Back in Kampala, where the puddles are all the colour of ochre, the everpresent African dust saturating both them and your lungs. The only wildlife I see here are Maribou storks. They would almost be pretty if they didnt have enormous sagging neck pouches covered in naked pink skin. The road system does remind me of the savanna in some ways; the boda-boda (motorcycles) weaving inbetween traffic on the wrong side of the road or pavement like maniacal kob with a death-wish, and the matatus (buses) moving like herds of buffalo or schools of fish, one forces an opening in the congested roads and others swarm behind to wedge the gap open. Crossing the roads can take time.
Getting back to Kampala wasn't quite as straight forward as the journey to Semliki. The camp vehicle had broken down, the cause remaining a mystery. So I hired a taxi driver called Monday, the same guy who brought me from Fort Portal to Semliki a few months ago, to come pick me up. It turned out to be the only morning since Ive been here when we've had torrential rains. The result was a ranger, Alimosi, riding shotgun in the taxi shouting directions "LEFT!, RIGHT!, LEFT!" to Monday in order to navigate around the giant mud baths that were forming in the savanna roads. Monday had to keep travelling as fast as possible, 40-60mph, because once the car slowed it sank. At one point we stopped to try and help another car that had got stuck and as a result we sank too. So a team of 4 had to push us out of the mud and then run to catch up to the car and jump in while it moved. It definitely felt like being in a rally.
Now just killing time in Kampala before my flight tomorrow. Getting to follow the chimpanzees for the last 9 weeks has been fantastic and unforgettable. It's clear that the chimps here need further study, they dissappear for days on end and we have no sure idea where they go. More tracks in the forest and especially the savanna would go a long way towards helping. I hope to get a chance to go back in the future!
Tuesday, 22 September 2009
Wednesday, 9 September 2009
Last Post from Semliki
Time has gone by so quickly. I thought because I'd be in one place the entire time that the time would go slowly, maybe even drag on a bit, but it hasn't. Maggie, the other researcher just left for a 2 week holiday in Ethiopia so I'll be the only researcher for my last 2 weeks here. Fortunately we put the two tables in the dining area, which used to be one for researchers one for camp workers and rangers, together a few weeks ago so I won't be eating solo.
The camp will also be shrinking from having 12 people to 6. We've had carpenters and grass cutters here working to build/repair and thatch platforms for tents. So it's been busy in camp the last few weeks. We had a party last evening with 16 guests to celebrate the end of construction (just scraping the barrel for excuses to celebrate I think). It involved butchering a goat, which turned out to provide more meat than I thought possible for such a small animal. Then for music to dance to we played cassettes using the car speakers. It was great to have everyone together from different parts of Semliki. Patrick the gate-keeper in the park seemed especially moved to be invited, as it seems he doesn't get much appreciation for doing his lonely job at the gate, so me and Maggie felt slightly vindicated in killing a small mammal for the occasion.
It's been up and down with the chimps over the last week, they seemed to have vanished completely into another part of their 62km square home range. Finally we think we have located some of them, eating from small fig trees on the escarpment, one of the only food sources left to them in the area at the moment. Still, we have only seen small family units of females and juveniles in these trees, no adult males have been sighted for at least a week. We suspect they may be in Wassa, a nearby riverine forest where they have been heard calling by staff at the nearby safari lodge.
I'll be sad to leave this place, the work is really interesting and the atmosphere in the camp is great, so it's hard to decide which is more enjoyable, the days in the forest or the evenings in camp, playing African card games, trying to figure out how to gracefully use your hands to eat millet and bean soup, and then trying to watch half a movie on a laptop until the solar charger runs out of power and we have to use kerosene lamps to illuminate the place. Though sometimes it's better not to bring light into the kitchen after dark, the cane rats are the size of domestic cats.
Though the place is fantastic I look forward to seeing friends and family again, I'm sure the time from now until then will go quickly!
Alex
The camp will also be shrinking from having 12 people to 6. We've had carpenters and grass cutters here working to build/repair and thatch platforms for tents. So it's been busy in camp the last few weeks. We had a party last evening with 16 guests to celebrate the end of construction (just scraping the barrel for excuses to celebrate I think). It involved butchering a goat, which turned out to provide more meat than I thought possible for such a small animal. Then for music to dance to we played cassettes using the car speakers. It was great to have everyone together from different parts of Semliki. Patrick the gate-keeper in the park seemed especially moved to be invited, as it seems he doesn't get much appreciation for doing his lonely job at the gate, so me and Maggie felt slightly vindicated in killing a small mammal for the occasion.
