Uganda Wildlife Education Center - Entebbe, Uganda.

It’s with some degree of satisfaction that I report the death of Martha. After being mortally wounded – by the cleaning ladies 2 days ago, it would seem -- she quietly expired on the mottled yellow linoleum sometime this afternoon, survived by her boyfriend. It’s with an intense degree of regret that I report Martha’s ghost has already arrived to exact vengeance on the household. Ghost Martha skitters here and there even running straight at me, making me dance a little jig whenever I encounter her. Ghost Martha is far more unpleasant than Martha, rest her soul. I put her next to a deck of cards here to provide you a sense of scale regarding the enormity I have claimed about her.  

In other creepy critter news, today I handled two enormous pythons. One arrived at the center as a rescued animal who was in poor health. I was using the computer at the vet clinic, as was Stephanie, when Robert popped in to tell us about the new arrival. I grabbed my camera and went to check it out. I was somewhat taken aback by the size of the snake and was surprised when we were told it was dehydrated and underweight. Henry saw me with the camera and said “Oh let’s take your picture with the snake!” And before I could even reply or react, he and Wako rapidly approached me with this giant snake and draped it over my shoulders.

For several seconds, I was severely freaked out and made some exceedingly high-pitched girly noises and gestures. Basically, I was abjectly terrified. But honestly, it wasn’t more than a handful of seconds after which I began to feel more chill. Since, to my surprise, I hadn't died of fright or snake bite, I was able to mellow out. After a few photos, I then took the opportunity to inspect the snake and feel it. I was surprised at the feel of its skin, almost silky. You could see how the skin was loose and slack, and its back was almost bony. I didn’t really appreciate its unhealthy condition until we brought it to the snake house to put it in with the python already on display, who is about the same length but is fabulously larger.

The new arrival.

Carrying it to the tractor to drive it over to the snake house.

The zookeepers name the snakes based on their skin patterns. When you look closely, you can see that the patterns often look like letters. So they look for letters and compose its name. It’s true, you really can discern letters of the alphabet in the patterns!  So I was introduced to the other python, whom, if he hadn’t already had a name derived from his skin pattern, I would have dubbed "Mongo." Or "Mongo Squared."  I’ve never personally seen a larger snake than this one. Again, photos were proposed and before I could even blink, Henry had my camera in his hand and this astounding weight was being wrapped around my neck. So then we had this brief photo frenzy of everyone who was helping with the relocation getting in photos and holding all the other snakes in that exhibit…. There were visitors outside the exhibit looking in; they must have thought we were completely loony. I was literally staggering beneath the weight of the healthy python; even with Robert shouldering half the weight, my knees nearly buckled, it was so heavy.

Look at the open mouth on the python!! So freaky. It eats 15 chickens for dinner about every 10 days. Never in a million years could I have forecast my participation in these crazy scenes, confronting one of my all-time biggest fears. 

Now back to life in normal mode … Perhaps you’re wondering, what do I eat here? Breakfast and dinner are “regular” type of food at the center’s restaurant (daily breakfast omelet eaten with a kitty on my lap), but the lunch that is served to the center’s employees is traditional food … consisting largely of several types of mush and some kind of bone-laden meat with the broth spooned over everything, and usually beans or some other vegetable. All scooped into a bowl and eaten practically like a stew.

A few notes: (1) Normally, I never mix my foods on my plate … everything has its discreet compartment on the plate, so I’m adjusting to this. (2) I’m a texture person in terms of food; something can be rendered inedible to me not by its flavor but by its texture, so eating several different types of mush also takes some getting used to. But I’m managing just fine. Really, everything is quite good. The matoke is the biggest staple, and is basically bananas cooked and then mashed, served warm (i.e. what I call mush). (The alpha male chimp is named after this.) I’ve learned in other parts of the country, different mush products are the staple, like cassava or millet. The broths that the meats are cooked in are quite delicious, so nearly anything can go down when soaked in that. (3) I’ve learned to eat without adding salt. Some of you will be doing a double take right now. Yes, even french fries are being consumed au natural. Mostly this is because people don’t understand what you mean when you ask for salt. One time I asked for it at the restaurant here to put on my omelet, and it caused quite a bit of discussion, and after a few minutes I was presented a small pile of salt on a saucer plate. But actually it didn’t take long to adjust. Many things here seem to have much more flavor than at home. Potato products, for example, like fries and potato wedges, etc., eggs, fruits. I even ate a hard-boiled egg with no salt … I was cringing at the thought but wanted to fit in with the rest of my gang snacking on them at the chimp house, so I ate it, and it was not even the same thing as a grocery store egg back home. It was perfectly yummy sans salt.

