Thursday, July 24:Chimps

Vincent arrived a few minutes before 7:00. We were ready for him! There was no breakfast available this early, so we ate David's energy bars as we rode. He left enough for Grace and Vincent, too. There was a bit of traffic, but we were going against it for the most part. We arrived at Entebbe about 8:10. The coffee shop where we were to meet the tour was out of milk so they were selling only black coffee! I saw a cup go by. It was the traditional Ugandan brew: half a cup of water and half a cup of Nescafe!

I remembered that there is another coffee shop inside the zoo and I had seen a couple of people go through the main zoo gate (the ticket people weren't there yet). I watched for several minutes, but none of the people came back out. So I decided they must be drinking coffee at the other shop which had obviously remembered to buy milk. I walked through the first zoo gate and met a guard with an ancient rifle at the second one. "Hello," I said.

"Hello," said the guard.

"How are you?"

"I am fine, sir, how are you?"

"I am fine. Do you know if the coffee shop by the lake is open?"

"Is open," said the guard. He barely raised his head to talk to me.

"Can I come in and get some coffee?"

He looked at me for a minute from beneath his baseball cap. "Is okay."

I hurried into the zoo and walked about four blocks to the coffee shop. It was closed, though there was music coming from somewhere inside the kitchen. I walked back to the entry gate. The guard looked up at me. "So, it was open?"

"No."

He smiled and nodded to me. Exhausted by the effort, he lowered his head and appeared to instantly fall asleep.

I took a seat at the outside coffee shop and, after a careful greeting of the woman serving coffee, I asked about the trip. She didn't know anything at all. "How about the coffee shop inside the zoo?" I asked.

"Is open," she said.

"And do they have milk?"

"They have." I thanked her.

A few seconds later, a woman came up. "Are you scheduled for the Ngambe Island trip/"

"Yes, we are," I said. I proceeded to spell my name so that she could check me off her list, but the woman who took the reservation didn't get a single letter from my last name right! But when this woman saw that I had US dollars, her concern about whether I was the person she was looking for vanished!

The woman walked to the other tables and checked off names. "Everyone, follow me down to the boat!" said the woman after she collected payment from the last three customers, three young British ladies. She took off across the courtyard of the zoo, through the gate, across the street, across a parking lot, down a steep embankment, across another parking lot, and onto a dock where two pontoon boats were tied side by side. The woman all but flew: she was across the first parking lot before we left our seats. We hurried after her as fast the cane would go. When we got to the dock there were about 30 people lined up by the closest boat. The three British girls walked up to our guide and they talked for a minute. They turned and walked away. As they passed, one of them said, "But it was worth a try, wasn't it? We're out nothing. We thought we were going out at 2:00 and we said if this worked, It would be better. But we're no worse off than we thought, are we?" Her companions discussed their situation as they walked away. There seemed to be a consensus that the 2:00 boat would work just fine.

The people at the front of the cue climbed into the nearest boat. "Please continue to the other boat," shouted our guide. Our group did as they were instructed until the boat was full. Suddenly, our guide ran past us, off the dock, and into the lower parking lot. She caught up with the British girls as they were pulling out of their parking place. In a few minutes, she returned with all three of the girls following closely behind. They boarded the boat in front of us.

In fact, we were the last to board. The boat's crew watched me very carefully as I stepped down onto the boat. When I started to sit down, one of the crew touched my arm. He pointed to a spot where I could sit on the side of the wooden box that held life preservers. The advantage of the place he indicated was that I could lean my back against the vertical wall that led up to the area from which our captain steered. Grace sat a little forward of me. She had her feet and both arms wrapped around one of the poles that supported the tarp over the area where the passengers sat. She didn't turn lose of the pole for a second on the entire trip to the island. Vincent sat beside me with his back against the wall. He had his Uganda Children's Project hat pulled down to his nose so we couldn't see his eyes. He appeared to be hiding his eyes so we couldn't see how scared he was, praying, or sleeping. Grace and Vincent were the only two black people on the boat, except for the captain and an assistant. And although Vincent had been on a row boat once, neither had been on a motor boat before. And neither could swim. They both tied their life preservers around them so tightly I'm not sure how they breathed.

