Thursday, October 31, 2013

Five Months into a 6-week Trip


Sometimes I think it was all a mistake.  I did this crazy thing about coming to Uganda, to pick up children whose existence I wasn't even sure about, and to stay for an indeterminate amount of time, and then I have stayed and stayed and stayed.  Maybe I should have done it like everybody else, and gone back home and waited in the middle.

I am so tired.  I am so frustrated.  This is so hard.  My parents have left, and I am back to the familiar emptiness, except now I can understand more clearly why it's empty.  It's not the hard-ness from the outside; the things I have to DO.  It's the hardness from the inside; it's being who I AM.  

There is nothing to be me here.  There is no project to work on, there are no friends to empathize with, there is nothing to learn about, there is nothing to accomplish.  Of course, that's not quite true -- there's plenty to do and plenty to learn, but the way this city and this society is set up, it's really hard to get to in the between-times of dealing with three children and their schedules.  I feel trapped in the house, partly because of the children's schedules, but just as much because there's nowhere in particular to go TO.  

Deep and meaningful interactions with other human beings takes up so much mental and spiritual energy, and leaves such a blank when it's not there!   And interacting with people in another culture, when you are trying to figure out their expectations and being careful to not say things a certain way, takes so much mental energy in a completely different way.  I am very grateful for the relationships I am forming with people here -- my housekeeper, our priest, the children's teachers, and others -- and I think these interactions are meaningful and I am really learning about this culture.  But there is no one I can sit down and go "whoof, what a day!" and we connect into a conversation.  To me at least, this isn't about the depth of the relationship; I can have nice, relaxing conversations like that with other women in Mom's Club or with another parent in the pick-up line at school.  It's about having something in common, about being able to make assumptions about that person and jump into our commonalities. Many times, those can become cathartic and meaningful conversations, just around sharing one important thing.

And actual friends!  Oh my goodness, it's so hard to go this long without my friends around!  I wish I could ask for and accept favors, because I knew that it was part of the give-and-take of a long-term relationship.  I wish I could have a conversation about something kind of particular or esoteric.  How I miss my weekly Parents Of Young Children Bible Study, when we sometimes have a serious religious conversation and sometimes we just vent about the things that have happened during the week.  How I miss our "playdates" with my best local friend, while we both basically talk simultaneously non-stop for hours until we realize our husbands have gotten home and we need to serve dinner.  And my best oldest-but-faraway friend came and stayed at my house on her way up the coast and I wasn't even there!  Being away for a few weeks wasn't bad.  It's five full months, now.  That's a long time.

And nothing to do!  No garden, no dogs, no nature to go walking in, no camping trips to plan.  There's not even room in the house to set up a craft project where I could keep it away from the kids.  No library to go and study things.  No use decorating or fixing up the house I won't be staying in long, and someone else cleans it and trims the flowers in the yard.  No bread to bake, not enough ingredients or supplies for interesting cooking projects.  No piano to play or music to study.  No inspiration to start on something and figure out how to make it work!  I'm the kind of person who always has six different things going at once, and I always feel like I'm behind on everything and it's not that big a deal anyways.  I am not a high-energy super-project person, but I do a little bit of this and a little bit of that and then start working on something and lose track of the time and go into way more detail than I ever meant to, and then I daydream about it for the next week.  And getting those things done, and thinking about getting them done, means so much to who I am, and being excited to get going in the morning.


You've noticed that I'm doing all this complaining, and it's not even about the kids.  What about the kids?  They are driving me crazy.  Absolutely bonkers.  I am so frustrated with them.  But that's the worst part of all!  I think I've realized it's not about the kids, it's about me.  I'm so emotionally worn down, I just want to withdraw into myself and I resent them for needing so much energy that I don't have.

I LOVE being a mom.  I have looked forward to having three kids for years.  I love energy and intensity and creativity and curiousity, which they are chock-full of.  But I don't even have enough of ME left over to enjoy them.

Which is why I'm starting to wonder if this was the wrong choice, to start our relationship off when I'm so exhausted by everything else.  I wonder if I'm building up resentment and frustration with Hibiscus that is defining our relationship, when that resentment and frustration is mostly coming from where I am in life right now.  And then she talk-talk-talks so loudly, and falls over and hurts herself AGAIN doing the same thing I told her not to over and over, and makes a giant mess, and picks a fight with her brother, and talk-talk-talks some more, and picks all the flowers off a bush....  It's not really that evil, I can recognize that!  But I'm so sick of it, and I don't want to be sick of her.  And by the time I've dealt with all that, I'm getting sick of the other kids, too.

I want to enjoy the family I've worked so hard to bring together.  I want to be the mother that each of them need, and that I know is inside me.  I know she's there; I know myself, and I'm getting to know all my children, and I know how well we can fit together.

But I've lost that mother.  I've lost myself.

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Glimpse of Bedtime


We're back to one-person getting-ready-for-bed routines.  Supposedly, it works like this: I get Buttercup ready while the big kids prepare themselves and Hibiscus gets in the bath, then I put Buttercup on my back to brush Emerson's teeth as Hibiscus gets out of the bath, I run a new bath while she dries off and Emerson undresses, I brush Hibiscus's teeth while Emerson washes himself and then I do his hair while she gets her jammies on and combs her hair.  I can put Buttercup down and set up the bed while Emerson dries and be-jammies himself.  It's a good system because the big kids can do enough for themselves that we can alternate what I do for one while the other one finishes a chore on their own.

