TRIVIA

Truth be told I use to hate trivia, possible because I always felt inferior in my knowledge given all the Jeopardy and Trivial Pursuit nerds out there. I’m not quite sure why but over the last few years it’s grown on me. It’s kind of a fun and different thing to do. Similar to liking and disliking trivia at the same time, it’s also sort of social and not at the same time. You can barely have a fluent conversation with someone when being interrupted by some loud voice from a microphone firing away at the next question every minute, but I guess that’s sort of the point. It’s even stranger doing trivia in East Africa where it seems to be more of a new thing (brought from the Expat community) and knowledge gaps can be huge.

Speaking of knowledge gaps (and insecurities), the one thing everybody fears deep down inside is not knowing something very obvious that you really should know and it would be embarrassing not to know. For example, I played trivia the other night and was the only American in my group and the question was asked: “Which bill is Abraham Lincoln’s face on?” and everyone turned to me. I thought it was the $1 (confused the damn penny!) and fast forward, our team came in second, and guess what? We lost by one question, so of course everyone was not so happy with me. I admit, dealing with my own currency for so long I should have known and I did feel a little bad. But we did still get a prize, a huge bottle of Waragi, which is the local infamous gin here. This for some people is as much a prize as a penalty depending on your feeling on the super strong and not-so-pleasant tasting hard liquor. Luckily we got to wash it down with some Miranda green apple – the sweetest and most fake and disgusting local soda (yes it tastes like you are drinking super bubble-e chemicals).

This story reminds me of the time I was on a date back in JP, at a place happened to be also having trivia. I had big curly jewfro hair at the time and clearly looked Jewish (my date was not). During the trivia they asked: “On Passover how many cups of wine are traditionally drunk?” And I could have sworn that not just my date, but the whole room turned, staring collectively, to look at me for this answer. Now, like the Lincoln bill question, this is something I obviously really should know – but when you are put on the spot like this with lots of pressure (or not really but we feel like there is) it can be hard to think clearly. I guessed four and happened to be right that time. At least that wasn’t the reason that relationship didn’t work out.

The Abayudaya and more

Rafting on the Nile river near Jinja, Maya is soaked in water and cannot be seen

Fish at Gaaba beach in Kampala. You can get a whole delicious fish grilled right there for cheap!

Night falls in Gulu (Northern Uganda) at my new humble abode . I actually left one night later, $14/night was too expensive, I found a place down the road for $10/night and moved 

One the bus stop you have your choice of foods from the hawkers including grilled goat gizzards and sometimes real meat, but you can never be sure, it's a bit risky.

At Lacam lodge near Sippi falls where we stayed for a beautiful but short time

Just a quick update from Uganda: The last few weeks have been very busy with Maya visiting and then some friends from Rwanda coming for a weekend of camping and white water rafting on the famous Nile River. I had never realized how fun rafting is, but most of the time you don’t fall into such warm water that also moves like the rapids do in Jinja. The fun thing about doing this sort of thing here is you don’t have the same crazy regulation and safety rules that I feel like sometimes reduce fun in the U.S.

As crazy as rafting and the gorillas were (see my last entry), visiting the Abayudaya Jews in Mbale in some ways was crazier. The Abayudaya literally mean “Jews” in the local language here and what’s amazing is that somehow in Uganda of all places, people chose to be Jewish without prompt (they had never even met a Jew). The real origin reasons are probably more political, having to do with the British colonizers and missionaires. Hearing their story actually made me think about what the real differences are between Jews and Christians besides the whole Jesus thing. There first Ugandan Jews converted just after the turn of the century and grown men were willing to be circumcised (I don’t think they had a moil)! There are just a few thousand Jews in Uganda today but they are growing as more people find out. It was a bit eerie and amazing all at once to be hearing the same songs in Hebrews song in such different styles and with the local Luganda being mixed in and being the only white people in the room. I guess the Jewish cultural stereotypes have been so ingrained in my head that it’s hard to imagine it differently from your mother yelling at you for choosing the wrong color sweater (see Sarah Silverman’s quip in this video) It was a powerful experience and the community was incredibly welcoming. It was cool hearing peoples' stories and learning about life in the community. It’s also nice to finally not have someone pushing Jesus on me here. It's just so strange to find (non-white) people in East Africa that are different just as you are different.