The outside boat pulled away from the dock first, and we followed a few seconds later. The boat had quiet an engine - we flew across the choppy morning surface of Lake Victoria. The sky was very dark to the south and east, the very direction we were headed. Between the wind and the waves, a lot of water washed over the side of the boat. Every drop of it hit the leg of my pants, my face, or one of my arms. I was soaked in a matter of a few minutes. The captain stopped the boat and he and his deck hand walked to the opposite side of the boat. They untied cords which secured a heavy tarp to the overhead railing of the ship and let the tarp fall to the surface of the boat. They secured the tarps to short poles mounted in the floor of the boat. I moved my legs as they came past me so that they would have room to get down our tarp. But the captain started up again. He didn't touch the tarp on our side, and I was soon even wetter than before!

Several small islands sprang up before us as we continued across the lake. There was a long stretch of shoreline visible to our right. To our left, Lake Victoria opened up into a limitless sea. After about 35 minutes, we could see that the captain was locked in on a particular island which grew steadily larger as we approached. It was a relatively flat island, covered in trees and low brush. As we drew nearer, we saw a small dock. The other boat had beaten us, so its captain tied it to the dock. We attached ourselves to our sister vessel. As we walked across their boat to the dock, we heard chimps screaming in the jungle ahead. From the end of the dock, we crossed a narrow beach. We followed a slow sandy trail passed a sign welcoming us to Ngambe Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary and on to a small hut where various souvenirs were displayed. As soon as everyone was there, a short young round man welcomed us and told us to go to the dining hut at 10:00. He also told us about the souvenirs in this shop and the availability of sodas. He had free coffee, or rather he had fairly hot water and Nescafe. By controlling the coffee:water ratio, I produced a mixture that was a little better than drinkable.

Lisa and I walked a short distance to a raised platform. Instead of the unrestricted view of the gorgeous lake that we were expecting, we found that we were looking directly into scrub brush. A troupe of brilliant yellow weaver birds darted into an out of their nests in one tree. There were a number of other birds in the surrounding trees. A series of large tents stood beside us. Overnight visitors lived in these tents. We sipped our Nescafe while we looked over the island from our post on the platform. By the time we'd finished our coffee, it was time to go to the dining tent.

We found a seat in the dining tent and listened as our guide gave us a history of the island. The sanctuary was 11 years old. It's purpose was to rescue chimps that were being mistreated or that had become behavior problems for their owners. He also explained the feeding process and what we might expect to see. As he spoke, we heard chimps screeching in the trees. When 11:00 came, he led us along a path which continued to rise slowly. We were soon walking beside a very sturdy metal fence which our guide told us was electrified by a solar power station.

We soon came to a flight of stairs which led to a long platform. Fear of shock kept the chimps well away from the electrified fence itself, but they stood at an invisible line that they knew was safe. A second platform rose above the first. Looking through the electric fence, we could see a few chimps watching us from their positions in jungle undergrowth. After a few minutes, two men came out carrying very large containers of assorted fruit. Lisa and I decided to climb up to the second platform in order to get better pictures of the chimps. The men split up with one at each end of the long platform. They began flinging fruit over the fence. The chimps came running as soon as they heard the fruit hitting the jungle floor.

There were 44 total chimps in the refuge. All but one of the chimps was a rescue from owners who had taken them as pets. They were cute and adorable for about seven years. Then, they were suddenly too large to manage. This refuge was there to take them in. There was one other chimp. She was called Surprise. It seems that the female chimps were all given birth control implants. This prevented all the monkeys from becoming pregnant, except for this mother of Surprise. For reasons no one understands, she became pregnant several years ago.

Each of the 44 chimps made an appearance. Some ran up, grabbed food, and ran into the trees. Others stood and waited for food to be thrown to them. The boss chimp ran around scaring off all the chimps he didn't want to eat. He looked really rugged because he had a huge scar on his forehead, the result of an earlier fight. The younger chimps played, chasing each other and turning somersaults. One gray haired old guy, a former boss, seemed to be very easy going. He walked near the fence and stood there. Some of the other chimps took his food at first, but by waiting patiently, he got what he came for.

