dr. livingstone, i presume?

this week was so eventful i'll have to cut it down to my TOP TOP stories or i'd go on forever.

basically, im going to make a ridiculously long story short and say, we went gorilla tracking in Uganda at Mgahinga last Sunday, but (just my kinda luck) the gorillas decided to sprint back across the border to Rwanda, so we tried to catch up (which meant practically running the trail about 10k STRAIGHT up this volcano jungle with a man with a machete cutting our way and getting bugs and twigs on us, ducking constantly. got it?) but the gorillas crossed the border. then our local guides go so stressed that the rwandan border officials would see us on radar we had to RUN back through uganda. judging from their faces i think the rwanda cops would not have been very nice... as i dont think the people hear fear much anymore after all theyve been through...

so mission failed, we came back after 20k hike that we went really fast most of the time, battered and bruised with no clothes but those dirty ones on our back. so discouraging as 95% of the time the trackers find the gorillas and we were those lucky 5%. then warren, who works for Edirisa and is a local here who organized our trip for free out of kindness to us (we tipped him though), felt so badly that he got us a full refund AND planned an alternate gorilla tracking trip for us on the fly, that would guarantee us to see the gorillas the next day. we were already in kisoro and his tracking option was nearby and had permits available and was cheap. normally permits to gorilla trek in Uganda take a year in advance reservation to do, (the only way we could at mgahinga is cuz the gorillas from rwanda had randomly come to uganda side for a week)... so you're thinking... how did we get to go the next day without a permit in advance and for cheap right... the catch was: we would be tracking in the DR Congo~

so after debating (and telling matt of course), meeting with the guy who organizes gorilla trips into his country, the DRC, he calls himself Danny Gorilla (thats a WHOLE different story in itself) ~ he was such a great guy and so keen on helping tourism in tattered DRC. we knew we could trust him and we knew warren would arrange everything. so the six of us decided, alright, we're going to the heart of darkness tommorrow.

so the next day we ran into loads of problems, mostly financial confusion, and waiting for our passports to be stamped at the uganda side of the border there was a crap bathroom nearby that has awarded itself The Crappiest most Disgusting Bathroom I've Ever Seen In My Entire Life... or Will See Everywhere. sorry hope you're not eating, but there was poop smeared on the walls! i mean come ooon! are you kidding me?! who does that!???

so the border is so funny, i got a picture. literally a janky fence of twigs. its so funny. espcially when you think about what San Ysidro border looks like. on the DR Congo side, it was just so casual. this dude at a table just talking about the day with our guide while he stamped our passports. again, so funny when compared to San Ysidro.

the few people we came across int he congo were our wonderful guides at the parc national des virungas, who were such nice and wonderful men with rather intimidating weapons. everyone we met was so kind, and people there NEVER see white people as no one is advised to go there... the kids chased our car and grabbed on the bumper while our driver hit the gas, they chased us for so long. i got crazy pictures of them running and grabbing the car. it was so unreal. i felt like Oprah or someone famous. weird. the most shocking thing was after the hike, many kids were waiting around to ask us for our empty water bottles. as we handed the first one to them, they swarmed over it and tried to steal it from each other. they won't sell the bottle (they dont have recycling obviously) they'll likely use it at home. it was the epitome of: one man's trash is another man's treasure. it was such a shocking level of poverty i couldnt bring myself to think about anything else for a long while after, and even now.

i hope the drc gets better so people can feel more comfortable travelling there. all i can tell you is that, my experience was nothing but perfect and never for an instant did i feel unsafe. you have to understand that 99% of people in a war torn country are regular people who are victimized by the few rebels. they want money and tourism in their country and appreciate their simple farming lives. people falsely presume places like the DRC are so dangerous from top to bottom ...i guess i had myself also after reading the news. they say that the first few visitors to a country after its war are the ones that pave the way for the rest, which in turn helps the country rebuild itself. i'm happy to have been part of that process, and happy to tell you anything you want to know about going there yourself ~ even just for a day to track. i hope for the sake of the people, it regains stability. the DRC is quite an untapped resource of jungle.

the gorillas were awesome, i'lll try to post my pictures of the gorillas at some point and some adorable videos. needless to say, its an experience so awesome and fascinating its a bit inexplicable to those who haven't done it. we were literally within 3 feet of the gorillas the entire time, it was a family of 10, the Mapoa family which means silverback in teh local language. you can imagine how incredible the experience was based purely on the fact it costs (in safe places like uganda and rwanda) like 500 dollars and requires a reservation a year in advance. you absolutely must do this. my friend georgie's mom has done all of africa overland (from top to johannesburg) and said that of all the safaris and thigns shes done, gorilla tracking was the most thrilling experience she had. there are only 300-600 of mountain gorillas left in the wild, and to see a few of them in tehir completely native state is indeed thrilling.

theres two more stories i must tell which transpired in Kisoro, the border town adjacent to the DRC. we had to stay the night in kisoro with a) no soap for a shower after our day of gnarly trekking in mgahinga b) no change of CLOTHES meaning our muddied sweaty clothes we had to sleep in and wear again c) a very delirious exhausted mind trying to grapple with the fact we had to do it all over again the next day in the same clothes, a la groundhog day.