Needless to say, it didn't work like that.  They need handlebars so I can drive them to the next station.  The low point was when Emerson was in the bathroom, watching Hibiscus throw water around instead of doing his own chores.  Buttercup was wiggling like an entire batch of popcorn, so it had been quite some work to grab her various bits and put them in her pajamas, when I realized I hadn't put her on the potty.  So I scooped her under one arm, kept her giggling, and popped her on the pot.  At that exact moment, Mr. Standing-around-in-the-bathroom REALLY had to go.  Really REALLY mom!  Right now!  To demonstrate, he pulled his weiner out of his pants.  Look, mom, it's dribbling on the floor, I'm peeing on my own feet, I REALLY have to go!

I have my doubts that the visual aid was necessary.  Especially since Buttercup was actually done by that point.

Saturday, October 26, 2013

Wrapping pictures

Here are some pictures of different wrapping styles.  I focused on pictures of how the weight is distributed on me.  Somehow, I didn't end up with a picture of simple ruckstraps, which would just be over my shoulders, and around my waist or not.  In some of the pictures from behind, you can see that some are multi-pass carries, and some are simple seats.  Now I'm going to try and go through and add information about the wraps, if it will let me do that much editing.


Christina's Back Carry in 50% wool, Ellevil's Ben

 A ruck with crossed chest straps, in Zara Blossom size 4
 This is a chest belt added over ruck straps, again in Ellevil's Ben size 5
 This is tying Tibetan with Oscha Fern, size 4.  Isn't it pretty?
This is a Double Hammock with sling rings in Natibaby wool Mea, size 2This is 
This is a multi-layer, arms out carry from behind.  You can see that she's leaning, but she can only move her shoulders and the rest of her body stays secure.

 This is another kind of integrated chestbelt, in a Double Rebozo Shoulder To Shoulder, or DRS2S, with linen Diva Milano size 6.


 This is a simple ruck from behind.  You can see that this is just one layer that goes under her bottom and over my shoulders.  This can be the quickest carry.
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This is the Zara Blossom 4 in a Secure High Back Carry, which is my favorite carry with a 4.

This is a Back Wrap Cross Carry with a Sweetheart Chestbelt.  That's a long name, but tied well, this ends up distributing the weight very well onto the torso itself.  The wrap is an Oscha Alto Bluebell, size 7..
Here's a back view of a multi-pass carry, probably the Secure high Back Carry.

Wrapping Logistics


Q: How do you do it?
A: All the different carries are made up of just four different wrapping patterns, such as a rebozo pass goes over one shoulder, under the baby's bottom but not under their leg, and under the wrapper's opposite arm (e.g., diagonal across the bodies).  So once you learn a few basic techniques, they turn into infinite combinations.

Q: Is it hard to learn?
A: It seems more or less difficult for different people.  I didn't find it that hard to get started, and when I was wrapping Emerson about once a day I felt competent within a month.  I still got good carries during that time, but it took me longer and I had to re-start more often.  I started out with one front and one back carry, and when I was good at those I added a different size and one new carry.  After focusing on one carry at a time for a while, now it's easier to add a new carry in quickly.

Q: What are the basics?
A: The two main techniques are forming a good seat for the child's weight to sit in, and evenly tightening each pass so the whole carry turns out snug but not tight.  It is much easier to learn these things by watching someone do it, but many people learn by watching videos on-line.

Here is a photo tutorial for my first favorite carry.

Q: How many carries do you know, anyways?  Isn't that complicated?
A: I regularly use four shortie carries, six mid-length carries, and five long-wrap carries.  Oh, plus two front carries and a hip carry.  Some of those are variations on each other.  

Maybe it's complicated, but that helps make it interesting.  Sometimes life with small children gets a bit... uninteresting.  I really like having something to think about and something to work on improving.

Q: What do you mean by "good" wrap job?
A: A good wrap job is extremely comfortable, but there are a lot of variations and sometimes it is NOT a good wrap job!  Often that is user error, like getting a loose pass and then it gets saggy.  The child being wrapped also makes a difference.  Some children push their feet and straighten their legs, so using under-leg passes work better for them; some are leaners so carries with a high horizontal pass helps hold them in.  

Some people define a good wrap job as that the child feels "weightless."  I would not define the sensation that way, but sometimes the child's weight is so well distributed that I cannot feel it in any one place; it seems like there is no weight particularly on my shoulders or my chest or my hips; I just am overall heavier than usual.  A not-good wrap job is not nearly as comfortable, but I rarely find it more uncomfortable than a regular carrier.  Besides, usually you can just re-tie, although of course the child is bound to fall asleep right after you realize you really hate the wrap job!

Also, many carries are adjustable as you wear them, so as the child moves or the fabric settles into place, or you want to adjust the weight, you can tweak and adjust as you go along.

Q: What about little babies?
A: Woven wraps are great for little babies!  That's an age when they like to be held all the time, and wrapping leaves mom's hands free and takes the pressure off her back and shoulders.  It might have saved me from my back problems exacerbating!  

And one really amazing fact: since the wrap itself is so supportive, you don't have to wait until the baby can support his own head and weight.  You can safely wrap even a newborn on your back!  

Q: Would I like wrapping?  Would it help me out?
A: If you are a parent of a baby or toddler, babywearing is a big help.  If you are a parent of multiple children including a baby or toddler, I don't know how you can manage without it!!!

