CFSIA 2008

Kobil Petrol Staion

2008-03-04T00:38:00.006-05:00

On our way to Iringa, weather got the best of us and flooded the campsite we were to stay at. After much delibera- tion, our fearless admins and crew found us a palce to stay in Chalinze. While it did not match the luxury of places we had stayed at (and would stay at), it was for one night. They had places to pitch the tents, cook an amazing dinner (thanks to our fabulous cooks), cook up pizza (courtesy of the resto there), and these BIG HUGE SPIDERS. Granted, we pulled in past dark, so we saw one huge female by the bathrooms, but it wasn't until the next morning that we realized how many there were -check out the second picture.

Arusha (again)

2008-03-02T00:32:00.000-05:00

We are over half way through the program, and with all the excitement of the game drives and wildlife we have seen (well, I'm in biology, so at least I was excited about the animals!), I (and many others) realized we had very few people pictures in our collections. After the Serengeti, Tarangire and Ngorongoro, we were back in Arusha for almost a week. We realized, since we would be working on projects, that this was an ideal time to catch up on people pictures. Thus, except for the frog spotted on a bird walk, you have some pictures of a few of the amazing people who were on this field semester.

Maasai Homestay

2008-02-24T00:24:00.001-05:00

Wow, our homestay was amazing - simly put. Jaime and I stayed with Mama Tajiri. Her husband had given her another anme, Naalakuina, and she immediately adopted Jaime and me as her additional children. Our translator and friend for the stay was Nemama, a young woman who wants to become a doctor and travel the world.

Jaime and I tried to teach duck duck goose to the children, and while the actual game itself didn't go so well, everyone (us included!) had a wonderful time laughing and running around. Because the rain had not been so good, it took a while for the cattle and goats to come back to the boma, but once they did, we were given the chance to try and milk the cattle and goats. It took a bit of effort, but Jaime and I both helped out a little bit :)

Welcoming wazungu

2008-02-24T00:14:00.001-05:00

Normally, the CFSIA arranges for us to do a home stay with the Maasau in Kenya. However, since we were not going to Kenya, the amazing coordinators for the program found partnership in Tanzania that let partake in the amazing experience of living (albeit for on evening and morning) with a Maasai family for one day. Upon our arrival, we were greeted with every family that was involved with this project, and it was quite a site. The children were in their formal dress with red ochre painted on their faces, and the women and men were dressed in their beautiful traditional garb. We were treated to dancing by everybody while we were there, and we tired to partake in them, though I must say the guys from CFSIA could not jump as high as the Maasai!

I must say that this was one of the most warm welcomes we received. The kindness and hospitality was amazing, and something I know we will always remember.

Tarangire National Park

2008-02-22T16:36:00.003-05:00

First up is Johnson, one of our fearless drivers who could spot animals hidden in the grass and dodge the crazy bus drivers passing mutatus around blind corners. Tarangire National Park was remarkably different scenery- wise from the parks we had been to previously. The park had huge baobob trees all over the place.

Ngorongoro III: Animals

2008-02-20T19:31:00.000-05:00

Ngorongoro II: The land

2008-02-20T19:28:00.000-05:00

Ngorongoro I: People

2008-02-20T19:21:00.002-05:00

Serengeti VIII

2008-02-19T23:45:00.001-05:00

Serengeti VI

2008-02-19T23:26:00.000-05:00

Serengeti V: Elephants

2008-02-19T23:24:00.002-05:00

Serengeti IV

2008-02-18T12:57:00.000-05:00

Serengeti III

2008-02-18T12:55:00.001-05:00

More Serengeti

2008-02-18T12:51:00.000-05:00

The Serengeti

2008-02-17T12:48:00.000-05:00

The Serengeti. 'Nuf said

Olduvai Gorge

2008-02-17T10:44:00.003-05:00

Before this trip, I had never heard of Olduvai Gorge. Now, I can't believe I was actually there. Olduvai Gorge is called the cradle of mankind. It is where the famous archaeologists Mary and Louis Leaky discovered the the first hominid. Now classified as an Australopithicus boisei, the hominid was originally dubbed Zinjanthropus boisei.

