Sadie Abroad

Monday, May 5, 2014

Very Cool Uganda Video

I still have six months left in Uganda, and that will include several more local safaris. But this video, which is making the rounds this week, made me realize a lot of reasons why I'll miss it here. Best of all, I recognized many of the places featured and already have trips booked to a few more.

Since I can't figure out how to embed videos that aren't on YouTube, you'll have to follow this link. Trust me, it's worth it, particularly if you've been to or plan to visit Uganda. See if you can spot the cameo appearance of my favorite antelope, the Jackson's hartebeest!

Sunday, May 4, 2014

My Favorite Ugandan Livestock

When I went home for Christmas, we all went to my brother's for Christmas Eve. In a quiet moment I cuddled up on the couch with my niece and my iPad, showing her pictures from some of my safaris. The biggest wow I got out of her was not for photos of lions, elephants, or giraffes. Nope, she was amazed by my photos of cows. When I passed the photos around, my brothers also got super excited by these cows. As did everyone else when the photos made the rounds. Granted, these are no ordinary cows. They're the magnificent Ankole cattle which never fail to impress me either. I remain in awe of this breed and love seeing them whenever I get a chance.

Long horns are the most impressive feature of the breed, reaching seemingly preposterous lengths and girths. I really don't know how some of these cows keep their heads up! Related to Egyptian longhorn breeds dating to 4000 BCE crossed with South Asian humped cattle who came to Africa, the Ankole evolved from the Sanga mix of these two ancient breeds. While Sanga offshoots are in Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, and environs, the Central-East African Ankole-Watusi breed found in Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi are considered the most remarkable, according to Oklahoma State University.

Ankole are not prolific milk producers, so they've been fallen out of favor among farmers who need to make money off their herds. They remain a significant status symbol, though, and I often hear of families who keep a herd of Ankole cattle for nostalgic reasons, even when they've diversified into Friesians/Holsteins for commercial purposes. (Ankole cattle a're rarely raised or killed for meat, as they only represent status and wealth when alive.) The New York Times Magazine did a fascinating article on the decline in Ankole cattle in Uganda in 2008, citing experts who project the breed will be extinct in 50 years. I certainly hope that's not true, as they're just a beautiful breed of cattle and very gentle.

I had a close encounter with an Ankole bull at the Uganda Wildlife Education Center; he wanted the veggies I was feeding to the giraffes, and I had to physically move his head out of the way by his horns. He didn't mind; he just moved on to the next person.

Ankole cow horns are a popular decoration in Uganda, and I've started to pick up a few sets for family members (and plan to get one for myself). I know a cow has to die for me to get a set of horns, but I do know they're not being killed exclusively for the horns. So here's a few photos of these gorgeous cows and their horns.

Friday, May 2, 2014

The Easter Clown and Other Stories

I really thought I blogged just a few weeks ago and was a little mad at myself that I'd gone that long, only to realize it's been six weeks. Oops. I spent two of those weeks suffering from the nastiest GI bug I've had since studying abroad in Thailand in 2002, which thankfully has now left my system. Beyond that, it's been a fairly routine few weeks.

Easter weekend included an unexpected work trip that took one of our days off, but I did have a lovely brunch at the Serena with a fabulous group of ladies. In typical Ugandan fashion we showed up at 11:55 for a noon brunch only to find that a) our reservation was under an entirely different name (think Starbucks cup hilarity) and b) they were not quite ready. So we walked over to the spa, chatted with everyone's favorite masseuse, did a tour of the gym facilities, and went back down at 12:20 as instructed. Nope, still not ready, but they handed out sparkling wine to those who choose to imbibe. At 12:40 I got tired of this and suggested we just go find a table, even if the food wasn't ready. They didn't particularly like this but finally seated us and took drink orders. The few other expat groups who had been there since noon followed suit. Finally, at 1:15 the waiter took our soup orders. And then all the Ugandans, who know better, showed up, just in time for the buffet to open at 1:30. Typical U.S. Easter foods such as ham, lamb, scalloped potatoes, macaroni and cheese, etc. were missing. They did have an entire roast goat, turkey, chicken wings, lots of Indian dishes, and plenty of salads and starters. I did find hard boiled eggs on the salad bar. An enterprising person had colored eggshells - with magic marker (adorable!), and Easter brunch was made complete by a clown making the rounds and giving out balloons. We had a lot of laughs and stuffed ourselves with tasty, if not U.S.-traditional, morsels.