Q: How could I get started or learn more?
A: There are many local babywearing groups, where you can try out wraps and get hands-on suggestions and help.  There is also lots of information on-line.  The forum thebabywearer.com has a ton of information and support, or you could find the facebook group Babywearing 102.  I hear that Babywearing Faith has really good YouTube tutorials.  If you are curious and looking on-line, don't get discouraged or overwhelmed by seeing people who have tons of wraps or are talking about really expensive or hard-to-find wraps.  Like any hobby, there are people who are willing to put a lot of time and money into their hobby, but that doesn't mean that they are representative of everyone.  Most of us are treasuring every moment with our babies, not focused on getting the most gorgeous collection.

Q: Where do I buy wraps, and how much do they cost?
A: There are large used forums on facebook and thebabywearer.com, where I have gotten most of my wraps.  Since most parents don't wrap, they aren't carried in most stores, so most people buy on-line, either from specialty shops or directly from the manufacturers.

As for the cost, first of all: baby carriers are expensive, good quality fabric is expensive, only high-quality fibers will create a wrap strong enough to carry a child, and many companies create exclusively fair-trade and organic fabric.  All of that adds up; it's not JUST a piece of cloth.  A good all-purpose wrap costs around $100; many wraps are much more.  But you can also find wraps for much less!

Q: That seems like a lot of money!
A: One way to look at it, is that a wrap is saving us visits to the chiropractor and pediatric occupational therapist, and those add up fast!

 After Emerson's babyhood, I realized that I had used our baby carrier more than anything else in our entire house... and I didn't even like it that much.  I kept thinking I wouldn't be using it much as he got older, so I didn't buy a new one.  The second time around, it doesn't seem worth it to try to skimp.  I absolutely enjoy every moment of our wrap snuggles, and I know they won't last forever.  I will sell the carriers when we're all done with them, and use the money for something important in mid-childhood, but nothing is more important right now than security, bonding, and snuggles.


Let me know if you have any more questions!  I love sharing about my latest hobby, and I really believe that it is such a valuable parenting tool.

More About Wraps


Q: How much do you wrap your children every day?
A: Right now, I usually wear Buttercup between about 3 and 6 hours a day, occasionally less and sometimes more.  We go through periods when I wear one of the bigger kids every day for half an hour or so, although sometimes we are busy with school and it doesn't happen.  Every single day I wear Buttercup for nap, school pick up, getting the big kids ready for bed, and a few quick ups and downs.

Q: When you say "wrap," what do you mean?  Is it like a Moby?
A: I am talking about the category of "German woven wraps."  A Moby is a stretchy wrap, and not supportive beyond the little bitty stage.  A regular woven wrap is some of the strongest, softest, and most supportive fabric there is.

Q: What makes wrapping more physically comfortable than other kinds of babywearing?
A: First of all, a good wrap holds the child very close to the wearer's body.  The closer any weight is to the carryer's core, the easier it is to carry.  When the child has even an inch or two of space between their torso and their parent's, that makes carrying the child much more difficult and tiring.  It is easiest to carry a child wrapped with their arms in, because then they have less weight to move around away from the wearer, but even when wrapping arms-out a good wrap job will pin the child's whole torso, from their underarms down, right against the wearer's body.  This is perfectly comfortable for the child, and much less exhausting for the wearer than if the child had wiggle room.

Secondly, there are many different ways to wrap.  You can wrap the child in different positions.  I find a high carry tends to not exacerbate my back issues, and I can wrap any of the children high enough that their shoulders are slightly above mine.  They also like that because they can look around and interact with their environment.  However, when either me or the child is tired, I can also wrap Buttercup low enough that her head rests between my shoulderblades, or anywhere in the middle.  This uses different muscles and allows me to wear her for a longer period over the whole day.  You can also wrap on the hip or front, although I find those more difficult with the logistics of dealing with three children.

Different carries also distribute the child's weight to different part of the body.  I prefer carries with an integrated chest belt, which places most of the weight right in the center of my chest, and nothing at all towards my outer shoulders.  But after wearing something like that for a couple of hours, I might choose a carry with "ruck" straps (like a backpack) for variety.  I can add a chest belt to those carries, which takes pressure off the shoulders but in a different way than the center-chest-belt carries.  There are also carries with a torso pass, which distributes weight all across the torso.  The tie around the waist actually moves a little weight to the waist or hips, and sometimes I wrap it twice around my weight which actually distributes even more weight to my lower body.

Q: Why do you have so many different wraps?
A: There's a lot to that answer!  Let's make it into smaller questions.

To start with, this is a really dirty climate, and I let my kids eat in the wrap and Buttercup is not usually wearing a diaper and has accidents.  My wraps get really dirty, and fast.  I don't have an ordinary washer and no dryer, so if it's rainy it can take two days to wash and dry a wrap, or more if I'm busy.  That means I need two or three wraps to alternate out and do the same job.

Size:
First of all, wraps come in different sizes, from 1-8, and you can do different carries with the different sizes.  I have wraps in sizes between 2 and 7, which are 2.7 to 5.2 meters long, and one can basically think of it as shorties, mid-length, and long wraps.  Since I am fairly petite, a 5 is my base size and I can do almost all carries with a 6.  

The benefit of the shortest wraps is that they lend themselves to very quick carries, they do not drag on the ground while wrapping, and they fold up small in a backpack.  The downside is that the quick carries are not as supportive as multi-layer carries.  This is more tiring for me as a carry-er, and if my wrappee is tantruming or really trying, she can escape the carry.  I find them useful for things like quick ups and downs like making lunch or snacks, or putting one kid up for bedtime routine for someone else.  It's also useful on an outing when I won't be carrying all the time but we might need it for waiting in line or a quick walk.