Last night I met a couchsurfing friend who lives here in Entebbe along with some of his coworkers and girlfriend for dinner. They took me to an orphanage which operates a small pizza restaurant in their courtyard and delivery service (!) two nights a week to help generate money for the orphanage. I believe I was told there are 14 children living there. We met the director, a very nice fellow. And the pizza was delicious. If you find yourself in Entebbe, find out about the Malayaka House pizza night on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Awesome pizza (drinks also) and a good cause.

Since we’re on the subject of food, here are a few pics of the food prep area in the chimp house and the storeroom where food is kept in crates; we pick up a new load of food twice a week. And the gas stove with one working burner. Also threw in a pic of Ngugi the deranged baboon, whose indoor enclosure is just outside the kitchen. He is indoors at night and while the outdoor cage is being cleaned.

Now prepare yourselves for a flood of Ugandan men trying to immigrate to America. Now that they have been informed (by me) that bride prices do not exist, and that in fact, it is often the bride’s family who pays for any wedding ceremony, they are clambering to get over here. I had dinner Sunday with my Facebook friend I met the previous weekend. “There must not be any single men in America!” he said. When I told him there was no bride price to pay to get married, he said, “Come on!” As though I was pulling his leg. I was very amused at his incredulity that marriage can be so cheap. Then the kicker that the bride’s family often pays for a wedding, was almost too much for him to bear.

Another cheap thing that surprised him was the miniscule cost to have a domain name and internet site or blog site in America … the fact that anyone who can vaguely operate a keyboard can have a personal blog up on the internet to say whatever they want to the rest of the world was another difficult one for him to accept. “Come on!” he says again, as though this cannot be true. In Uganda, he has to pay something like USD 250 for a permit to have his website (travel safari services), which is an absurd amount of money in Uganda.

I also got a kick out of telling him how Americans treat their pets … how many of us have animals as part of our family, letting them sleep with us and eat with us and travel with us, and spoiling and pampering them. “Come on!” my friend says, as if I’m making this stuff up. It amuses me to see what surprises people about Americans. He is preparing to buy some land so he can grow some crops and raise livestock to start raising a bride price so he can get married. (He plans to remain in the city and hire people to run the farm.)

As my time is more than half over now, already I lament that this is likely a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I will never again get to spend my mornings playing with chimps and an hour or more each afternoon watching them on their island, how they interact, how they gather and hoard their food, how they play, intimidate, use their beloved branches as tools to grab things from the water. I can tell you, it will be hard to leave. Please send your thoughts to the rain clouds here to stop raining in the mornings ... as soon as we get a dry morning, we theoretically get to bring the baby chimp out to play.

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Uganda Wildlife Education Center - Entebbe, Uganda.

A post of photos. Electricity has been out for ages. Now it's back on, but am a bit tired, a bit full of beer, so without further verbal ado ... here are some chimp pics.

(1) The duet of toddlers. (2) Just like brother and sister humans, these 2 antagonize and provoke one another into playing and rough housing ... they could hardly be more human. (3) Fun with tires. (4) Tired little chimp after so much picking on his sister. (5) Playing with my hands.

A series of photos depicting the unlimited fun one can have with a metal bowl. So cute watching the progression of interest and ideas of how this thing might be used. Does this routine happen every day? A new epiphany every 24 hours? I have no idea. But it was ridiculously cute while I witnessed it.

It's hard to tell, but in the above photo, the dish is actually on a narrow ledge ... a pretty precarious spot for one to be sitting in a dish upon. And sure enough, about a minute after I took this photo, dish and chimp both came tumbling down with a great clatter and much surprise on the chimp's part. Priceless. 

Uganda Wildlife Education Center - Entebbe, Uganda.

I keep thinking things are going to slow down and I won’t have so much to share and can ease up on the posting. But instead I’m falling behind. Let’s begin with the random fact that I tried raw sugar cane for the first time … it’s a very fibrous plant and you just suck the juice out of it. Delish! Next, I should let you know I may have to revise my bride price yet again. Now I’ve gotten an appraisal at 100 cows and 50 goats even in spite of my deficiencies.

And now a baby elephant! A rescued tot … he was found in the wild separated from his mother and family. The people who found him believed him to be permanently orphaned, so they brought him to the UWEC. Most of the animals here are rescued animals. Only a handful have been born in captivity. This little fellow is so hairy! I’ve never seen such a shaggy elephant. He’s simply precious, so teeny tiny. He is in quarantine for now at the vet clinic. They built a little stick pen for him inside the courtyard of the clinic building. Yesterday they brought in a truckload of sand for him to play in … he relished his little sand box and loved rubbing his face and body into it as hard as he could. They take him for walks across the road into a field for him to eat some leaves and grass. I’ve seen them cross the road, and it’s just adorable this tiny elephant trundling behind the keeper into the jungle. I hope I can spend more time with him getting some more photos.