In very exciting news my mother and our good friend booked their flights to visit this summer, and in typical Sadie planning fashion I had our three weeks of safaris in two countries fully booked and had a twelve page itinerary ready to go within two weeks. Now to wait. (It probably doesn't surprise you that I was the first one in the Embassy to fully complete my EER this year, does it?) My mom and another friend visited me in South Africa in 2005 for three weeks, and we had a similarly packed itinerary, and I still count that as one of the best trips of my life, so I'm super excited for version 2.0 (wherein we can afford decent hotels and aren't sleeping on the ground in non-luxury tents). I really like my travel agent here (Global Interlink), so if you're planning a trip to the region, Mohit will hook you up with an unbeatable package. Every trip I've taken with him has been superb at an extremely competitive price.

Callaghan just jumped up on a bookcase, reminding me to share the latest in catertainment - the red dot. I don't know why it took me so long to get them a laser, but it's proven to be quite the exciting toy. Griffin in particular loves it and will sit on the coffee table staring at me until I pick it up. They both know where the light comes from and have tried to get to the source, but they're usually pretty content to go after the projection. Now to order more batteries for it!

Anyway, I have a few more posts scheduled for the weekend, and I will try to be better about updating in the next weeks. Only six weeks until I have another safari series to post :-).

Friday, March 21, 2014

Murchison Falls - Day 4

Our fourth and last day on safari was another early start, with only about 15 minutes to gulp down breakfast before we hit the road. The rush was so that we could make the first ferry to the other side of the river and start our journey back to Kampala. The ferry was not far from Paraa, at the same place where we'd taken the boat safari. We were among the first vehicles in line, most of which were trucks and construction vehicles associated with the oil exploration in and near Murchison Falls National Park.

The ferry was essentially a flat boat with a motor, with a few railings and chains to hold onto. We made it onto the first boat and negotiated places to stand among the vehicles. There were two women on the ferry with us who had also been at Paraa. We'd noticed one of them the night before because she looked so incredibly done up, which is out of place at a safari lodge. At dinner the night before she'd had on a natty outfit, her wig was big and perfectly coiffed, and she was bling-ed out to the nines. One of her rings was about the size of her hand. What caught our eye wasn't the seeming out-of-place adornments so much as the way she carried herself. She was cool and confident and just made you think she felt entirely comfortable with herself. We loved it and decided she was our inspiration for aging gracefully (if not for her fashion style).

After five minutes on board the ferry we watched the mad rush to get off the boat first and hit the road. We dawdled a bit before loading into the van and taking off, and we paid for it by being stuck behind slow-moving vehicles for quite a while. Our first destination was the top of Murchison Falls. Though still in the park, we saw almost no wildlife. I can only imagine this is because they've gotten tired of the construction vehicles coming through twice a day every day. This is a touchy subject in conservation circles here, and I understand entirely why there are concerns. Aside from the odd antelope and monkey, we saw no wildlife in the remainder of the park, probably about 50 kilometers (I may be wrong - it could be more or less; it just felt forever because the road was full of washboards, another construction vehicle hazard).

Murchison Falls consists of a 7m gap through which approximately 11,000 cubic feet of water pass every second to get to a 43m drop. It's quite impressive, even on a cloudy, dreary day such as the one we had.

We walked the hundred meters or so down to the observation point (again, I'm completely making up that distance - it wasn't terribly far, but it was rocky and steep in parts, but with a good trail) and took our photos and marveled. As is typical in this part of the world, it was possible to get perilously close to the falls for photo ops, though none of us was keen to balance on slippery rocks for this purpose.

Waterfalls are always impressive but sometimes a little disappointing when you're right up close, not to mention difficult to capture in photographs, and this one is no different. Definitely worth seeing if you're here, but it's just slightly underwhelming at the top of the falls.

As we started to trek back up to the car, who should we see but our favorite pair of ladies! Our bouffant beauty was making her way down to the view points carefully but determinedly, stopping to ask us if it was worth it to go all the way. It was, we assured her, and she and her friend continued on. Love it.