The longest wraps make the most supportive, multi-layer carries, and have extra length for things like adding reinforcement on the chest or waist.  The down side is that they take longer to wrap with, and rest on the floor while being wrapped, so I don't like wrapping with them out of the house.  I use them when I will have a long carry that I won't have to re-do, like when I am picking the children up from school.  I also like them for naps, because the longer carries tend to have space for the child to get all snuggled down.

The mid-length wraps are a great compromise, and I use them for all my long outings.  They are not so long that I can't manage them in public or small space, but long enough that I can do supportive, multi-layer carries. I can also do several different carries so I can distribute the weight differently over the course of the day.  I can also do the quickest up-and-down carries, that I could use the shorties for, with longer but not unmanageable tails.

Materials:
Many wraps are all cotton, but some are linen, wool, silk or other blends.  I have a kapok wrap right now -- I had never even heard of that fiber!  Even different cotton wraps have very different textures and weights.  

So, for instance, the linen blends are strong and supportive, and I love them for my big kids or a long walk, but I don't think they're very snuggly for a nap and they are difficult to get a good wrap job quickly.  The wools are breathable, soft on the shoulders, and supportive for the big kids, but they are not practical during the hot days.  

Wrapping qualities:
Every wrap feels different when it's being used!  It's one of the things that makes wrapping interesting.  Some are grippy and some slide smoothly, some hold the child rock-solid and some have bounce, some are breathable and some are snuggly, some are cushy on the shoulders and some are thin.  Like everything in life, every up-side has an opposite!  A cushy wrap tends to be thick and not so good in hot weather; a wrap that has bounce also has sag; a solid wrap gets tiring on the shoulders.  Different wraps are valuable in different situations.

Beauty: 
I just love beautiful fabric, and the wraps are truly beautiful!  I just enjoy the colors and the textures and the feel.  Besides, when you are wearing a child for hours a day, the wrap is part of your outfit!  I totally coordinate my wraps and my clothing for a day out, and I feel like it's a beautiful finishing touch.

Q: Couldn't you get by with just one wrap?
A: Yes.  Absolutely, especially if I had a quick washer and dryer.  If anyone is curious about wrapping, you certainly don't need a whole lot of wraps, and I know people who carry all the time with one wrap.

But at the same time, I really use and appreciate each and every wrap that I have, and I enjoy having a variety to choose from.  I buy most of my wraps used from other wrap afficianados, and I know that if I don't love something I can sell it on the same networks.  

Q: Wait a minute, I thought you said there were NOT sizes for wraps!
A: The wraps are different sizes, but anyone can use any size.  I could wrap any of my three children in any of my wraps, and my 6-foot-2 father could use any of the same wraps that I use.  The determining factor is which carry to choose.

For instance, I can do a Secure High Back Carry with a size 4 for Buttercup, but I would choose a size 5 for my bigger kids.  A large adult might choose a 6 for the same carry.  But if we had a size 4 wrap, that larger adult could wrap their child in a Reinforced Ruck.  I think the most logical way to think about wrap sizing is Base Size, and plus or minus.  So the Secure High Back Carry is Base -1.  I am a base 5, so I do it with a 4; someone else might be a base 7, so they could do it with a size 6, and a 4 would be a shortie wrap for them.

All About Wrapping: Intro


This isn't specifically about living in Africa, but I've gotten many questions about my wrapping, and it's something I'm really enjoying right now, so here's some basics about wrapping and my personal story!

Q: Why do you like wrapping specifically, instead of other carriers?
A: I fell immediately in love with wrapping when I realized that I could carry my children without back pain.  A good carry with a wrap is absolutely night and day for me!  Emerson was in an odd position for most of my third trimester, and I have had lower-middle back pain ever since then, probably exacerbated by nursing and leaning over my baby and being in a fog when I didn't take care of myself.  As his babyhood progressed, so did my pain, until eventually I spent a year in chiropractic care, took up yoga, and spent months in physical therapy.  The consensus was that my back problems are chronic and the best I can do is manage them, which I have learned to do.  Meanwhile, I limited myself to carrying Emerson for an hour a day, and when Emerson was not quite three I tried to stop lifting him altogether.  I now really regret that I felt like I had to limit him like this, and I am sad that I missed out on all those sweet-baby snuggles, and spent so much effort trying to make him be on his own.  I first tried wrapping when Emerson was FOUR YEARS OLD, and it was immediately more comfortable than when I was trying to wear him as a baby!  

Like so many next-time-around parents, this time I want to treasure every moment and enjoy my little girl for as long as she is little.  I am grateful every day that I can wear my little one for all the time that her heart needs or wants wearing, without feeling like I am compromising my own health.

Q: When and why do you wrap your baby?
A: I wear Buttercup for her naps, when we are out and walking, when she starts getting out of control and destructive, when I need to be helping the older kids and she is in the way, when we have to wait around in a non-kid-friendly place, to keep her safe, to help her calm down, when she is feeling lonely, when she is feeling overwhelmed, when she wants to watch what I'm doing, and most of the time when I'm cooking (which meets many of the above categories!).

Q: Why do you wrap your bigger kids?  They are definitely old enough to walk!
A: Wrapping is love.  It really is.  Big kids needs love too... they need lots of it.  That's basically it.

Logistically, there is more to it.  I started wrapping Emerson to help with his sensory processing issues, and I could see a huge difference.  One reason I wrap Hibiscus is because she needs a chance to "go back to babyhood" and have a chance to bond with a mother.  Also, since wraps can fit any child, if I have one on hand it will serve me in an emergency.  Emerson has fallen and hurt himself badly a couple of times, and I have been able to carry him home.  