It's been up and down with the chimps over the last week, they seemed to have vanished completely into another part of their 62km square home range. Finally we think we have located some of them, eating from small fig trees on the escarpment, one of the only food sources left to them in the area at the moment. Still, we have only seen small family units of females and juveniles in these trees, no adult males have been sighted for at least a week. We suspect they may be in Wassa, a nearby riverine forest where they have been heard calling by staff at the nearby safari lodge.
I'll be sad to leave this place, the work is really interesting and the atmosphere in the camp is great, so it's hard to decide which is more enjoyable, the days in the forest or the evenings in camp, playing African card games, trying to figure out how to gracefully use your hands to eat millet and bean soup, and then trying to watch half a movie on a laptop until the solar charger runs out of power and we have to use kerosene lamps to illuminate the place. Though sometimes it's better not to bring light into the kitchen after dark, the cane rats are the size of domestic cats.
Though the place is fantastic I look forward to seeing friends and family again, I'm sure the time from now until then will go quickly!
Alex
Wednesday, 26 August 2009
Priceless
Gum boots to keep feet dry in the wet season: 16,000 Ugandan Shillings. Rooster to eat for Edson the camp managers birthday: 18,000 shillings. Binoculars to see chimps in distant canopy: 49 pounds 99 pence.Being chased by angry bee's that think you are a chimp trying to steal there honey and being stung twice in the face: Priceless. There are some things money can't buy or prevent, for everything else there's my student overdraft and overburdened parents. Being in the forest I've learnt to approach challenges with a positive outlook. While in isolation the bee stings could be seen as unfortunate, in reality they were nature's way of prepping my adrenal system for the experience of being charged by a forest elephant the following week. We were with a group of tourists when we came upon the elephant. We smelt it (just like the elephant enclosure at the zoo, unsuprisingly) and saw the dung first. The male was just wandering on the path chewing some branches, the tourists wanted to get closer for photos and when they were within around 12 metres of the elephant it must have got annoyed because it spread its ears wide, opened its mouth and charged towards us. I'd like to say I stood my ground, stared it in the eyes and the elephant turned tail and ran away. But if I'd done that I'd probably be flatter than a chipati. Instead, i ran away with the tourists, I didnt register that the loud bang was the ranger firing a shot from his rifle into the air, causing the elephant to rethink it's strategy and run away, until I had sprinted in the opposite direction. Fortunately I didn't run long, as my route would have taken me directly into another family groups of elephants.
It's been great getting to know the staff better as I've spent time here. They're all completely welcoming and make living here a totally pleasant and incredible experience. One of the rangers, Alimosi, has a business keeping bees. I'm trying to learn more about it so that I can start making honey back in the UK. It probably wont taste as good as the stuff he gets from the Rwenzori mountains, but it is still honey.
Currently going through a dry patch seeing the chimps. As there's so little food in the forest for them to eat at the moment they have to travel large distances in small groups in order to find enough. That means we can go days at a time with no signs of chimp anywhere. Hopefully they will start coming back as they seem to move through the area in cycles, spending some days in each area then returning. There are some fruiting fig trees at the moment, hopefully this will tempt them back to us...
So many more things to mention but time in town is brief, we have to go to two busy open air markets to get supplies plus other administrative tasks. If anybody would like a letter send me your address and I'll try to write.
Hope everyone is well!
Alex
It's been great getting to know the staff better as I've spent time here. They're all completely welcoming and make living here a totally pleasant and incredible experience. One of the rangers, Alimosi, has a business keeping bees. I'm trying to learn more about it so that I can start making honey back in the UK. It probably wont taste as good as the stuff he gets from the Rwenzori mountains, but it is still honey.
Currently going through a dry patch seeing the chimps. As there's so little food in the forest for them to eat at the moment they have to travel large distances in small groups in order to find enough. That means we can go days at a time with no signs of chimp anywhere. Hopefully they will start coming back as they seem to move through the area in cycles, spending some days in each area then returning. There are some fruiting fig trees at the moment, hopefully this will tempt them back to us...
So many more things to mention but time in town is brief, we have to go to two busy open air markets to get supplies plus other administrative tasks. If anybody would like a letter send me your address and I'll try to write.
Hope everyone is well!