We got back in the van and made our way back toward Kampala. We stopped at Zziwa Rhino Sanctuary but decided not to do the rhino trek (we were all pretty tired). It's a pretty neat operation they've got there, though, and definitely worth a visit. Our only other stop was at the same gas station we'd stopped at on the way here, where we got cold drinks and settled down for lunch. We'd ordered packed lunches from Paraa, but as we opened them we had the final let down. There had been several choices, and we'd gotten a selection of them, but each of them was severely lacking in what it had promised. Instead of the quiches, assorted fruit, various sandwiches, etc we had been promised, each box held two apples, a grape juice box, a very dry cake, and a lackluster sandwich with questionable contents. None of us ate very much.

The rest of our trip to Kampala was thankfully uneventful and mostly free of traffic, and we got home in time to regroup and run some errands. Murchison Falls is not the best park I've been to in Uganda (Kidepo has that prize thus far), but it's worth a try, especially if you include Chobe lodge in your travel plans.

I think a sunny day would have made these photos more exciting...

Deceiving perception; this is looking down the falls toward the lower part of the Nile

The closest viewing area to the falls is in the center of the photo on the right-hand side.

Monday, March 10, 2014

But I don't need to check out...

I haven't been blogging a lot lately, not so much due to being busy as to not being particularly inspired. I'm at the eight month countdown for leaving post, and it feels like everyone expects me to check out or acquire short-timer's disease sooner rather than later, which I don't really feel the need to do, at least for many more months. My colleagues might disagree, but I think I did a pretty good job of not checking out mentally in Jeddah until the last few weeks, and even then to a much lesser degree than many others! Truth be told, I'm not counting down from Kampala. This is a great post, I love my job, I love my house, I'm comfortable. And the things that drive me crazy about Uganda won't go away just because I leave; they'll just manifest themselves as other things in Lebanon and make me nostalgic for the good old days in Kampala.

Part of the issue is that while I'm leaving post this year, I'm leaving several months after the mass exodus that is summer transfer season, so I don't have the same sense of urgency/relief/stress that others are feeling right now. I'm looking forward to having more time to prepare for pack out (let's see if I use any of it wisely!) and less competition for GSO and other resources for actually checking out. Sadly I'll miss some good friends who are leaving this summer, and I'll have the inevitable but depressing task (that's not the right word, but you get the idea) of welcoming new people to post, making great new friends, and then leaving them in a few short months. This always happens, but it still sucks. One perpetual feature of FS life that not a lot of people talk about but everyone experiences.

My EER is well under way, so I don't have that pressure hanging over me right now, and our mission's big project for the spring will be over next week. I will have significant overlap with my successor but still need to work on SOPs and brain-dumps, and there are always long-term projects to work on.

So I like to call this unintended blogging hiatus a result of the eight month doldrums, but, really, it's just life. Because these aren't really doldrums, anyway; I'm not depressed/anxious/resigned or any of those things.

I could commit to posting a photo or quick story every day, but that's not really my style. I can only commit myself to so many things without losing momentum on all of them, and I'm trying to be good about working out, so I'm sticking with that one for now. I still have some travelogues to get up and will work on those, but the next trip is probably three months away, so until then expect a lot of cat stories/photos. (Followed by a safari-filled visit with my mom later this summer!)

Anyway, there's my random brain-dump for the day, probably brought to you in part by my being home sick this afternoon. I have been feeling off since Friday with no real symptoms I could put my finger on except fatigue, so I took advantage of a slow(ish) afternoon to come home and try to get better. And on the ride home I figured it out. As I squinted through my sunglasses because the sun was still too bright, it hit me. This is a migraine. Without the headache. It all made sense. Fatigue, light and sound sensitivity, a bit of nausea, and crankiness. None of them diagnostic on their own, but together - pow! I did have a headache yesterday but not a bad one or on par with a migraine, so I didn't connect the dots. Sure enough, two Excedrin Migraines and a cat nap (literally - they're still in my bed) later, and I am feeling much more like my old self. I don't get migraines very often anymore, thank goodness, and I very rarely get silent migraines, but it's not unheard of. I am feeling very empowered by having figured this out and addressed it, if you can't tell ;-).

So, there you have it. My caffeine-induced rant for the day (week, more likely).