Lots of quartz and quartzite tools have been found in the gorge. In fact, local Maasai will go and pile up tools they have found at the markers indicating key excavation sites. Interestingly, there are no quartz deposits near where they are found, and it is hypothe- sized that hominids had foresight to bring materials to where they were and make tools as deemed necessary, demonstrating forethought and a leap in cognitive thinking.

Feathers

2008-02-16T22:33:00.002-05:00

More feathers!

First is the speckled mousebird. The Hadzabe like hunting them because they are a little slow on the ball. At one point, the Hadzabe, almost hit the mousebird, and the thing still didn't flee. It was only after the second arrow went by that it moved. A little bit.

Next is the Baglafecht weaver. Male of the species reichenowi according to my excellent bird book: Birds of East Africa by Stevenson and Fanshawe.

Next is the common fiscal. Even though they are common, they have very interesting patterning.

Last is a ring necked dove.

Hadzabe II

2008-02-15T22:27:00.000-05:00

After we got to follow the hunters and watched them gather honey, we went back to their seasonal camp where they were preparing a dik dik that they had caught and killed earlier. The dik dik was skinned, decapitated, and gutted. The organs were cooked on a fire. Traditionally, the organs are reserved for the men, but they were generous to offer us all (male and female) a piece of the liver. I took a pass, but I think if I ever go back, I may try it next time. The head, we think, was cooked for the brain, and the carcass was taken by the women to be cooked.

After this, they gave us a chance to try and shoot some bow and arrows. A classic - it's a lot harder than it looks situation!

Hadzabe: Hunting

2008-02-15T22:11:00.005-05:00

Way back when, humans were hunter/gatherers. We hunted where there was meat, and we collected and gathered water, fruit and vegetables where we could. When an environment could no longer sustain us, we moved to the next place to harvest the bounty that was there. Then we discovered agriculture, cultivation and domestication, allowing us to stay in one spot and create villages, cities, and empires.

Today, about 1% of the world's population maintain the hunter/gatherer lifestyle, and the Hadzabe are one tribe that does this. We were privileged enough to follow the Hadazabe while they hunted the lands. We had to stay behind the Hadzabe as they hunted with bow and arrow, and should we get in front of one, there was no guarantee we would not be in between the path of the selected prey and the hunter. While my group did not see a successful kill, some of the other groups did. If the kill was small, say a mousebird or dove, the men (women don't hunt) would light a fire immediately and cook and eat the kill. If it was larger, like a dik dik, they would bring it back to their camp to process there.

Fires are started by hand, using a stick, wood, kindling, and elbow grease. No lighters, not matches... nothing. While our group did not successfully kill anything, we did get to watch them harvest honey. Up a baobob tree was a beehive. Pegs are whittled prior to ascending, and then the pegs are inserted into the baobob and a ladder is formed, with each step being inserted into the baobob with a small hand axe. A fire was started to create a smoke torch to smoke out the bees to be able to retrieve the honey. The men are stung, but they are so used to it, it doesn't bother them.

Boys will start to follow their dads and uncles from about the age of ten, learning to see, stalk and most importantly, aim.

The Hadzabe, while hunter/gatherers to sustain themselves, also cater to tourists such as ourselves (in this context), charging a small fee to let us run around with them, and then at the end of our visit, shedding all their jewelry, accessories, bows and arrows and allowing us to purchase them.

Tatoga Blacksmiths II

2008-02-14T20:06:00.000-05:00

After we had visited the blacksmith and spoken to the women a bit, we were invited outside for a traditional dance the Tatoga do. The women and men stand on opposite sides and jump (incredibly high) in time to the singing clapping that is going on. To reciprocate this, some of the students presented a line dance followed by Soulja Boy, minus the music. I think they enjoyed a bunch of white people dancing.

