The Colobus Monkey:
The Kob:
The African Darter:
The Warthog:
The African Fish Eagle:
The Jackson Heartabeast:
Yes, majestic. This past weekend was the first time that I could use that word in its complete truth and essence.
Saturday was full of its highs and lows - - quite literally. Emotionally, group one made there departure for Kampala, leaving a household of nearly 30 at a mere 11 inhabitants. The time was an intermingling of sadness at seeing these marvelous, creative, adventurous people leaving our lives possibly never to return and was mingled with a sense of personal joy at a smaller, calmer household in which I could unwind. A witty remark about the Myers-Briggs personality test was issued from me to Rebecca in which I stated I was most certainly an "I" for introvert that needed to recharge in a calm, somewhat solitary environment.
A mere hour after group one's departure, group two and I were whisked away to another high and low - the road to Anaka. Anaka is a small village approximately two hours outside of Gulu. The road... well, it's less a road and more the initial thoughts of a roller coaster architect. Moreover, when your land cruiser is traveling at an easy cruising speed of 120 kilometers per hour, your tend to notice the ramifications on the internal landscape of your skull. Oh, and when one month prior you found the very tip of your own backbone forcing itself downward upon the metal bar of a boda-boda as the driver less-than-gracefully threw the boda over a curb... well, you feel a mild discomfort in your nether-regions.
However, the last thirty minutes of the land cruiser adventure stole my breath and demanded the utmost attention of my eyes, ears, and nose. We entered Murchison Falls, the largest wildlife conservation area in Uganda. The landscape stretched for miles, and the already mystifying and captivating African sky grew into a fantasy above me. We sang along to "Say, Hey!" in the vehicle as we approached the first giraffe I had ever seen in the wild. Grace and elegance were its before humanity had even thought of existence. It quickly flexed its ears to-and-fro and disinterestedly looked at our vehicle. It slowly chewed the top leaves of a tree.
I soon witnessed the silly wiggle of a warthog's tookus as it skittered a few yards and then faced that large land cruiser, commanding the sentiment that the warthog was not afraid, only intelligent to move. A plethora of kobs, arebes, Jackson heartabeasts, and water buffalo were soon to follow. Each had its own marvelous, lovely, somewhat silly way of expressing the life of Mother Nature. As they marveled at our giant, loud, strange machine, I wondered to myself, "Do they consider this machine one living organism with many eyes inside... or do they understand that it contains more lives within it?"
In these first moments within the wildlife preserve, I was not without my typical big-picture thoughts. I marvelled at the idea that the entire planet had once looked like this... well, not like an African Savannah, but at least like an untouched natural paradise. I would have given anything at the moment to live there forever... and I also would have given anything to not feel the guilt of toting around in a gas-guzzling machine through these animals' home. One of my more intelligent, though woeful ideas, was that there most certainly was no such thing as property rights outside of the human mind. Everything I have ever thought I owned was really only a toy in my hands that would soon be taken back into the system of nature. I had no right to be guzzling this gas, buying food that caused the poisoning of water ways, or even burning coal to keep myself warm in the winters. I had a right to share... and that means sharing with all life, not just other humans.
All in all, I was captivated by the flora and fauna of the natural landscape of Uganda. I felt whole, being in nature and not seeing piles of unburned, wind-whisked garbage complete with condoms, cigarette packages, and small plastic gin packages. It felt like home, I could see the divinity in the creations of earth.
As we approached the Nile, we saw a group of young males from a secondary school in Uganda playfully feeding a baboon parts of their lunches. We patiently waited in line to enter a ferryboat to cross the Nile with our Invisible Children vehicle. A few people from the UK noticed our vehicle and gave us much praise for what IC does. (Actually, from local Ugandans and internationals alike, I have received praise upon praise for the intelligent manner in which IC provides aid... because there are many incorrect ways to "help" a lesser-developed country recovering from 20 years of warfare.)
Once on the other side, we entered a small motor boat. Myself and another teacher named Kelley Moneymaker (yes... another terribly funny last name) climbed atop the boat and we started out onto the Nile. I took in the beauty of such a sunny paradise... and soon witnessed my first hippo surfacing along the shore! Oh, it was beautiful.
Over the next hour I would see numerous hippopotamuses, many female crocodiles sunning themselves and cooling their temperature with mouths wide open, some colobus monkeys (which are rare to see in the wild and were endangered for a long time), an African kingfisher, an African fishing eagle, some red-throated bee eaters, and the African darter.
As we approached Murchison Falls, we saw a small blue sign posted on a quite tall poll. We were soon informed that this was the location where Earnest Hemingway crashed his plane while attempting to reach the Falls. Oh, silly, womanizing, brilliant, drunken, adventurous Hemingway. No worries, that's not how his life ended... in the time of telegrams... God knows how... he was rescued by the Red Cross.
Murchison Falls was uproarious and spectacular. We climbed onto a few rocks in the middle of the Nile and viewed them for moments. In moments by such natural grandeur, I feel so infinitesimally small... and I don't mind it one bit.
Well, we raced back over the Nile to our original place of departure and were soon carried off to our rooms for the evening... which were really tents... which really had warthogs hanging out around them... which really, really overjoyed me (and that is literal). We had a marvelous dinner and were asleep by 9:00 PM as we were waking at 5:00 AM to begin our land safari adventures.
I honestly felt like the Queen of Sheba on Sunday morning. We scuttled down to the Nile to be first in line to cross for our Safari... and we watched the most spectacular sunrise of my entire existence. The sun crafted a grey to light grey to pink to orange to blue sky extravaganza. I sat peacefully on the shore (though not too close to the water so as to avoid crocodile launching spaces)... watched foam from the Falls float down stream and picked out what was not foam and was indeed restless crocodiles.
We soon crossed the Nile and were off on our land safari. First things first, we climbed atop our land cruisers and felt the cool breeze of an African morning in our groggy faces. I sat in the front atop the land cruiser... and again, I could not believe who I was, where I was, when I was. I felt such utter gratefulness and gladness that I could not keep the smile from crossing my face.
We saw the grand and well-respected elephant traversing through the lands it calls home. Such a regal living creature, indeed. It moves with the slow nature of a wise man. It is an herbivore (like all animals I saw except the crocodile)... a sense that fulfills me.
We stopped for lunch along a part of the Nile that defines the border of Uganda and the DRC. Just across the shore was a land we were not allowed to enter... though a short swim would have proven maps and border control quite wrong. The sense of the DRC was mystifying... as it was shrowded in greyness beneath clouds, and just across the river stood our sunny patch of Uganda. I am not sure what this meant, but it meant something to me... and I do not desire to reach my feet into the DRC anytime in the foreseeable future.
We continued on our majestic journey, viewing a baboon aloofly sitting in a tree, looking over the Nile, a herd of six elephants lazing in the shade, and many more giraffes (my personal favorites in the preserve). We returned to where we had began... to find a host of baboons chilling by the Nile. A mother groomed her baby and one lone baboon decided it would be brilliant to climb atop our vehicle and not let us pass until he got his feel of feeling like the Queen of Sheba.
We travelled back on the up-and-down road... I got home and needed to let my brain resettle... I ordered pizza (which still blows my mind that two years of peace can bring about deliverable pizza... a joy for me and all my American comrades). I slept early and slept in.
With much love for the natural world... which definitely includes you too,
Karen
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