Chimp Tracking in Fort Portal
Trip Start
Feb 20, 2007
1
13
38
Trip End
Jun 2007
Fort Portal,
Uganda
Monday, March 26, 2007
The average Ugandan family has 7.1 children, only Niger has a higher rate than this
Bad photo of a chimp
. These huge families put a huge strain on the country's natural resources and it is predicted that the population will have tripled in only fifty years. In the 1990s Uganda had one of the biggest AIDS problems in Africa, but successful educational policies (famously, the ABC campaign gave three choices: Abstain, Be Faithful, or Condom) managed to reign this in to a large extent. One of the big effects of this new societal sexual code means that married men generally no longer visit prostitutes, and their wives end up bearing more children as a result. Once in Fort Portal I took a matatu to Nkingo village, which is about 35km from the town, and lies on the boundary of Kibale National Park. I stayed in a lovely hotel there, called Safari Lodge, where I slept in a banda, which essentially was a circular hut, about seven metres in diameter, made of mud and wood and a tidily thatched conical roof. There was no electricity or running water in the village, so showers were scooped from a bucket of cold water and kerosene lamps were used by night.
The next day I set off before dawn, on foot, to the National Park, where I joined a group of six with a chimpanzee tracker to being us off into the forest to find the chimps. Kibale National Park has the largest and densest populations of primates in East Africa, and a chimpanzee population of over a thousand
Even worse photo of a chimp
. We set off at about eight, treading carefully and quietly along a path that cut through the dense forest, listening intently for sounds that would give us clues as to where we should be going. There was no guarantee that we would find them, and our money would not be refunded were this to happen. So there was a great spirit of adventure about the whole affair, I imagined myself to be some sort of an early African explorer, going through the forest in search of new weird and wonderful species of animals.After half an hour we had only seen colobus monkeys high in the canopy, but then, all of a sudden, we could hear the chimps in the distance, whooping and shrieking. We quickly followed the noises, leaving our trail to walk through the forest. About five minutes later we heard them again, although much louder this time, so we were near. Our guide, in fact, said we were so close she could smell them! A few minutes later we found another trail, rounded a little bend, and before us were a mother chimp and her baby, sitting about ten metres away from us. We could hear more chimps shrieking then, coming from all around. There was a male high up in a fig tree near us bellowing at the top of his lungs, telling the others to come for food. We waited there for a minute or two, watching this mother chimp with an adorable baby on her back, before the rest of them came, some swinging nimbly through the trees, some scrambling along the ground
My banda
.It was an incredible experience to watch these animals, which are genetically closer to humans than any other animal on earth (in fact, they share 99% of our genetic makeup). They were larger than I had expected, if standing upright they would measure about four and a half feet tall. We sat for about five minutes near a bearded male, who solemnly sat on the ground, occasionally disinterestedly glancing at us. Their faces are amazingly human-like, and everything from expressions to movements closely resembles ours.
We decided to follow a group of mothers and their babies for a while, which ended up being something of a cat and mouse chase; every time we were near them the mothers quickly bundled up the young on their backs and moved ahead of us, in orderto protect them. So we followed them in this manner for about half an hour, never really getting to stop and observe them for more than a few seconds. Photography turned out to be a disappointment too, a combination of bad light because of the cover of trees and my shaky hands meant that nearly all my photos turned out blurry.
An American couple formed part of our group, they were "volunteering" in Uganda for three weeks. When I pressed them a little further I learned that the man had set up an NGO a year or two ago, which is easily the most pointless project I have ever heard of. They travel the world together, taking photos of poor orphans. On returning to the US they commission painters to paint portraits of the orphans, from the photos. They then jet off all around the world again and distribute the portraits to the orphans as gifts, and do nothing more. Although it clearly does no harm, per se, it is the biggest waste of time I have ever heard of; the thousands of dollars that must be raised could be used in far better ways than to fund what is essentially a year-round feel-good holiday for this couple.
That afternoon I went for a walk with Godfrey, the hotel's manager, and a lovely, friendly fellow. We walked through the village, and on to another one; on the way he pointed out various different types of trees to me, and explained the difference between the matoke and banana trees to me. They look almost identical, except the banana-like green fruit the matoke tree produces (called matoke) is tough and fibrous in the interior. This is used to make the staple starch component of the Ugandan diet. When cooked and prepared it is rather like mashed potato in look and texture, only thicker, and incredibly filling. It has hardly any taste, although what taste it does have reminds my a little of turnips.
We visited a community library, set up by an American woman some ten years ago. It is a wonderful initiative, having a few hundred books in a small room that people can borrow (for free). Better still, at the back there was a small classroom filled with women who were learning how to read. When the library was first constructed it was noticed that many of the locals couldn't read so it was decided to have the educational component added to the project. Men, apparently, don't come to learn much, perhaps because of pride, but local women have become avid readers. I thought that this project was one of the best I have seen in Africa - simple, direct, effective, and empowering.
We also went for a drink of waragi, a local spirit brewed from bananas which must have been about 60% alcohol. We drank it in a small little bar in the second village, where it was all I could do not to make a face when sipping the generous measure that was poured for me, but I fear my watering eyes may have given me away. On the way home the heavens opened, and we got drenched, running through sheets and sheets of torrential rain.
That evening Specsiaza, the cook, had prepared for me a feast of matoke, chapattis, groundnut sauce (a peanut and tomato sauce, which is delicious), mixed spinach and tomatoes, with bananas for desert. Anyone who knows me well knows that it is rare I leave a plate of good food unfinished, but this meal had the beating of me. I was the only guest in the hotel while I was there, which was nice, as I was spoiled rotten by Spesiaza, a lovely twenty-one year old girl. Later that evening she brought me out a jackfruit which had been given to her as a gift, and shared it with me. I bought her a soda as a thank you for her excellent cooking and care.
We spent a few hours chatting; she told me that she had started reading a lot since coming here because of the library. The last book she had read was one about AIDS, which she spoke about openly, candidly, and in a very informed manner. Any sort of taboo about talking about sex appears to have been broken down in Uganda, which is of course absolutely necessary if AIDS is to be successfully fought. I remember thinking that it would be difficult to find an Irish girl of twenty-one who would be able to speak with me, a man only slightly older than her, without blushing, about this subject.