That’s the stuff! Getting good and sandy…

His little legs and little feet just kill me. So cute!

Love how he trundles around the courtyard so tiny, poor sweet little orphan.

Look at the crazy whiskers sticking out along his trunk!

I know you’re wondering about the title of this post. What do I mean by chimpanzees at last, when I’ve been working with them since day 1. Well, what I mean is that it takes awhile to truly connect, and each day is more meaningful than the last, until you feel you have jumped a level in understanding and connection. Like any kind of relationship, I suppose.

You might think that the more you know somebody /something, the more you can say about them, that you will stack up more and more words and descriptions until you can paint them inside another person’s head with your words. But this is not the case. The deeper you know another, the more words fail. This knowledge bypasses the verbal command center into far deeper recesses of our brains, hearts and souls. Up to now I’ve been able to describe to you what I’ve done and how fun it is, how cute the chimps are, my feelings of joy, and a narrative of their behaviors and actions. And I’ll continue to do so, but now you should know that is no longer the extent of my personal interaction with these creatures, but I can’t explain it further than I have. I’ve watched them for hours now both on their island and in their nighttime cage. Watched them individually and as a group and as individual smaller social units, watched them in solitude, while playing, while stirring up trouble. I’ve held their hands and feet every day, fed them directly every day, scratched their backs and their heads and rubbed their ears, looked in their eyes inches from mine, let them wrap their warm soft lips around my fingers and suck them. Maybe that’s all I need to say.

I visited the 2 toddler chimps being held in the vet clinic. The aim is to introduce them to the rest of the chimps, but the integration process begins by putting the little ones in a separate cage from the troupe, with the 2 cages facing each other so first they can simply see one another, but right now the 2 baboons are taking up those cages. So until they can be moved, the chimp toddlers have to stay at the clinic. I have what I think is a cute series of photos of one them playing with a tin bowl … will try to get up soon. (a fair number of photos to size and post...) A couple pics of the toddlers:

Taking after Onapa ... all about the casual leisure pose.

Have you ever seen a chimp's foot up close? It looks so much like a hand! And has just as much dexterity.

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Uganda Wildlife Education Center - Entebbe, Uganda.

I’ve seen them on television shows … the tornado-like funnels of bazillions of insects moving across Lake Victoria in plumes. Now I’ve witnessed them in person. Looking out over the lake during breakfast, I could see them. And by afternoon, I myself was engulfed in them. The sound is very loud as you approach a swarm. I was walking beneath a tree once and a large packet of insects just dropped out of the tree at my feet. I looked up to realize that the tree was completely taken over with these packets that engulf the leaves. Isaac told me not to swat at them or to swish them away with my hand, as this makes it worse. I noticed then, that nobody anywhere was trying to wave them away with their hand. “Just bend your head down and walk through.” They still get in your eyes and nose and mouth. Walking back from lunch with Bruce, he said, “You have to talk with your lips closed …” The one saving grace is that these buggers do not bite. They’re little gnat things that simply invade your orifices. Not particularly pleasant.

The vervets were really getting nasty today. Maybe the gnats get on their nerves as well. One tried to steal my breakfast again (I saved it), but he went to the next table and absconded with the sugar bowl. Eventually he broke it. For an outfit like this restaurant, that’s a fairly major blow, losing an item like that. I’m somewhat confident it was the only sugar bowl they had. Late in the day I came across the troupe and followed them about taking a few photos and one of them became very aggressive and attacked me! Good thing I had on pants rather than shorts. It was actually a bit scary.

It was apparently grooming hour … I came across numerous pairs or triplets grooming each other, and noticed that the groom-ee falls into a trance while being groomed. One monkey was lying down on his side in the road while another groomed his fur. After the groomer left, the monkey still didn’t move a muscle. I honestly thought it was dead. I walked up to it, and it was motionless. I was about to nudge it with my toe to make sure it was dead and suddenly it sprung up, scared the hooha out of me. Then I looked around and noticed the other monkeys being groomed looking like they’d checked out for awhile on heroin or something.

Today's conversation at the chimp house among the zookeepers centered around governments and corruption. Often we have downtime between when morning chores are finished and lunch. "Is there corruption in America?" they ask.

"Yes, of course," I say.

"There is??" they are slightly incredulous. If only their perception of America was real and we all had maids and consciences to bar corruption! OK, elephant and baby chimps coming soon, as promised on Facebook.

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