The physical pressure of the wrap on their body is very instinctually soothing.

Amazing Animals

Amazing Animals

In each place that we went on our safari trip, our guides were amazingly knowledgeable, helpful, and patient, and they always ended by asking us to please share what we had learned with our friends, so we could spread the news and desire to save and protect these amazing animals.

I was hoping that my trip would help me re-fall in love with Uganda, since I have been feeling frustrated with it lately.  I loved the beautiful scenery, and I found one very valuable reason to be proud of my current country: they are doing amazing work to preserve and protect their natural resources.  For a third-world country, this is rare and commendable.  For instance, my parents said that when they were in Cameroon, they didn't see any monkeys in the forests because they had all been killed for meat, and even in the national parks the game was thinly spread.  So I am sharing some of these valuable stories with you.



Entebbe Wildlife Education Center:
Once upon a time, this was a zoo, but at this point it is designed for rescue and education.  The animals are mostly rescued from poachers or other disasters, so there are no non-Ugandan animals, and no Ugandan animals which haven't needed rescue (for instance, no elephants).  They work to help them live a natural life, and engage the visitors in understanding their lifestyle and needs.  On our first visit, a guide came over to our little group and accompanied us for our whole visit, sharing many stories about the animals and keeping the kids engaged and learning.



Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary:
Rhinos became extinct in Uganda during the unstable years of dictatorship.  This group has imported six white rhinos and provided them with a huge natural space, and is monitoring them as they breed.  They have had seven babies so far.  When they get to 14, they will start re-introducing them to the National Parks where they would have naturally lived.

Rhinos are currently being killed at the rate of one per day.  Their meat is inedible and they are peaceful animals, so the only reason for their murder is their horns.  They are actually made of the exact same material as fingernails and hair, so all of the "magic" potions made from their horns would be the same if they were made from fingernail clippings!  

Rhinos have a social order, but spend most of their time alone, because otherwise they would fight for dominance.  However, the children might still stay close to their mother.  When she has a new baby, she will chase the older children away while she takes care of the new one.

We were able to get very close to four rhinos as they were grazing.  They were surprisingly graceful animals, and just magnificent to be near.



Chimp Tracking in the Budongo Forest:
It is amazing how similar chimpanzees are to our own selves!  Their faces and hands are expressive.  They live in groups of 40 to 130 individuals, which proves that they are very intelligent to be able to understand that many inter-relationships.  Another proof of their intelligence is that the babies are still juveniles and stay with their mother until they are about 10 years old, which is about a quarter of their entire lives.  Both of those are about the same proportions as human beings!  The mothers are loving and attentive, and play games with their babies and educate them.  If a mother chimp dies, other chimps in her group will adopt the babies and take care of them as their own.  A mother might have another baby every 2-4 years, and have up to five babies in her lifetime, and she continues to take care of all her different-aged children -- again, strikingly similar to our own biology!  Chimps do not pair up in permanent partnerships, and different male chimps are allowed to present themselves to a female in heat, and then she can chose whom to mate with and in what order.  (Hopefully not an exact human parallel!)  If a male chimp gets mad about being scorned and decides to hit the spurning female instead, the other males in the group will come and rescue her.

Chimps live in large communities, but during the day they go out in different groups to feed, which might only be a few individuals.  They had many different calls to communicate with each other, including drumming on certain trees to report to each other across the forest.  For instance, while we were there, five chimps came across the road, called and discussed with other groups, and soon 18 of them came back to the first side!

Chimps eat primarily fruit and leaves, but also a small percentage of meat.  I had known that, but assumed that it was small rodents or birds.  It turns out that the group we visited really loves to hunt the colobus monkeys, and different groups have complicated and specific ways that they hunt their game and then share it with the group.  For instance, in one group only the hunters get to share the meat, and in another they might share first with the dominant males or the juveniles.  

Chimps are still hunted for their meat, and because African witch doctors like to use their teeth and bones in their potions.  Also, people capture the young chimps as pets or for display.  Several chimps in the non-zoo were captured from the wild and put in small cages in someone's house, and they charged people to come into their living room and see them.

They were beautiful, graceful and powerful animals.  It was a privilege to be able to spend time near them.



Murchison Falls National Park:
This has been a national park for some time, since before the dictatorship years.  But I am not writing a history of the park, but about some of the things that they do to protect and build pride in the animals and the heritage.

For instance, 25% of the park entrance fees goes to the villages in and around the park.  This money is allocated to help them raise livestock, put up water treatment facilities, or whatever other projects the village deems useful.  They do this so the local people will see the park itself as a resource worth protecting, instead of poaching game for meat or for sale, or killing the majestic predators to protect their livestock.  It is a long, slow road to change traditional ways of thinking about the animals.  Like many poor people, it is easy to think about having meat for today and tomorrow, and more difficult to think about preserving income for years and generations.  

They are also trying very hard to education visitors about things like not feeding the animals, taking things out of the park, and littering.  These are VERY difficult concepts for the African mentality!  Every game drive has a ranger accompanying the party, and visitors are not allowed out of the main areas.  They frame this as protection for the visitors, but I suspect it is just as much to protect the animals from human stupidity.  

They have recently discovered oil within the park's boundaries, and we saw a couple of oil wells.  When we asked the ranger about it, she said that she doesn't know if the oil wells will be able to coexist successfully with nature, but that the company did a lot of research and worked very hard with the locals and the experts to try and make it fit in with the park's needs.  In a place like America, this would be expected, but here in a poor country like Uganda, even making the attempt is commendable.

