Ethiopia Bound!

I am killing time now until I head to the airport. I have some interesting stories to update you all.

First of all, chimps have been very stubborn lately. They have been found in small groups of 1-3, and are acting very shy. However, I got a message from Alex saying that the rangers found a group of 20 up the escarpment when we were in Fort Portal.

I had my first run-in with forest elephants the other day. Alimosi, Sharifa and I were hiking in the swampy area and we literally ran into an elephant. It was in the middle of the trail, it trumpeted and stampeded off. We obviously startled it too. Alimosi cocked his AK and before I even had tiome to flinch I turned back and Sharifa had sprinted about 50 m away! Alimosi and I were more curtious than she was and continued to creep forward to find 2 more on the trail. The one in front of us must have been upwind of us and unable to see us. Alimos keep cocking his gun and shouting to scare it but it jsut turned towards us and swung its trunk up and down and back and forth, searching for smells, maybe a threat. It was really tense but really thrilling. Sharifa was pleading to leave...ha! It eventually meandered off.

The situation was similar with the buffalo only not exciting, just extremely frightening. I was with Justice and we were in some dense palms and figs when he noticed a resting one. He stopped and grabbed me and we sprinted backwards as he cocked his gun and the buffalo shot up to its feet. We took cover behind a tree and I asked why we couldnt just please go! He said the buffalos will hunt you down so even if you are walking away it will wait and charge. I was quickly glancing for any suitable tree to climb. We backed away slowly, walking backwards to keep an eye on it.

We took a Sunday trip to Semliki National Park about 2 hours away on the border dsitrict of Bundibugyo. We went to swim under the waterfall there and hike to the hot springs. The waterfall was pitiful, being the dry season so we didnt swim, but we did manage to hike to 2 beautiful hot springs. They are called the female and male springs based on who would seek healing from them in the local culture. The park still allows the people to enter the forest 1 day a year and sacrifice and celebrate the springs. In one, the female one, we boiled matooke and eggs and had a little snack! I went with Sharifa, Edson, Alex, Alimosi, and Charles. After our hike we drove into town for lunch. It was a wonderful day.

We have since I last posted killed a chicken and a goat in camp (technically illegal within the reserve boundaries). It was great though, tasty. The chicken was killed by Sharifa because by Islamic tradition you need to either kill the animal yourself or have it killed by a Muslim. The goat was a bit more interesting, and gruesome. Its throat was slit with a big panga and then its hind lets were tied up under our car park and skinned and gutted. Alex is keeping the pelt. It gave us 2 rounds of dinner(for 16), breakfast leftovers(for 10), another dinner(for 12), and another dinner of the head( for 11)...Lots of meat! They cook pretty much everything edible and were all joking "who got the testicles??!!!" The head is roasted to take the hair off because it cant be skinned, then bashed to break the bones and cooked. They do that with all the pieces actually, they break the bones into tiny pieces and cook the chunks whole with the broken bones.

Alex and I hosted a party to celebrate the end of construction and hard times in camp. There was a 2 year period when the rebel activity was too close to camp to allow research to continue but some of the staff stayed. Other times the funding was too low to continue but the lodge continued to pay salaries and food for a year and a half so the guys were living under hazardous platforms and with the bare minimum, so we had a celebration. The carpenters, the grass cutters, the rangers, staff, Alex and me had some beer and lots of goat with dancing and riddles and laughing. It was a great night. I will have more stories of the Simian mountains next time you hear from me! I cant wait! Talk to you all soon!!!!!