After the food was gone, we walked down to the first level. There was a group of chimps that we could barely see from our post, so we hurried down the platform to watch the final pieces of fruit fly over the fence to the waiting crew. When the food was gone, we walked down to the ground level. A chimp was standing on the other side of the fence looking at us. We stopped to see what he was up to. A piece of fruit had somehow ended up under the bottom wire of the electric fence. This chimp had a long stick, but it wasn't long enough to safely reach the fruit. So he had pushed a shorter stick through the fence and he was using his long piece of wood to move the shorter one. His plan was to use the two sticks together to bring the fruit closer. His plan wasn't working because he couldn't get enough force from his stick to the shorter one to move the fruit more than an inch or two. We left him there working for the fruit, and walked back to the dining area where we started. Our guide announced that it was time to leave. I walked down to the beach and took more pictures of the birds coming by.

Lisa, Grace and Vincent soon came to the beach. We followed the dock to our boat. Since it was closest to the dock, passengers for the other boat had to climb over ours to board theirs. I took a seat a bit forward of the place I'd sat before. Vincent took my place and sort of stretched out. He was either praying or sleeping in no time. Grace retained her death grip on the support pole for the tarp.

No one said much as we road back to the zoo. We made very good time, and we managed to avoid the storms that seemed to be around us. We hurried to the van to get out of the sticky afternoon sun. Vincent tried to start the van, but it wouldn't move. He jumped down from the van, and in seconds, a crowd of men and women, came from everywhere and began pushing us. Some of the pushers were drivers of other vehicles parked in the lot. Women passing by took the loads off their heads and pushed. The parking lot attendant joined in. They pushed and pushed and pushed. Vincent popped the clutch several times, but it was no good. The van wouldn't start.

Several pushers left us and went on about their business, but within a few minutes, they were replaced by others. These took up the fight, pushing and pushing with all their might, but the van wouldn't start. One of the men spoke to Vincent for a minute. Vincent and Grace got out and joined the pushers. A large man squeezed himself in behind the steering wheel. As everyone else pushed, our new driver did exactly as Vincent had been doing. The result was the same – we ended up at the end of the parking lot and we were still stalled.

On an earlier trip, Dan said that insanity is doing exactly the same thing over and over while expecting a different outcome. (These words of wisdom escaped his lips as we sat in our hotel room at the Hotel Africana watching a man enter the same string of letters into Dan's laptop over and over and over. He received the same error message each time, but that didn't slow him down at all. He kept trying!) I was glad Dan wasn't there to watch as we were pushed back and forth in the parking lot, Vincent popping the clutch every few seconds. Each time nothing happened except the people pushing crashed into the van it had become a brick wall every time Vincent popped clutch.

A group with two ladies and an older Muslim man in cap and robe gave way for two large Ugandan men. They spoke with Vincent for a minute then pushed us backwards in the parking lot so that they could get up a good head of steam going forward. The Muslim man rejoined us as the pushing began. We started to build speed, a bit faster, the end of the lot was coming up. . .

And Vincent popped the clutch. We started instantly! Vincent put the van in neutral and jumped out. He handed 5,000 shillings (a little over $3) to one of the men and indicated that it was for everyone. He got back in the van, and we drove happily away. We went back to Kolping House without further incident. I changed shirts and gathered up my notes and we were off to church. I only spoke for 30 minutes, then there were questions for well over an hour. Everyone seemed so excited to try budgeting. Earlier, I had sent Michael into town to buy small note books for everyone. I passed them out along with instructions about how to record expenditures and receipts. It was like Christmas in July! They couldn't wait to start.

Everyone was tired, but Vincent was more than ready to take us somewhere to eat. Indian is his favorite, and we found a great place. We returned to the guesthouse a little before 10:00. Our new friend from Rwanda was sitting in the restaurant. We sat down and talked with him a bit. He is very excited about the rebuilding going on in his country. His attitude was very interesting. He basically told us that we should be very careful in trusting Ugandans because they would cheat in business. Rwandans, he said, were very different. He even had an investment idea which involved opening a bakery in Uganda using the cheap labor to produce world-class baked goods. "I would do this only to help the unemployed people in Uganda. There are so many," he said.

He followed us to our room and asked us to wait while he got his camera. He wanted a picture with me, then one with Lisa. He took my email address and promised he would write. I hope he does!