Animals like giraffes have disappeared from most of the other national parks, including Queen Elizabeth which we had visited earlier.  They are working on figuring out how to reintroduce them to their previous native habitats.

There are many National Parks and National Forests in Uganda, and they seem to be working very hard to protect the areas, education the locals, and welcome national and international visitors and give them pride in their natural resources.  Hotels are carefully limited in the parks, and all of the ones we saw or heard about were careful with their resources, blending in to the surroundings, hiring locally, and supporting artisans and workers who helped the park.  For instance, the gift shop in the Budongo Forest sold greeting cards decorated with wire from snares set all over the forest.  The income from projects like this allows the de-snaring projects to continue.


Our safari trip was very expensive by Ugandan standards, and a big investment even by our American ones.  First of all, I felt like it was worth it to give the girls -- and all three children, actually -- pride and joy in Uganda, and to give them a chance to have memories of something very special about their country.  However, as we made our journey, I felt like it was money well spent for other reasons as well.  A poor country like Uganda cannot support its natural resources on its own, like the US does (at least in part).  It is us, the visitors and the people who care, who keep everything going.  Our fees are literally saving the lives of animals and even entire species!  For instance, we paid over $100 for the group of us to go track the rhinos.  You can buy a lot of groceries for that kind of money around here!  Was it worth it for an hour or two?  It was an incredible experience, and I do think we will remember it for a long time, but it is also keeping those 14 incredible animals from being killed for their horns, and hopefully eventually bringing rhinos back into the wild all over Uganda.

And on a final note, just an interesting fact about birds.  Over 1,000 species have been identified in Uganda, including many that live only here, and more are being discovered all the time.  The fascinating part is that this is MORE THAN HALF of all the bird species identified in Africa!

Safari Pictures

I have a lot of pictures from our safari.  Here is the link to some of the best ones of animals and the beautiful scenery.

https://picasaweb.google.com/Christy.Margaret/Animals?authkey=Gv1sRgCKHLyuPZ0-qi4AE

Friday, October 25, 2013

Travel Notes V: Murchison Falls National Park

Travel Notes V: Murchison Falls National Park

A safari van came to pick us up at Budongo Forest for the last phase of our trip.  The really exciting part.... it was a NINE passenger van, with luggage space in back.  You will notice that we have six bottoms between us, and all of our other cars had no more than four spaces for bottoms to go!  It was a relief to let the kids stretch out, wiggle, and nap.  The other exciting thing about it being a genuine safari van was that the top opened up, so when we saw animals we could just stand up and look out the top, with no windows or car parts in the way.  On our final drive out of the park, we were looking for lions, and everyone ended up standing up to scout out the top the whole time.  I guess it's safe to tell Daddy, because no one fell out and died!  They were good hold-er-on-ers.  Except for Buttercup, who was in Gramma's arms, but kept pushing the arms off in order to "me do it," and then declared that she wanted to "go dere" to the other side of the van, sans Gramma!

As we drove into the park, we stopped to hike to the Top of the Falls.  This park is down in a valley and at a lower elevation than most of Uganda, and it is mostly open savanna, so it is MUCH more hot than what we are used to!  Even my little African girls were melting in the sun.  To get to the lookout was a short little hike, but it was steep and it was hot, and we were all flagging.  Hibiscus somehow got the walking stick from one of the guides, and she looked like a little Zulu warrior princess, striding along with her long bare legs and her stick!  She is actually short for her age, but she has that long-limbed build that makes her look tall and elegant.  Gramma had brought sunhats for all the children, which added considerably to the adorable-ness factor as well!

We admired the viewpoints and were headed back when a rainstorm hit us.  And can it ever rain!  It's like a bathtub coming down from the sky, except so nice and cool and refreshing!  I would have actually enjoyed it, except I was worried about the camera not appreciating a bath.  We actually had a terrible time with cameras on this trip.  My husband had brought a new telephoto lens for our DSLR, specifically for animal photos but it also captures the children's faces very well. It took beautiful photos of the rhinos and the children playing on the first day, and then mysteriously stopped working.  Then a couple days later the lens on my parents' point-and-shoot also stopped working, and of course you can't change the lens on that one!  So we started with four camera options, and ended with only two, with our favorite ones going out of service!

Of course, the rainstorm ended right as we got back to the car.  We regrouped and headed back out to the close-to-the-falls viewpoint, and saw a beautiful rainbow.

Then we went up to our camp, which is the only non-five-star accommodation in the park.  The Red Chilli Rest Camp has a large grass-thached restaurant area, room for pitching tents, wall tents, and a few concrete bandas.  We were given the key to a family banda, which has a small common area, two small bedrooms, and a not-very-clean bathroom with a very large shower.  It was perfect for us, and really a relief to not have to go back and forth between two different areas.  However, it turned out that they had told us that six people wouldn't fit in a family banda (despite there being six beds!) and that we needed to book two bandas, but then the manager forgot to give us the key to the second one until we were busy going to bed.  Now, when you are busy putting three wildly over-tired children to bed while organizing all your equipment for the next day and hanging a clothesline around the room for damp clothing, do you really want to go carry half your stuff across the lawn to a different banda?  No, you do not.  Maybe if you have the kind of grandparents who enjoy admiring their cute grandchildren from a distance, but we are very VERY blessed with grandparents who do things like take a shower with the children and get down on her hands and knees so the girls can do her shampooing!   The toilet might not have flushed properly, but we got some really good mileage out of that giant shower area!

