Bwindi

Well here it is, Thursday morning and I am finally posting about my weekend. I guess time flys when you are in Africa! This past weekend was probably one of my favorite times in Africa. Let me tell you about it!

We went to Bwindi, which is in the way south west corner of Uganda. It was a twelve hour drive to the land of the gorillas. We arrived late at night to a rest camp. This is where the rich tourists come to stay and track gorillas. It was a nice place powered by the sun. The best thing was by far the food!! It was so good, the first night we had spaghetti and I almost started crying. Yum!

The next day we went to a hospital that was started by an American man. Upon starting the hospital he noticed that there was so many more needs in the community besides just medical needs. Specifically relating to the pygmies of the area! The pygmies have recently been pushed out of their homes in the hills, where they lived under rocks. This was to protect the gorilla population. While we were meeting with some leaders, I saw my second monkey! There were two and they were so cute! I got to feed one with a banana and he took it from my hand. They are amazing animals. We loaded into the van and began driving to a path to take us up a mountain. Naturally our van got a flat tire. We walked to our path. The path literally took us up a steep mountain. We hiked for 45 minutes to an hour. It was completely beautiful, although we were all sweating! A women from the pygmy tribe was leading us. She was walking barefoot up the rocks, carrying a baby on her back, and took our jerrycan of water and carried it on her head. I was super impressed. She was only 18. We finally reached a little gathering of pygmy huts where all the neighboors had gathered. When we got there our task was to assist in building a mud house! I have never had so much fun! We worked beside the pygmy people learning to tie bamboo with reeds to but up walls. I worked next to old Bernard, a man who smoked and made fire with sticks! We even got to mud a couple of the walls. The mud comes out of a big pit that has been dug, men stomp on it to mix it all up and then pick up clumps and thrown them along a line of people who put it on the house. I was part of the catching and throwing of the mud clumps. It was great. I turned the color of tan/red/brown. Before we left the pygmies did a dance for us. They have lost their original culture, and instead have adapted the culture of the area, and therefore taught us that dance.
When we were walking down, we stopped at a settlement where the people who don't live in the new village are staying. Many people there are still living in mud huts. We saw one banana leaf house that was lived in by five people, it was smaller that a tent made for four people. Our leaders said that one of the major struggles is convincing the people that development will better their standard of living. They have two members of the tribe about to head to college. How is someone from that background to fit in at UCU? How is that person supposed to relate their experiences to people back in their tribe?
If anyone is interested in looking more into what we did you can visit pygmies.org and donate money to build a house or just learn more about the people and projects concerning them.

The next day (Sunday) We went to chuch. It was a forty minute drive and when we got out of the van we were told that we were going to be walking up another mountain. So we hiked again for an hour. One of the girls almost had an asthma attack. In one of the villages we stopped and sang river of life, and peace like a river to the little kids. It was only Kiersten, two other girls, and I that participated and danced with the kids. By the time we got to the church we were already 15 minutes late for service, but the pastor served us tea. Such is Africa. When we started heading to the church, the drums began to pound and the congregation appeared. We had lunch with the pastor, and then hiked all the way back down. Or I should say slid all the way back down. It had been raining for quite some time, so naturally I got super muddy.

The next day we left at 7am and didn't get home until 1 am. This was because we got a flat tire (In the rain of course) and stopped at our drivers home where lunch was late in coming.

TOILET TRAUMA
If I didn't relate some of my bathroom experiences over the trip I would be leaving out a huge part of the experience. On the way out at the restaraunt we ate at, the bathroom was co-ed. To get to the womens toilet you had to walk past the mens urinals. Awkward...

The toilet in the pygmy village didn't have walls...

The toilet on the way up to church had no hole just rocks and dirt... I went outside.

On the way home from church I had to pee so bad, I had to use a random families toilet in the middle of banana tree forest. They were the celebrities of the village after that..

The toilet at the church had a slit for the hole.. leaves to wipe with.. and a squatty with no walls..

On the way home, we made the bus stop at a random house because the coffee had run through us all

We then stopped at a gas station that had a urinal for females. That means that it is a concrete slab with a drainage pipe. Consequently we all peed on our feet..

Finally on our return journey three people had the runs.. we had to stop my a forest.

There you have it!! Hope you are all loving and living life! I'm going on a safari this weekend so watch the lion king and think of me.