Blogs from Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Western Region, Uganda, Africa - page 3

I was not immediately enthusiastic about the prospect of trekking to see the gorillas. Before I arrived here, it didn’t feature in my metal list of things to do in Africa. The obvious objection is that it’s ruinously expensive, but I was also pretty dubious about the ecotourism claims. Surely it can’t be good to tramp out into the forest and hassle severely endangered wild animals? To encourage human contact? But over months spent in East Africa, I heard people rave about it over and over again. Everyone said the same thing. You have to do this. It was unanimous. When I met some researchers from London’s Natural History Museum who said it was amazing and totally legitimate from an ecological point of view, I decided maybe I was being a little hasty in dismissing the ... read more

Sorry, this blog post is long overdue. I’ve been here for almost 3 months now… time is just flying by! I’m still having my ups and downs about being here, but the ups totally outweigh the downs. I’ve learned so much about myself and just non-nursing things (like farming, business, and setting up a co-op, things that I would never have looked into myself but find very interesting.) I’ve learned about the nature of people, how I like to work, qualities needed in a good leader, and how to really work as a team. How I don’t need to rush to move on to doing the expected things in life, because they’ll come when they’re meant to. This knowledge has mostly come from the other volunteers, all of whom are absolutely amazing, smart, talented ... read more

1/14/12 I spend the day in the local health clinic today. As I write this, I am sitting on a cold concrete bench, where the patients usually wait hours to be seen by the nurse or the medical officer (a person with 3 years of medical training, I’d say roughly the equivalent of a PA in the US.) A doctor comes here roughly once every 4 months, and nurses here diagnose and prescribe medications. Today, the other health worker didn’t show up, so it was just me, the nurse, and her husband who is the dentist, owns the local pub, and taxis people at night. So we began our day alone. I weighed all the patients, and the nurse began to see them. After I was done, I joined her. We saw people with malaria, pneumonia, ... read more

Wow, Wow, Wow, and many many more wows..... we came back yesterday, late afternoon, from perhaps one of the most life enhancing experiences of our lives.... 3 days away with our fantastic driver Alex (a font of african wildlife knowledge and demon at off-roading on the hiddeous Ugandan roads) and he totally surpassed our expectations, taking us all over the difficult South Western Region and showing us as much as he could in the alloted time that we had. we left very early on the first day, 6am, as the drive would be a gruelling 10 hours or so to get to Bwindi (the impenetrable forest). but we visited the equator and drove through the Queen Elizabeth national park on the way so it didn't really feel like such a long trip. we saw Zebra, hundreds ... read more

Om 8 uur start de gorilla tracking, dit betekent vroeg uit de veren want het is 2 uur rijden. Er hangt een gezonde spanning in de auto. In het Travellers Rest Hotel in Kisoro hangen verschillende nationaliteiten rond, allen voor de gorilla,s. De wildste verhalen gaan rond, over zware trackings, een gorilla die naast een man gaat zitten en zijn arm er rond slaat tot een Australier die een stomp tegen zijn schouder kreeg en viel. Aangekomen dienen we ons paspoort te tonen om onze permit te verkrijgen. Allen hebben op voorhand een gorillagroep toegewezen gekregen, wij de Nshungo. Als ze merken dat de groep niet voldoende fit is, kan dit nog wijzigen. Om 8 uur is er eerst een briefing, onthou vooral dat je een gorilla niet in de ogen mag kijken. Tevens op 7 ... read more