Guerrilas!

Maya is here (Uganda) now visiting and I felt like that meant it would be the best time to shell out $350 each (normally $500 but they have an off-season promo happening, or $750 if you go in Rwanda!) for a gorilla tracking permit. It seems like such a typical African thing to do and I had been told it was worth it – I was not disappointed.

We went to Bwindi National Park, bordering the D.R.C., and about a 12 hour drive from Kampala. After driving a short ways into the park we got out of the car and entered the bush. When I say bush I mean the real bush! Super thick, moist, insect-e, and sharp spikes-coming-randomly-from-all-side type grass. And you don’t walk on nice park trails you literally are hacking your way through the jungle up and down hills.

Seeing the guide track is also ridiculously cool. It might even have been my favorite part (although gorillas are pretty cool). They use all 5 senses to track and many of the guides have decades of experience. To be fair, they often “cheat” by calling each other on cell phones to map out areas and alert each other to clues, but considering you could be walking for 5 hours to find the gorillas in hard conditions this seems like a fair concession. It only took us a little over an hour of wondering through the jungle to find them, in part, because we think our guide may have illegally brought us to a family that visitors saw that morning; the government only allows visitors to see one gorilla family a day.

Our guide distinguishes between different animal droppings and bush “footprints” and size by different animals including elephants (which we were told to run from if we saw) and some sort of local pig. The bush “damage” done by gorillas is distinct and shows us their path. The guide also listens for the gorillas which beat their chests loudly (just like in the movies!) and can be heard from very far. Also, when they lift their arms up there's such terrible BO and with the wind you can smell them from very far away if you are approaching from above on a hill like we were. It smells like human BO but much worse; can you imagine never taking showers or cleaning your arm pits for years and running around in the jungle all of the time?

When we finally spot the black gorilla hair through the bush it is an amazing moment. Unlike being at the zoo, you have no idea what happens next and if they might attack (albeit this is very unlikely). Once we uncovered one, we found the whole family (about 6 or 7) within the vicinity. Looking at their faces they are so human it's crazy. The way they study you, interact and communicate with each other, and go about their daily routine also reminds me of humans in some ways. For the most part, gorillas seem to just relax and when they see you, they react as if they were seeing another gorilla troop, and as long as you stay a safe 3-4 meters away and they don’t feel threatened, they don’t mind your presence. This hasn't always been on the case. Guerrillas naturally will display aggression towards foreigners and the guides have to condition them over time, which can mean taking some physical abuse from the guerrillas  Today, there are some “wild” gorillas (this seems ironic being in the wild already) left that can be dangerous but rarely meet tourists.

Occasionally they make a grunt noise and the alpha male can be a bit more aggressive but mostly guerrillas just continue on with their day when they see you: eating leaves or napping (they are 99% vegetarian I learned and eat maybe 50 lbs. of food/day). They seem mildly curious of humans but they didn't interact with us. The guide told us there is one who is his friend and sometimes will play games, steal things from his pocket, or tug on his clothing. The kids play just like human kids play, tossing and tumbling, climbing and swinging on vines. One of them even seem to be smiling for the camera at one point:

We also learned that the non-alpha male gorillas don’t get to mate, which seems very sad to me. They go their whole lives celibate? Wow. The other thing that really surprised me was how often these fellers see humans (especially given the permit price), which is almost every day. But besides Rwanda, the unstable and currently unsafe Congo, Uganda is the only other place in the world where you can do this. I don’t know that I need to do this again but it was really amazing and totally different than any other animal experience I’ve ever had.