Alex
Wednesday, 12 August 2009
High Winds in Uganda
I've always wanted to have the skills of an animal tracker. To be able to know the species, group size, sex ratio, direction of movement and even inner hopes, dreams and fears of an animal just by studying a slightly broken twig in the middle of a dense forest. Now I can pretend I have these abilities. The rangers notice knuckle prints in the sand, the bent foliage than indicates a group of chimps has passed through, the differences between baboon and chimp dung (baboon dung is usually smaller and has more threads of grass in it) and are eerily good at hearing the calls of chimps in the distance. So when they point these clues out I can at least imagine that I share their abilities through osmosis. Slowly I am beginning to learn these techniques of tracking. On the rare occasions I do spot a chimp before the ranger with me I often am so excited that I have found them that I shout 'chimp!' and it runs off before anyone else sees it. I will/must/probably won't improve.
I'm working on getting good photos of the chimps for personal satisfaction and also, more worthily, so it's easier to identify the chimps using a photo ID book. Currently a rule seems to be in force meaning that when I bring out the camera we see no chimps and when I leave it we get within 4 metres of them and they practically pose for us. So from now on I'll always be taking a camera, and look forward to the extra sweat I produce carrying it along with everything else.
I've now procured ethanol from a local store called 'Lab +', which appeared to be an odd mix of shady backstreet and supplier of materials for laboratory work. Now I can begin hunting for dung associated with particular individuals and later hopefully extract the DNA, instead of contaminating the samples and ending up extracting my own DNA.
While hear I've heard that the chimps occasionally raid the crops of farmers high on the escarpment, apparently especially in the dry season when food is scarce. A new objective is to visit the local farms with a ranger or camp staff as translator and chat to some of the farmers to learn more about this. Food is scarce here compared to other chimp habitats so it'd be interesting to know what role, if any (as we haven't seen any traces in their dung), human crops are playing in the chimp diet.
It's about to go from dry to wet season here in Uganda. I've bought some wellies in preperation for the river crossings that will become necessary once the water comes back. A few days ago the first heavy rains came, along with immensely powerful winds that knocked cups of the tables and sent the rain everywhere. The rolling thunder and overhead lightening made it the most intense storm I've ever seen. Being exposed to it, protected only by wooden thatched roofs that soon began to drip made it very exciting/cold. It was fun trying to cook dinner in the middle of it, everyone managed and was relieved when the rain finally stopped some hours later. Fortunately, we just finished laying the gravel paths so we could walk, not swim, to our tents.
Living in a real life version of the Lion King is still fantastic. Mr Tokyo is still missing, presumed dead. Hope everyone is well, thanks for the comments. Oh and we also identified a new male. He looks old and has distinctive red markings on his face, reminiscent of war paint. We've named him Kali, which is the Swahili word for burning.
I'm working on getting good photos of the chimps for personal satisfaction and also, more worthily, so it's easier to identify the chimps using a photo ID book. Currently a rule seems to be in force meaning that when I bring out the camera we see no chimps and when I leave it we get within 4 metres of them and they practically pose for us. So from now on I'll always be taking a camera, and look forward to the extra sweat I produce carrying it along with everything else.
I've now procured ethanol from a local store called 'Lab +', which appeared to be an odd mix of shady backstreet and supplier of materials for laboratory work. Now I can begin hunting for dung associated with particular individuals and later hopefully extract the DNA, instead of contaminating the samples and ending up extracting my own DNA.
While hear I've heard that the chimps occasionally raid the crops of farmers high on the escarpment, apparently especially in the dry season when food is scarce. A new objective is to visit the local farms with a ranger or camp staff as translator and chat to some of the farmers to learn more about this. Food is scarce here compared to other chimp habitats so it'd be interesting to know what role, if any (as we haven't seen any traces in their dung), human crops are playing in the chimp diet.
It's about to go from dry to wet season here in Uganda. I've bought some wellies in preperation for the river crossings that will become necessary once the water comes back. A few days ago the first heavy rains came, along with immensely powerful winds that knocked cups of the tables and sent the rain everywhere. The rolling thunder and overhead lightening made it the most intense storm I've ever seen. Being exposed to it, protected only by wooden thatched roofs that soon began to drip made it very exciting/cold. It was fun trying to cook dinner in the middle of it, everyone managed and was relieved when the rain finally stopped some hours later. Fortunately, we just finished laying the gravel paths so we could walk, not swim, to our tents.
Living in a real life version of the Lion King is still fantastic. Mr Tokyo is still missing, presumed dead. Hope everyone is well, thanks for the comments. Oh and we also identified a new male. He looks old and has distinctive red markings on his face, reminiscent of war paint. We've named him Kali, which is the Swahili word for burning.