so sarah (a volunteer my age from australia) came a week ago and still hasnt received her luggage, so she has worn the same two pairs of clothes everyday. on top of that, we only had the clothes on us that sunday night to sleep in. she woke up at 5am that morning and had to go to the bathroom, so walked to the bathroom and in her delirium (and the darkness) slipped and fell in what appeared to be a puddle. she quickly realized it was a puddle of poo and pee, to put it nicely. she had poo and pee ALL over the ONLY jeans she had to wear the entire day trekking. i mean could that get any more inconvenient? so she freaked out a bit, and ran over to the hotel's clothing line, and STOLE some other muzungu's pair of pants!!!!!!! HAHAHA. so she wakes me up at 5:20am really stressed and tells me everything that happened in the last 20 minutes, i'm in my muddy jeans myself and she THEN spilled a water bottle on her bed, i've never laughed so hard. i made her go take a shower (without soap since we didnt have it!!) and the entire time i laughed out loud to myself. i decided it was the best travelling nightmare i'd ever heard. and sucks for the muzungu who lost her pants, but what can you do. desparate times call for desparate measures. we left the crap pair of jeans there in the hotel and never looked back. HAHAHA....

story number 2.
also occured the 1 night between trekking trips that we stayed in kisoro with 1 pair of clothes. we needed money desparately so we walked a couple blocks frmo our hotel to the bank ATM to see if we could withdraw money, which failed. but on our way there, these three pygmies ran up to us with instruments and started seranading us and following us the entire time to the bank. freeze for a second: do you know who the pygmies are? they are that tribe of REALLY REALLY short men and women with that funny aged look on their faces? theyre like mini people? anyway, google a pic of a pygmy. they live in this area we were in. anyway so they follow us with this strange wooden log with stringed instrument singing "Muzungu in congo. Muzungu in congo. Muzungu in congo. Muzungu in congo." over and over. i was delirious already but laughed so hard i was crying cuz that essentially means: "White man in congo. White man in congo." SOOOOOOOO NOT PC. georgie and i laughed saying it would be funny if we cruised around in london with a guitar following a black man saying "black man in london. black man in london." i think those would be our final words. OKAY~ now~ SIMULTANEOUSLY to these men serenading is, this large police truck drives by (with sirens, trust me it was a police truck) with like 30 people in the back standing up and dancing, and the car was blasting music. a POLICE car on a joy ride. i really thought i was in the twilight zone, so many bizarre things at once!!! kisoro left a rather odd impression on me.

anyway, a couple answers to lovely emails ive gotten but cant respond to just yet. i LOVE hearing from you guys i wish my darn internet was faster so i could respond, it takes 20 minutes to load a page!!!!! i love you all so much though and miss you and love hearing from you.

1) ang~ the women keep their hair short cuz they work the fields and its inconvenient because it grows so thick, so they typically wear wigs and weaves or wraps around their heads. it is tough at times to differenciate between the children's sexes but thankfully women only wear skirts or dresses here. which is why our nursery class says "good morning sir" instead of madam to me and georgie when we wear pants to class. :)
2) saf~ the medical system ive been meaning to say, is quite sad. 45% of babies born here die before the age of 5. i was holding a baby yesterday that was coughing so hard with snot everywhere, and that stat popped in my head again. the local teach inn coordinator came over yesterday late and told us "sorry, my cousin had twins and one of them died. i didnt mean to be late" we were like uhhh... who cares if youre late! but its quite normal. the head mistress at our second school, Joy, told us a week ago she has 5 girls but originally had 9 children, but all four boys died in their infancy. it usually happens at the hands of malaria. and no, women here dont get check ups, people dont even go to the hospital unless they're dying, and even then they cant get surgery unless they pay, which most people cant. our teach inn caretaker the incredible Noah, 20 years old, has probably the best job ni the village and gets paid 45,000 ugandan shillings a month. that's about 30 US dollars.... a month. the hospital visit and seeing sick people and hearing about health stats has been the most depressing part of my trip here. sometimes the women deliver babies and the doctors sell them to someone and bring back another dead baby and tell the mother her baby died. these things are commonplace. people also feign their death to collect the burial money.

by the way, if someone were to break in and steal from Teach Inn, the people in the village would chop his/her head off. martial law reigns in these parts. also, its perfectly fine if you catch your wife or husband cheating to walk in and chop his/her head off as well. makes you think twice before you err, doesnt it? its hard in kabaletown knowing if a local were to accidently hit me on his bike, people would go to his house and kill him for hitting a muzungu. they care so much about their reputation toe the western world its so sad. when women are beautiful here they say "you're pretty like a muzungu". it makes me want to throw up. its that colonial legacy in their minds, its so wrong for them to naturally think of themselves as somehow worth less or whatever. its so so so so hard for that reason being here and being white. we get chased everywhere, when we walk by kids run across fields just to greet the muzungu. i do truly hate it and dont think i could ever get used to it. i feel no more important than them and wish they didn't feel i was either.

teaching has gone well this week and i hate we will have to say by to the kids next week. i am dreading it so much. everytime they sing songs and clap around us i start crying already. you havent seen kids truly sing and dance until you've come here!

anyway, theres all my funny, sad, bizarre stories for the week!!!!!! hope you enjoyed reading this long one, i must go to dinner. i leave uganda for tanzania next thursday, i cant believe how fast it happened. i guess i'll have to post when i get to tanzania!

love,
suz