Yum Chapatis!: Culture shock and my first old world monkeys!

January 28, 2010

OK, so I've been in Uganda for nearly four weeks now. I arrived at camp three weeks ago tomorrow. I'm finely settling in and getting somewhat used to the cultural differences. Ironically, I'm having a harder time adjusting here than I ever have in Latin America. I'd say either I slowly worked my way into Latin culture through series of shorter visits (meaning things don't seem as different to me there from my own culture), or things really are a lot different here halfway (well, maybe 1/3 of the way) around the globe. I'm going with the latter. I was going to expand on this and give examples of the differences, but in writing them I realized that I need more time, so things are in the correct context and not assumed. I can hardly claim to know even a fraction of the culture here. I like it though, so am happy to partake in many more weeks. :)

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of meetings and more meetings and learning, interspersed with reading and journal writing on some days. Elizabeth Ross, the director of the NGO I'm volunteering with (Kibale Forest Schools and Student Support Project, or KFSSSP) was here for two weeks and had many meetings and things to do. The NGO is known as the Kasiisi Project in the States. I was excited to find out last week that one of my primary goals for the volunteership will be organizing and then showing four short kids films in the local schools on conservation topics: water resource management, deforestation, waste management, and overgrazing. I'll post some pics later on as things get going in the schools.

Now for some fun, here are three pictures of the four common monkeys (red-tailed monkey, black-and-white colobus, red colobus (endangered), and not pictured are olive baboons) to be seen around camp. I don't think Julie's posted photos of these yet, but perhaps. I know she's posted pics of baboons who ate her food. They've yet to get at our food since I arrived. I hope to get some good pics of birds up here, I just need to go bird watching soon!