Wednesday, 29 July 2009
Into the Forest
I've been at Semliki for nearly a week. It's fantastic. The camp is on the border of the wooded grassland (basically a savannah) and the riverine forest where the chimps spend most of their time. The chimps follow the food and at the moment there are these orange sized juicy fruits in the forest called Saba florida that the chimps are eating. They look kind of like giant passion fruit and dont taste too bad.
The forest itself is great, you learn just how many shades of green there really are. Before I enter the forest I douse myself in a protective coat of DEET to repel bugs but as Im the only person here who does this I think its just paranoia. The biting bugs arent too bad. Tsetse fly follow you around sometimes but Ive yet to be bitten by one. However, on my first day in the forest I did manage the smart move of standing in the path of a safari ant hunting party. I was pulling them off for about 5 minutes whenever I felt a pair of mandibles snap shut somewhere on my legs. There are a lot of incredible insects, and birds, they are all reminiscent of species back at home except twice the size and with intensely bright colours. For example the sparrows have turquise chests and red spots by their eyes.
Although the chimps are often hard to find, Ive seen them quite a few times already. The rangers track them by looking for foot and knuckle prints on the ground and listening for chimp movements and calls in the trees. The most common call is the pant-hoot, often given when a chimp moves to a food and nearly always when chimps meet each other. The pant-hoots start quietly and get gradually louder, with the hoots being connected by audable inhilations of breath. After spending hours wandering around getting demoralised from failing to see any chimps its exciting to suddenly hear them calling, often very nearby. The chimps have been getting more used to being followed by people over the last few months. So now we can often get quite close, only metres away when they are in the safety of the trees. I thought I'd identified a new female, with siamese features, only to discover when I got back to camp that people already knew her, but Im still hopefull.
At the campsite we are laying gravel paths to stop the rainy season weather that now approaches from turning the place into a mudbath. A common house gecko has started coming to my tent at night to hang out on the wall and eat the bugs that always fly in. I've named him Mr Tokyo and expect to be devestated when he doesnt appear one evening, eaten by some larger animal. Speaking of which there is supposed to be a leopard that sleeps under the tent platforms in the rainy season. Hopefully I'll get to see it.
I should be back on the internet in 2 weeks to do another update. By then I hope to have made progress on two main projects, getting decent photos of the chimps for an ID booklet and collecting some chimp dung from identified individuals in testubes for DNA analysis later so that we can figure out who is related to who and construct a family tree.
Hope everyone is well!
Cagan
The forest itself is great, you learn just how many shades of green there really are. Before I enter the forest I douse myself in a protective coat of DEET to repel bugs but as Im the only person here who does this I think its just paranoia. The biting bugs arent too bad. Tsetse fly follow you around sometimes but Ive yet to be bitten by one. However, on my first day in the forest I did manage the smart move of standing in the path of a safari ant hunting party. I was pulling them off for about 5 minutes whenever I felt a pair of mandibles snap shut somewhere on my legs. There are a lot of incredible insects, and birds, they are all reminiscent of species back at home except twice the size and with intensely bright colours. For example the sparrows have turquise chests and red spots by their eyes.
Although the chimps are often hard to find, Ive seen them quite a few times already. The rangers track them by looking for foot and knuckle prints on the ground and listening for chimp movements and calls in the trees. The most common call is the pant-hoot, often given when a chimp moves to a food and nearly always when chimps meet each other. The pant-hoots start quietly and get gradually louder, with the hoots being connected by audable inhilations of breath. After spending hours wandering around getting demoralised from failing to see any chimps its exciting to suddenly hear them calling, often very nearby. The chimps have been getting more used to being followed by people over the last few months. So now we can often get quite close, only metres away when they are in the safety of the trees. I thought I'd identified a new female, with siamese features, only to discover when I got back to camp that people already knew her, but Im still hopefull.
At the campsite we are laying gravel paths to stop the rainy season weather that now approaches from turning the place into a mudbath. A common house gecko has started coming to my tent at night to hang out on the wall and eat the bugs that always fly in. I've named him Mr Tokyo and expect to be devestated when he doesnt appear one evening, eaten by some larger animal. Speaking of which there is supposed to be a leopard that sleeps under the tent platforms in the rainy season. Hopefully I'll get to see it.
I should be back on the internet in 2 weeks to do another update. By then I hope to have made progress on two main projects, getting decent photos of the chimps for an ID booklet and collecting some chimp dung from identified individuals in testubes for DNA analysis later so that we can figure out who is related to who and construct a family tree.
