This past weekend I went on a SAFARI with 6 of the other interns. At first I was hesitant about going because I thought it would be a waste of time and money since I've already seen all the animals I would see on the game drive in a zoo or at Disney's Animal Kingdom (clearly not the same thing, but that was my rationale.) However, I am SO glad that I went. It was an incredible experience and I loved every second of it.
On Thursday evening, we went over to Red Chilli hostel in Kampala to spend the night because we departed from Red Chilli at 8 am Friday morning. After a breakfast of muffins, tea and toast (so well-balanced), we loaded into our special safari van to make the 6 hour drive to Murchison Falls national park north of Kampala near the town of Masindi and Lake Albert. The drive was long, but our van was comfortable and we stopped in Masindi for lunch and to buy various food items for the weekend.
As soon as we entered the Murchison Falls park, we started seeing wildlife, mainly baboons. At first we were all trying to take pictures of the groups of baboons we passed, and then we realized that they were EVERYWHERE. Baboons are also picture-shy, so it was hard to get anything other than their butts running into the forest. Our driver, Hasan, was very patient with us though and kept stopping so we could try and snap a shot.
We drove about through the park for about 2 hours up to Murchison Falls where we got out and hiked to the top of the waterfall. Along the way, we waged war against the Tsetse flies who are incredibly annoying and persistent as ever, not to mention their bites feel like bee stings and they are impossible to kill. We were all hot, miserable and annoyed by the time we reached the falls, but the site of the powerful rapids rushing through a narrow canyon and the sound of the roaring falls were enough to brighten our moods. A park ranger lead us up and down trails around the top of the falls. We got to stand right at the edge of the Nile before it plunges down a cliff creating the falls. I've never been so close to something so powerful. My favorite part was standing in the mist of the falls on the edge of a cliff that juts out into the middle of the falls.
After we had our fill of taking in Murchison falls, Hasan drove us to the Red Chilli Rest camp, near the banks of the Nile. We ordered some dinner and settled into our 2 person bandas. We had a peaceful night and went to sleep early due partly to exhaustion and partly to our 5:30 am wake-up the following morning. I was so tired I immediately passed out and didn't wake up until the following morning. Apparently there was a huge storm that came through in the middle of the night and also hippos that came into camp looking for food, but I didn't hear any of it.
Before our game drive (which left camp at 6:30 am) on Saturday, we hurriedly ate some breakfast and chugged some coffee. We got to watch the sunrise and it was purely epic. We were waiting for our ferry to cross the Nile as we watched the sun come up over river. In addition to our driver Hasan, we picked up Dennis, the park ranger, on the North side of the Nile and he accompanied us as our guide during our game drive. We spent the next four hours standing on our seat with our heads poking out of the top of our safari van. Even if there hadn't been any animals, the park itself is beautiful and the landscape changes as you get go through grasslands, dense vegetation, fields dotted with palm trees, savannahs covered with "Lion King" trees and down into the marshland right near the Nile. Besides the beauty of the park itself, we saw hundreds of giraffes (my new favorite animal), giant elephants, at least four types of antelopes (I can't remember all of their names), soooo many cape buffalo, jackson's heartbeast, warthogs, and even a leopard (a serious rarity). We didn't encounter any lions, but I was not in the least bit disappointed. Dennis was full of information and kept teasing all of us about the various animals we got excited about. Although, he was pretty excited about the giraffes himself. We got really close to a bunch of giraffes and Dennis kept talking about how beautiful they were.
After our morning game drive, we took lunch back at rest camp at 11 and hung out til 2 when we went on a 4 hour boat tour of the Nile from the launch point to the base of Murchison Falls. We saw more elephants bathing at the river's edge and hundreds of hippos floating around. Some fellow boat cruisers were very passionate about birds and so we kept stopping everytime they spotted a small bird up in the high branches of some tree. Half the time, I didn't see anything at all. The coolest part about the boat cruise was getting to see one hippo jump out of the water and dive back down, almost like a blue whale. I didn't even know they could do that.
We spent Saturday night back at rest camp hanging out and talking with the other interns. We talked about the month we have already spent here and the month we have left; what we have done and what we still have left to do. I'm really enjoying getting to know the other interns and spending weekends with them will definitely be a large portion of my memories of Africa.
Today is Monday and we are hosting a "Book Keeping and Records Management" workshop here at the Kampala KWDT office. 24 women from 12 of the women's groups are here for training on how to do efficient book keeping and we are checking up on all of their records for milk production, member registration, loan payback, meeting minutes and report writing. After lunch, some of the participants will share their experiences and we will examine some case studies and group reports. The final activity is a trust building game that I am putting on.
The leadership meeting last week went well, but we moved my presentation of the bio-sand filters to today so that we could judge the groups book keeping from today's meeting. After the activity, I will announce the best 3 women groups that will be awarded with bio-sand filters. The filters themselves are not here for me to hand over because they are built out in the field, but I will be announcing the recipients here and hopefully get to go out to Katosi later in July to distribute them.
Here's today's schedule!
Registration
Break tea
Welcoming remarks &
Recap: Introduction to good records keeping
Group discussion / Review of records
- Members data book
- Registration book in meetings
- Milk records
- Cow records
- Minutes book
Report writing
Lunch break
Sharing of experiences: 3 case studies
Comments on group reports
Trust Building activity and awarding best groups
Closure
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