Also, the Rest Camp had a laundry station.  After five days of travelling, complete with an unexpected beach, everything we had was REALLY DIRTY.  One of those random things that drives me crazy is dirty clothes. I don't like feeling it on my body, and I don't like seeing it on my children.  I don't mind children (or me) GETTING dirty, but I hate cleaning up but not having clean clothes to put on.  So it was a great relief to fill up some tubs and attack those clothes!  However, it also inspired me to say a very passionate prayer of thanksgiving that our apartment is equipped with a washing machine!  Three children make a LOT of laundry for one mama!  

The camp is just some buildings on a hill in the wilderness, which means that there are all kinds of animals all over.  They seemed much more accustomed to humans than in Budongo Forest.  There were warthogs sleeping under the trees, just feet from the restaurant, the baboons looked even more avaricious and greedy, and apparently hippos like to graze in front of our cabin at night!  Once when I came out of the banda to join the family in the restaurant, I had to wait for a family of warthogs to finish wandering by.  We didn't actually see any hippos, but the possibility of them being there was another excellent reason to not be lodged in separate bandas!  But apparently the hippos and the warthogs keep the grass down, because there was a nice small lawn in front of our patio, and the children had some chances to play velcro-ball and Mother May I, with their wonderful playing grandparents.

The theme of these wilderness resort restaurants seems to be that they offer three options for dinner, and you order your meals and the time you want them ahead of time.  Dining out for days on end, especially with little children, is never easy, but this practice makes it go a lot more smoothly.  It means as soon as you manage to drag your crew to the dining area, the staff brings over your meal within a few minutes.  We just ate everything family style, which meant that we passed the plates around and everyone got some of whatever they wanted.  Including things like two kids hovering over a plate while Emerson carefully picks out the noodles and Hibiscus carefully picks out the vegetables while the parents yell things like "please use your fork!" and are ignored.  Except Hibiscus didn't like the peppers, but instead of avoiding them she speared them and headed them off towards what she deemed a more appreciative mouth, so suddenly there was a sauce-soaked chunk of green pepper hovering over Buttercup's head toward's Bubba's cheek, or diving over all the water glasses at my forehead.

While we're on the subject, I have mentioned that the children are becoming much better behaved and controlled, but they still get the Five-o-Clock Exhaustion.  Especially Hibiscus.  By the end of the day, she is just a walking, manic disaster.  And clumsy!!!  Oh my goodness, is she ever clumsy!  Her fork is on her head and her elbow is in her dinner and her feet are up by her head, and as she walks across the room everything within a ten-foot radius magically falls on the floor or becomes crooked or breaks into a million pieces.  I have read books wherein the heroine is awkward and pathetic as a child -- I think Anne of Green Gables was one -- and how they are always being scolded.  Living with a child like that, I suddenly have an overwhelming empathy for the children AND the scolding parents.  I understand that she has poor motor control and poor impulse control and her brain neurons aren't all connected in the right place, but somewhere in the sea of broken glass and puddles of water and a sibling crying because their dinner ended up on the floor (how did she even get to that side of the table?!), the empathizing-with-Anne-Shirley patience is about worn out.

The next morning we had to get up EVEN EARLIER than our Budongo Forest early, to be across the river soon after dawn.  I will let you imagine our early morning craziness!  

We picked up our pre-ordered breakfast, including two styrofoam cups of delicious tea.  Mmm, drinking tea makes everything better!  Usually our van would drive us the quarter-mile or so to the river, but the car ferry was supposedly grounded so the driver kept the car on the other side, where we needed it.  So we all walked down to the boat yard, where the driver was very surprised and pleased to see us there on time.  Actually, we were 15 minutes after he had asked us to arrive, but still 15 minutes before the ferry left, which is early by African standards!  And then it turned out that the car ferry did leave that morning, but after that we took small boat shuttles.

We went over to the other side and organized ourselves to get into our car.  Gramma had most of our luggage, I had the girls with me, and Bubba was carrying one of our lunch bags in his hand.  Hibiscus called out "look, baboon!" and squashed closer to me, but Bubba didn't hear, and before any of us knew what happened the baboon ran right up to him, grabbed the bag out of his hand and ran off with it.  He quickly tore it open, gobbled up all our chapatis, and ran off with the other packet of food.  Cue the children's pandemonium!!  But they WANTED the chapatis, they wanted to EAT them, they didn't WANT the baboon to get our chapatis!!!  Luckily Gramma had the other bag of food and we still had some breakfast left, because there wasn't anywhere to get any!  But the beloved chapatis were very much gone.  

Now all the children hate baboons passionately, which I am not sure we adults disagree about!  Hibiscus is determined to punish the entire species by not allowing anyone to take their picture any more!  I still had visions of them grabbing the children and plucking their eyes out, which I did not share with the children in question, but they suddenly became pretty good about not wandering far from an adult's side!  Gramma and I took the children off to the potty house a little distance away, and we saw the baboons closing in.  I personally think they were eyeing Buttercup's fat little legs hanging out of the wrap and debating whether it was another Red Chilli breakfast package!  The baboons didn't care when the children screeched at them, but I used my best "bad dog" voice a few times and they slunk away.  When Bubba was with us, he only had to stand up and loom a little bit, and they decided to keep their distance!  It was a relief to know that they really would be intimidated.

