In the time of chimpanzees, I was a monkey....
Yesterday was my first time seeing game in
the wild. I got some blurry and other less-than-terrible pictures of elephants,
water buffalo, warthogs, kob, waterback, birds, etc. Then my camera battery ran
out. Unfortunately this happened on the boat cruise portion of our day, and
prior to our insistent search for a lion during our evening game drive. To
which we actually succeeded—a mother lion and three cubs. It was incredible to
see them in the wild, although she was wearing a sort of radio collar,
apparently tagged by park rangers or something, which I admit removed quite a
bit of the wild African allure.
We began the journey in Kampala, driving about six hours to Queen Elizabeth National Park "Uganda's most visited game reserve," and finally Kyambura Gorge Safari Lodge. Enroute we stopped for street food, pineapple, roasted casava and bananas, I tried (mostly unsuccesfully) to understand my three coworkers' conversations in Luganda with our guide, Amon and enjoy the scenery.
We rolled into the town of Kasese, and took a little side-road detour. The conversation the car was lively, and the guys had decided we would stop briefly to attend a kwanjula. I had no idea what a kwanjula was, and they told me quickly it was a wedding introduction ceremony, where the bride is formally introduced to the husband's family, and the village-at-large. At this type of ceremony, she is also bartered for, and it's officially decided how many cows (or a combination of cows/goats/chickens/land) she's worth. Then the husband's family is expected to pay up.
We didn't seem prepared to attend anything remotely related to a wedding, but I was trapped in the car.
Amon approached an area full of locals, literally 100 people crammed into a picnic-area sized field. To my complete embarrassment, we rolled right in: rumbling safari vehicle full of plain-clothes dressed Ugandans and two muzungus. Everyone stared. In my mind, crickets chirped. The crowd's attention had shifted from the ceremony to the strange group that had crashed the party. My coworker Didas said hello to a woman he was friends with (apparently the reason we were crashing this thing in the first place) and we were ushed to a bench near a pile of children, that had been cleared for our behalf.
If not for the man with the microphone shouting things in their local language to the crowd, everyone would have probably kept staring--but music was playing the bride was dance/walking toward the groom tent, and everyone wanted to see what would happen next as she played the game of "where is my husband-to-be?" There was a table full of symbolic food items and decorations, matching bridesmaids (I imagine) and people seated in rows to participate in the celebration.
I could have taken photos for hours with all the children and local Ugandans in traditional dress, foreign displays of tradition that I was suddenly allowed to witness and participate in. Rarely do I get a chance to point a camera in people's faces without having to ask permission or feel like some shameless tourist.
(mind you I am now posting this a week late)
It’s a Monday and I’m not at work. That, in
and of itself, is reason to be glad. I am currently writing this post from
Kyambura Gorge in Queen Elizabeth Park. By the time I get Internet access and
get this online, I will probably be in the middle of Bwindi Impenetrable
Forest, or maybe even Rwanda. I’m on an 8-day “familiarization” trip with four
other staff from the Kampala office. It has been wonderful thus far to get out
of the city, see the lodges and meet the extraneous staff sprinkled
around Western Uganda and Rwanda.
Yesterday was my first time seeing game in
the wild. I got some blurry and other less-than-terrible pictures of elephants,
water buffalo, warthogs, kob, waterback, birds, etc. Then my camera battery ran
out. Unfortunately this happened on the boat cruise portion of our day, and
prior to our insistent search for a lion during our evening game drive. To
which we actually succeeded—a mother lion and three cubs. It was incredible to
see them in the wild, although she was wearing a sort of radio collar,
apparently tagged by park rangers or something, which I admit removed quite a
bit of the wild African allure. We began the journey in Kampala, driving about six hours to Queen Elizabeth National Park "Uganda's most visited game reserve," and finally Kyambura Gorge Safari Lodge. Enroute we stopped for street food, pineapple, roasted casava and bananas, I tried (mostly unsuccesfully) to understand my three coworkers' conversations in Luganda with our guide, Amon and enjoy the scenery.
...
We rolled into the town of Kasese, and took a little side-road detour. The conversation the car was lively, and the guys had decided we would stop briefly to attend a kwanjula. I had no idea what a kwanjula was, and they told me quickly it was a wedding introduction ceremony, where the bride is formally introduced to the husband's family, and the village-at-large. At this type of ceremony, she is also bartered for, and it's officially decided how many cows (or a combination of cows/goats/chickens/land) she's worth. Then the husband's family is expected to pay up.
We didn't seem prepared to attend anything remotely related to a wedding, but I was trapped in the car.
Amon approached an area full of locals, literally 100 people crammed into a picnic-area sized field. To my complete embarrassment, we rolled right in: rumbling safari vehicle full of plain-clothes dressed Ugandans and two muzungus. Everyone stared. In my mind, crickets chirped. The crowd's attention had shifted from the ceremony to the strange group that had crashed the party. My coworker Didas said hello to a woman he was friends with (apparently the reason we were crashing this thing in the first place) and we were ushed to a bench near a pile of children, that had been cleared for our behalf.
I could have taken photos for hours with all the children and local Ugandans in traditional dress, foreign displays of tradition that I was suddenly allowed to witness and participate in. Rarely do I get a chance to point a camera in people's faces without having to ask permission or feel like some shameless tourist.
…
Now it’s Wednesday. I am in Mt. Gahinga
lodge, where I spent Easter. I love the scenery.
(That’s as far as that post got—which I
find funny, so I am leaving it in its “eloquent simplicity.”)
I had very limited and spotty Internet
access over the course of this trip, and not much time to myself, nor leftover willpower at the end of the
day to actually write or process anything, so I did a pretty crumby
job at detailing this trip....
Good thing I've got photos to make up for it! More safari fun to come!
Good thing I've got photos to make up for it! More safari fun to come!
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