Ostriches, Rainforests and Drop Toilets, Oh My!

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It’s been about two weeks since I’ve last had access to a computer and it feels pretty good to be back behind a keyboard! I’m currently sitting on a balcony facing the Nile River in Jinja, Uganda. The city is found on the northern tip of Lake Victoria, has a population of close to 3 million and boasts to be “the Source of the Nile”. There are Nile crocodiles along the river banks and fishermen in modest, wooden boats gliding along peacefully.
While we arrived in Jinja yesterday, the bulk of my time these past couple of weeks had been practicing field research techniques in Kibale National Forest, a mid-elevation rainforest situated East of the Rwenzori Mountains and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Kibale is an “island forest” as it’s surrounded by converting land and communities. This makes it a unique system in which to study interactions between protected lands and village people.
The forest was gazetted as a protected area in name of its high primate density. There are literally monkeys everywhere - in the trees and all over the research compound. Several populations are pretty human habituated and would play and fight as we watched only ten feet away. Furthermore they’d wake us up in the night, baboons would dig through the outside garbages and black and white colobus’ would croak their bullfrog-like calls as early as 4 am.
While they are fun to watch and study, the monkeys cause local villages a lot of grief. Crop raiding is a common occurrence - between the primates and the forest elephants a farmer can lose all of his crops (and up to an entire year’s income) in a matter of hours. Furthermore, the forest marks acres of arable land and biomass (used as an energy source). In a region where land tenure equals prosperity, villagers are making huge sacrifices in the name of ecological preservation.
You may be surprised at the last statement - as a biologist, I myself was in awe to be thinking it. Talking to people in the village and interacting with them, however, has imposed upon me the enormous complications associated with Africa, its developing status and its mass biodiversity. It’s very easy for me as a North American to pressure preservation when I live in a country that has historically exploited its natural resources in the name of economic development. Arriving at these thoughts has been pretty overwhelming, it’s been easy to pass judgment on both countries but I’ve quickly learned there are no easy answers.
Life here hasn’t been all heavy thoughts and material, however, I’m having a lot of fun! I was able to work with Dr. Lauren Chapman, a prominent scientist from McGill University. She and her husband, Colin, have been conducting research in Kibale since the early 90’s and have great passion and enthusiasm for Africa. She taught my first class: East African Ecology and Conservation Biology. In a class consisting of 9 girls and 3 field assistants, we set up field experiments on everything from butterfly diversity to the role of elephants in wetlands and swamps. I’ve become a pro at walking through the muddy swamps and searched for Nile Perch and catfish in hip waders. This class ends soon, I write a brief exam on our last day in Jinja then it’s onto the next round!
While we’re taking courses separated into 3-week spands, there are also two context courses that last the entire ten weeks. Two major components of them are a detailed daily journal and 9 research projects with topics relating to the UN Millennium Development Goals. My group in this class is composed of 4 other people and we are investigating the state and availability of education throughout East Africa. We were impressed by the implementation of Universal Primary Education by the government of Uganda but there are still a lot of obstacles to overcome in getting all kids in school. It’ll be interesting to see the developments of this research and differences across the East African countries.
All in all Uganda has blown me away. It’s so different from what I’ve seen of Kenya. The rolling hills are dotted with houses and dirt roads are full of speeding cars and motorcycles. Grasses and trees are dense and look like a green carpeting, interrupted by Lake Victoria and its surrounding communities. I was able to stay in Kampala for a night with 5 other students and some staff members (we flew early from Nairobi into Uganda and met up with the rest of the group the next day) and found it to be very different from Nairobi. It’s been named the host of the upcoming Commonwealth Games, a bidding that has allowed it the financial resources and incentive to reconstruct its war-torn downtown area. The people in the villages are all wonderfully enthusiastic, inviting us to their Sunday masses and community gatherings. Everybody I’ve interviewed has a lot of hope and optimism towards the country’s development and I’d have to agree!
It’s definitely nearing dinner time and I’m sure a Nile Special (beer) is calling my name! I hope that Canada is wonderful (albeit cold) and thank you for reading this far! We leave Uganda in a few days and will be back in Kenya, hopefully with more frequent internet access.
Kwa heri! (“Good bye” in Swahili - a little inappropriate given that nobody speaks the language in Uganda, but it’s the only African tongue I know a little bit of)

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