Finally we got in the van and drove around looking for animals.  The scenery was also beautiful; a wide savanna, but dotted with trees and bushes, and rolling hills in every direction and blue mountains in the distance.  We were off before 7:30 AM, so it was still nice and cool.

We saw some elephants from a little distance, lots of giraffes close up, and herd after herd of hartebeest, Ugandan kob, and buffalo, and tiny little Oribi and dyker antelope bounding around.  We had interesting discussions about whether they are Uribi or Oridi or something else, and the girls loved the idea of dykers because they thought they were DIAPER antelope, which of course is very funny!!  We ended up at the hippo pool, with an elephant on the far side and lots of birds nearby.  We also saw some beautiful birds, both large spectacular ones, and small colorful, graceful ones.

When we got back across the river to the camp, everyone was very ready for their lunch.  However, they also had too many wiggles and wouldn't settle down for a nap or even a rest, which we thought would be a good idea after waking up before 6.  When does a parents' opinion about sleep have any validity?  We had some tantrums, but no rest.

So before anyone was ready, we headed back down to the water for our river cruise.  This was also a spectacular event, and we sat on the upper deck and saw lots of wildlife come down for a drink, bazillions of hippos relaxing in the river, crocodiles, and all kinds of birds.  The boat went right along the bank most of the time and stopped whenever we were close to something interesting, which was very nice.  The journey ended looking up at the giant and spectacular Murchison Falls.

We also had three children on TOTAL MANIC mode.  The older ones were somewhat entertained for a little while by doing their coloring books and going downstairs to the bathroom, but that did not last for the four-hour trip.  The animals probably merited a .74 second glance apiece, which also did not take up the entire trip!  One very fortuitous activity was the chance to drive the boat, which took up multiple minutes and merited actual smiles.  Gramma was an amazingly patient crayon-hander-out-er and general peace-keeper, who managed to keep all of our belongings from slipping out of little hands into the mighty river below.  Self-selected activities included putting on all the life jackets in sight and laying on the deck (underneath the 37 pairs of adult feet wandering around), bounding around wildly, and climbing the walls.  Literally.  Since the walls were what kept the children from falling into the river, this activity was not adult-endorsed, and we had the one total melt-down of the trip when I had to sit on Hibiscus while she screamed bloody murder, because whenever I got off her she plunged towards the stairs or the river.  I told you we provide entertainment everywhere we go!

And what about Buttercup?  Here, my friends, I tell you: BABYWEARING FOR THE WIN!!!  Her little feet did not even touch the deck for the entire trip, which meant she was the only child who was in no danger of falling overboard.  Since her toddler enthusiasm for "me do it" involves arching herself over backwards and flinging herself around randomly, this was necessary; I think the older children actually understood that falling overboard was highly undesirable and USUALLY made an effort to not do it!  I started Buttercup off in a hip carry where she could look around with me, but actually what she wanted to do was jump around hysterically and grab everything in sight, so we switched to a nice secure back carry, which she successfully could not even kind of jump out of for the entire four hours.  And believe me, she tried!  She wanted to color and she wanted to run around, and for all I know she wanted to go pet a hippo.  Lacking that, she put on sunglasses and she threw them down, she nibbled on cookies and dropped them down my back, she screeched and chattered.  But what was the most fascinating?  What was right in front of her.  She pulled my ponytail and grabbed my ears, and she grabbed my shirt in her little teeth and reared her head around.  It was quite something!  If that sounds annoying, it pretty much was, but we were well compensated by the part about her being out of the way and safe!

Meanwhile, the scenery was beautiful and we got to see some wonderful animals and birds.  We saw some colorful bee-eaters and kingfishers up very close (oh, how I missed my big lens!), but after I checked my birding list from the Queen Elizabeth boat ride, I was a little disappointed that I didn't have any new birds to add to it.  But soon after that discovery, we saw many Yellow Billed Kites circling overhead, and while we watched the falls some rare Rock Pranticles were on the rock next to us, and on the way back we got to see the Saddle Billed Stork, whose amazing beak is the colors of the Ugandan flag.  So my newly developing birding habit was satisfied!

We made it home.  We made it to dinner.  We even made it into bed!  Then we had to get up equally early the next morning in hopes of seeing animals on our way out of the park.

On our second game drive we did not see any new animals, and we didn't spend as much time close up.  We saw some new and beautiful scenery on another side of the park, and the driver said that lions like to hang out in the underbrush in that area.  Apparently the lions didn't feel like hanging around the road that day, which wasn't terribly surprising, given that they have a giant park to meander through and no other guides had seen a lion near the road.  We all had fun hanging out the top of the van looking for them, though!

Once we were out of the park, it was still a long drive home.  We got to see another small waterfall when we crossed back over the Nile, and some more monkeys and baboons, and some small villages with traditional mud and thatched houses.  The driver said the villages were small and spread apart because this area had been decimated by insurgencies and warfare, which has only recently been resolved.

Apparently our whole trip was just the right length!  On our last two journeys, when hearing that a car was coming, the children asked where we were going and cried out that they didn't want to go back to Ggaba, they wanted to see more animals.  However, on our last drive, the children were whining that they were tired and they wanted to go home.

Wish granted!  We made it home and back to our own beds before dark, with time to run around the yard (for the kids) and take a trip to market (for me).  And I had that pleasant sensation of familiarity and relief of being in a place that I knew, with the familiar fields and goats and rutted roads around me.  I had been feeling tired and disconnected about the non-home-ness of my Ugandan home recently, so perhaps the whole trip was worth it just for the sense of "coming home" to my African home.