Now to continue

It's been exactly one month since my last post.  I have been busy going through over 1200 photos to pick out the best ones and in order to make a power point presentation.  That task is finally completed and I will be presenting it at work on the 27th.  You are all welcome to attend at 4:30 that afternoon.  I realize that will probably be impossible for most of you but the invitation still stands.

Going through the photos I realized there were definitely categories emerging such as modes of transportation, the people/children, animals, birds, lodging, and an array of bathroom photos.  For some reason I must have been fascinated by the latter.  Peggy was fascinated by the array of items that could be carried on one's head.  We couldn't even balance a basket across our bedroom.

and now for the children

A little boy plays with a bicycle tire and a stick to keep it rolling, another sits up on a hill to keep various creatures, such as monkeys, out of the planted fields, children with hoes over their shoulders to spend a day with their mothers in the fileds, boys and girls in school uniforms walking on unpaved roads, often at a distance, sometimes barefooted, holding hands to get an education, and carrying yellow containers to fetch water for their family.  Peggy and I were enchanted by the faces of the children we encountered during our time in Uganda and Rwanda.  If only children in the US realized how much they have and take for granted.  Now for some photos:

School children performed native dances for us....these girls balanced baskets on their head while dancing !

Lodging

Our accomodations varied from hotels to luxury tents.  It was the latter that we really enjoyed...especially the ones where we had to tell them what time we wanted to shower and what temperature water we wanted.  Water was poured into a receptacle above our shower head and we learned to get wet, soap up, put the water back on and rinse.  We did so well we actually had water left.

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More of our adventure

I'm not sure if anyone else is reading this but I'm still going to blog as it has become a journal of sorts.  I was looking through some of my video and wanted to share some others from our gorilla trek.  Again, I am still learning how to use the camera so ignore the parts that seem to focus on nothing in particular.

Women in Uganda

The first impression you have of the women we saw is how very hard they work.  If they live in farmland they are often seen walking up the road at 6:30 AM where they will likely stay until dusk.  All tilling the soil, planting and harvesting is done by hand.  We often saw women working with an infant on her back and a toddler at her side.  I doubt if I would last one week following in their footsteps.  Responsibilities at home are also included in their day.  Cooking is over wood or charcoal, water is hauled from a well, often at a great distance.  The children learn to do chores, such as haul water, at a very young age.  Using one's head to carry a variety of supplies is very commonplace.  Clothes are washed in a stream and laid out to dry either on a line or across bushes, etc.                          Grinding peanuts

Off with Mama to the fields

Off to the fields

Washing clothes

We were fascinated by women's ability to balance almost anything on their heads.

chimpanzee trekking

Although gorilla trekking was the priority for me we also had a morning of trekking for chimps in Uganda.  The terrain was much easier, mostly flat and more like a forest than a jungle...in my opinion.  Our guide Richard had no trouble spotting a large group after about an hour of hiking.  We were actually quite close to several of them.  Photos to follow:

 
                             Look closely..do you see the baby with its legs wrapped tightly around mama??

I'm not the best cinematograher but hopefully you can tell its a chimp.

The actual gorilla treks

Feb 10th and 11th we arrived bright and early at the park headquarters where the groups are organized to trek the gorilla families.  Thanks to Paul we were placed with other "trekkers" to see a family that was relatively close, less than 2 hours from the starting point.  I say close because some of the gorilla families are over 5 hours away.  The gorillas move according to the food supply.  I knew I was in good shape when one o f the other participants was on crutches.  Our guide, Hope (actually a male) placed the "disabled" individual and myself in front so the rest of the group wouldn't race ahead........for example, Peggy and her porter.  There are about two "trackers" assigned to each family and they are up in the jungle with walkie talkies providing our guide with the approximate location of the group we are to visit.  So off we go, macheties used to forge a path,. until the gorillas are spotted.  We were given instructions not to use the flash on our cameras, not to point, to whisper, to sneeze or cough into our arm to protect the gorillas from our diseases, not to carry our walking sticks and the person with crutches had to leave them behind.  I think these photos will speak for themselves:

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Learning to swing

I thought we had similar profiles except she wasn't perspiring half as much as I was.

At the end of the trek our group gathered back at the park headquarters to receive our "official" certificates with the name of the gorilla family we visited that day.