Hope everyone is well!
Cagan
Tuesday, 21 July 2009
Busy Schedule
Tomorrow I'm catching a bus to Fort Portal, the gateway town in Western Uganda that leads to Semliki and many other chimpanzee field sites. To get to Fort Portal with time to get a taxi to the field site I should leave Kampala by around 11:30am at the latest. In the four hours between waking and getting on the bus I'll be playing a sort of 'treasure hunt' in Kampala in order to have everything sorted before I leave.
First on the list is getting to the UWA (Ugandan Wildlife Authority) in order to pay for a permit so that I can be a legitimate volunteer for two months.
Second is picking up some zip-lock bags from a super-market. I won't go into too much detail as to what these are for, just think chimp droppings, and analysis.
Third is packing up my room, i've managed to spread things out of my carefully packed ( obviously not by me) bag in what looks like a controlled explosion. It'll all have to implode back to how it was, with the addition of more supplies, through some kind of magic.
Ok, the tasks seem more manageable and less long now I've listed them. Not quite the labours of Hercules. The key factor will be what time I wake up. My achilles heel. Fortunately, the breakfasts here are amazing and start at 6:00am (not that I'll be up then). You get an entire pot of fresh Ugandan Coffee, it tastes exactly the same as the stuff you get in sainsbury's, but you get to feel smugger drinking it here.
Excitement about reaching the field site is increasing. Two days ago some of the chimps 'nested', meaning they built nests in the trees to sleep in by folding branches, a kind of functional tree origami, only 200 metres from camp. The number of hours it's possible to stay with the chimps during the day is also increasing, so soon it may be possible to do 'nest to nest' follows. That's the holy grail of chimp habituation (getting chimps comfortable with being watched by nerds like me), it's when you can follow the chimps from the moment they wake up in the morning until when they settle down at night. I can't wait to see some chimps in the wild, I'm expecting and hoping to be filled with a sense of awe that will justify my questionable decision to leave friends and family for 2 months in order to hang out with animals that will find my company an inconvenience at best. A sentiment perhaps shared by many who know me.
If I get lucky and manage to identify any new chimps (unlikely considering my inexperience and limited time here) it's possible I might get to name them. No doubt Steve would call this a blatant but subversive act of neo-colonial domination of the developing world and/or nature. He's probably right. I think Foucault has something interesting to say on the subject. Regardless, if anyone has any good ideas of chimp names I'd be happy to hear them and humour you with the idea I might actually use the name should I get lucky.
once again: text me on 25607826557900 or 2560784047060 (i have a spare phone now should one not like working in the field. Paranoid or prepared? It's a fine line. I'll be checking both intermittently.)
Cagan
First on the list is getting to the UWA (Ugandan Wildlife Authority) in order to pay for a permit so that I can be a legitimate volunteer for two months.
Second is picking up some zip-lock bags from a super-market. I won't go into too much detail as to what these are for, just think chimp droppings, and analysis.
Third is packing up my room, i've managed to spread things out of my carefully packed ( obviously not by me) bag in what looks like a controlled explosion. It'll all have to implode back to how it was, with the addition of more supplies, through some kind of magic.
Ok, the tasks seem more manageable and less long now I've listed them. Not quite the labours of Hercules. The key factor will be what time I wake up. My achilles heel. Fortunately, the breakfasts here are amazing and start at 6:00am (not that I'll be up then). You get an entire pot of fresh Ugandan Coffee, it tastes exactly the same as the stuff you get in sainsbury's, but you get to feel smugger drinking it here.
Excitement about reaching the field site is increasing. Two days ago some of the chimps 'nested', meaning they built nests in the trees to sleep in by folding branches, a kind of functional tree origami, only 200 metres from camp. The number of hours it's possible to stay with the chimps during the day is also increasing, so soon it may be possible to do 'nest to nest' follows. That's the holy grail of chimp habituation (getting chimps comfortable with being watched by nerds like me), it's when you can follow the chimps from the moment they wake up in the morning until when they settle down at night. I can't wait to see some chimps in the wild, I'm expecting and hoping to be filled with a sense of awe that will justify my questionable decision to leave friends and family for 2 months in order to hang out with animals that will find my company an inconvenience at best. A sentiment perhaps shared by many who know me.
