of touch whites here and the on-the-ground local
NGO network...