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Murchison Falls Day 3

We woke up early on Sunday, but not nearly as early as we wanted. For some reason a lot of Ugandan tour operators and lodges aren't geared toward the early morning drives, which I think can be some of the best! A lot of lodges want you to eat breakfast first and then go out. So that's what we did Sunday, arriving for breakfast as soon as they opened, and had a quick fuel up before heading out.

Our drive was fun but not awesome; we found out later that the one group who went out before breakfast saw lions but nobody else did. Sigh. Our first big sighting was hyenas, not too far into the park. We saw one, then two, then soon the entire pack of six was visible. They marked territory, sniffed things out, posed for photos, and then took on up the road onto bigger and better pursuits. I've never seen a large pack of hyenas so close before; the ones in Amboseli were pretty far away in a mud pit. Very cool!

A few giraffes and quite a few DLTs crossed our path as we made our way to the river, where we reveled in birdlife, hippos, and buffalos. We saw a beautiful saddle-billed stork in the marshy area by the Nile and the usual egrets, yellow-billed storks, and assorted others. Another safari vehicle was taking a break nearby, its occupants getting out for a stretch. One woman had ventured away from the group right up to the river's edge. We kept waiting for a hippo or croc to get her, but she survived another day. Stupid.

We moved on, or tried to, as a giant herd of buffalo crossed the road in front of us. We were held up about five minutes waiting for them to move on, but, as buffalo are want to do, they kept stopping and staring at us. Not nature's smartest creatures.

We meandered back to the lodge without seeing any more predators, just the usual range of DLTs and assorted ungulates. We dispersed upon arriving, some napping, some lounging, but all relaxing for a lazy Sunday morning.

After lunch we hopped in the vehicle and headed down to the boat launch for our trip to the base of Murchison Falls. We boarded the low-to-the-water but sturdy aptly-named Hippo boat and headed off.

Almost immediately we saw two young elephants drinking water from the river and occasionally hiding in the foliage. Very cute. The trip was what you'd expect - lots of hippos and birds, the occasional crocodile, and ungulates grazing on the banks. It was wonderful. We didn't see any Shoebill storks, though, which was very disappointing, but I am hopeful I'll see one on a next trip.

We saw lots of bird nests in the cliffs, ingeniously camouflaged in natural and not-so-natural holes. Quite a few patas, colobus, and vervet monkeys were visible or at least audible as they played in the trees. We saw the elephant from the day before with the injured leg. He didn't look great and, in fact, as we were heading back to the launch he was lying down in the water. I really hope he was just resting.

The large schools of hippos were often content to just let us go by, though some insisted on standing and walking away from the boat. There were dozens of little ones, including some grazing on the banks with their mothers, which was a nice treat to see!

We passed the marker for the site of Ernest Hemingway's 1954 plane crash at Murchison Falls, the first of two crashes that day for him. Before long we docked against a small island in the middle of the river, the massively powerful Murchison Falls in sight a few hundred meters away. The power of the falls creates a great deal of foam, which was concentrated in this part of the river but visible even farther downstream. Very cool!

We headed back to the launch, seeing some of the same and some new animals. Getting back to the vehicle we elected to do a game drive rather than head right back to the lodge.

We had a good afternoon for giraffe sightings but not for much else. Or maybe I just took less photos of the same antelope we'd seen for two days. Sometimes it's hard to tell or remember. We did have an almost lion sighting, circling a lone male for an hour, though we never saw him. The other vehicle that got to the site a minute before us swears they saw him and they also circled with us, but I'm not sure they really did, because I've not known lions to be quite so good at (or inclined for) hiding.

Heading back to the lodge we enjoyed one last Ugandan sunset and then had a lovely last dinner with lots of laughter and stories.

The highlight of the evening happened a bit later. S and I had taken our showers and gotten ready for bed. We were in our respective beds reading by the light of our Kindles when we heard a commotion outside. S ran to the balcony and called me out. An adolescent elephant had made his way into the lodge grounds and was enjoying a meal of flowers and fresh water. He had apparently been there about 15 minutes already, according to E&A next door, who had been watching the whole production. The elephant had eluded the guards' efforts to scare him off and herd him off and instead turned on the spigot for the hose and was merrily drinking from it. When we arrived he was starting to get annoyed at the guards' efforts and was retreating quite unhappily, pulling down branches as he went. While perfectly capable of stepping over the fence at the edge of the property (right under our balconies!) he instead went through in one last act of defiance. Quite entertaining!