If I get lucky and manage to identify any new chimps (unlikely considering my inexperience and limited time here) it's possible I might get to name them. No doubt Steve would call this a blatant but subversive act of neo-colonial domination of the developing world and/or nature. He's probably right. I think Foucault has something interesting to say on the subject. Regardless, if anyone has any good ideas of chimp names I'd be happy to hear them and humour you with the idea I might actually use the name should I get lucky.
once again: text me on 25607826557900 or 2560784047060 (i have a spare phone now should one not like working in the field. Paranoid or prepared? It's a fine line. I'll be checking both intermittently.)
Cagan
Monday, 20 July 2009
Arrival
I've made it into Kampala. The Entebbe airport where we fly in right by Lake Victoria, so the view was pretty spectacular for landing. The old Ugandan airport, the site of the hijacking of Air France flight 139 in 1976, is right next to the current one. Now it seems to be used by the UN, the place is full of UN tents, planes and jeeps.
I'll only be in Kampala for one more day, so won't have time to get to know the place very well. It's not as hectic as Nairobi nor as hilly as Rwanda. A completely useless and subjective description but there you go. Looking out my window I'd make the observation that at night Kampala looks just like any other capital city, full of white and yellow lights in all directions. During the day, when you can see occasional large empty patches of land, usually covered in red dust, and large caribou storks flying from tree to tree, it's clearly that it's an African city.
Tomorrow I'll be meeting Kevin, the man who runs the site I'll be working at in Semliki. I'll also be visiting the Ugandan Wildlife Authorities to pay a 'nominal' fee to be allowed to work in a national park area. The fact that the fee is variable depending on the mood of the officer that day and the charm skills of the applicant, combined with my track record or reverse bartering, a unique skill in which I end up paying more for an item than is even asked, things don't bode well. Hopefully it'll be around $25. I'll let you know how that goes.
I'm looking forward to getting to the site and getting to know everyone there. I'll soon find out how I deal with living in the field. The apparent 5:30 am wake-up, as my flat-mates will know, is not my idea of a good morning. On the bright side, I can lie in on Sundays. Switched on traveller that I am I bought some 'cutting-edge' clothing for trekking in the savanna. 2 of them are blue. I have just learned that the 1-inch biting tsetse fly is attracted to blue as it mistakes it for shade, which apparently is tinted-blue due to dispersed UV rays. Watch this space, I may include a tsetse fly bite counter in future blog posts.
Ok, that's probably enough innane thoughts for now. I find it impossible to write a 'blog' without feeling even more pretentious than usual. I won't have much internet contact from wednesday, as I'll be in camp. I should get to use the internet in the local town, Fort Portal every fortnight or so. I'll have a phone, so can have text communication if anyone wants to contact me. I'm sure I'll appreciate any messages. Hope everyone is well and enjoying their summers!
Cagan
I'll only be in Kampala for one more day, so won't have time to get to know the place very well. It's not as hectic as Nairobi nor as hilly as Rwanda. A completely useless and subjective description but there you go. Looking out my window I'd make the observation that at night Kampala looks just like any other capital city, full of white and yellow lights in all directions. During the day, when you can see occasional large empty patches of land, usually covered in red dust, and large caribou storks flying from tree to tree, it's clearly that it's an African city.
Tomorrow I'll be meeting Kevin, the man who runs the site I'll be working at in Semliki. I'll also be visiting the Ugandan Wildlife Authorities to pay a 'nominal' fee to be allowed to work in a national park area. The fact that the fee is variable depending on the mood of the officer that day and the charm skills of the applicant, combined with my track record or reverse bartering, a unique skill in which I end up paying more for an item than is even asked, things don't bode well. Hopefully it'll be around $25. I'll let you know how that goes.
I'm looking forward to getting to the site and getting to know everyone there. I'll soon find out how I deal with living in the field. The apparent 5:30 am wake-up, as my flat-mates will know, is not my idea of a good morning. On the bright side, I can lie in on Sundays. Switched on traveller that I am I bought some 'cutting-edge' clothing for trekking in the savanna. 2 of them are blue. I have just learned that the 1-inch biting tsetse fly is attracted to blue as it mistakes it for shade, which apparently is tinted-blue due to dispersed UV rays. Watch this space, I may include a tsetse fly bite counter in future blog posts.
Ok, that's probably enough innane thoughts for now. I find it impossible to write a 'blog' without feeling even more pretentious than usual. I won't have much internet contact from wednesday, as I'll be in camp. I should get to use the internet in the local town, Fort Portal every fortnight or so. I'll have a phone, so can have text communication if anyone wants to contact me. I'm sure I'll appreciate any messages. Hope everyone is well and enjoying their summers!
Cagan
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