Tatoga Blacksmiths

2008-02-14T19:59:00.001-05:00

Near the Lake Eyasi area is a tribe called the Tatoga. They are black- smiths, and provide other tribes in the area with jewelry, knives, and arrow- heads. To do this, they use traditional hand bellows and charcoal to melt slugs and padlocks as their metal source. The other tribes view the metallurgic tribe in a different way because they consider blacksmithing to be almost like witchcraft. We got to watch both the blacksmiths at work and also visit a house where one of the women was grinding maize for a meal that evening.

Travel Day and Ol Donya Lengai

2008-02-12T19:55:00.000-05:00

Well, as it happened, it took us all day to get from the Lake Natron area to Mto Wa Mbu, and once again, our trucks got stuck. Once again, the god in the mountain go upset at us and the volcano erupted. Still, it made for some great pictures!

Waterfalls camp

2008-02-11T22:53:00.000-05:00

The first picture is not actually from Waterfall Camp, our campsite near Lake Natron but a detail from a Maasai dry season boma hut. We had the opportunity with our Arky class to go and visit a boma and try and figure out what would be around in 100 years, and what people would be able to determine from the remains. It was an very interesting exercise as the huts are made from mostly decom- posable materials wood, mud and dung) yet there were hearth stones that would show character- istic heat markings on it.

The amethyst sunbird had a nest right in our campsite, and I was enlisted by a friend to photograph it for an assignment. However, the bird seemed to like my friend much more as she apparently appeared every 15 minutes when he was observing her, but would only showed up once in 1 1/2 hours while I was watching her nest.

Waterfall Camps had a beautiful lookout over a canyon carved by a what I think is Engarasero river. We had beautiful morning there and took advantage of the spectacular scenery to grab some shots

Lake Natron

2008-02-11T13:05:00.004-05:00

Lake Natron is a an alkaline lake with huge mudflats you can (carefully) walk on. Recently, there have been proposals for a soda-ash plant to be built right next to the lake. Conser- vationists are worried about the potential impact on this important breeding ground for lesser flamingos as Lake Natron is the principal breeding ground for these fabulous pink birds. They are pink due to the cyano- bacteria they feed on which gives them their pigmen- tation.

While Lake Natron is known for their flamingos, they also host a fabulous array of water birds including the European spoonbill, stilts, storks, stints, kingfishers, plovers, pelicans, ibises and more! A group of us got so into the birding, we managed to miss a decomposing python corpse, which as morbid as it sounds would have been fascinating to see in person. Yes I'm a science geek. And proud of it.

Travel to Lake Natron, passing Ol Donya Lengai

2008-02-09T13:52:00.000-05:00

One thing we learned throughout or travels in E. Africa was that getting from point A to point B can be fraught with unexpected delays. Today was one of those days. We were to rendezvous with our trucks that we had left in Jinja who had driven the long way around Lake Victoria to avoid the potential problems in Kenya, which we were looking forward to. While the temporary trucks we were using were fine, the seats were oriented towards the front, and we missed our middle facing buses. However, about 30 minutes from the place we were to meet, Mto Wa Mbu, our truck broke down. Something to do with gaskets or something. So while the crew tried to fix it, the other truck went to the town and then came back to get us. While we were waiting, we tried to hitch another ride, but nobody wanted to take 24 people anywhere.

From Mto Wa Mbu, we proceeded to drive to Waterfalls Camp near Lake Natron, an soda lake. The roads were all dirt, very bumpy, and difficult to navigate. There were also beds we had to navigate, and we managed to get our trucks stuck a couple of times. What was really neat was how close we passed to Ol Donya Lengai, and the times we got stuck, we were able to get out of the truck and watch the volcano. We decided the gods in the volcano were upset we got stuck, because everytime we were stuck (or so it seemed), the volcano would start spewing out ash and white lava.

The Maasai believe there is a god in the mountain who moves the smoke and lava, so if they climb the volcano, the god will bestow the gift of large cattle to the Maasai, which is important as the Maasai use cattle as a form of capital.

More feathers

2008-02-09T13:46:00.002-05:00

More of our feathered friends. First up is the rather unappealing looking marabou stork which like to hang out near garbage and other strongly smelling things. These guys are massive, growing up to 1.5m tall.

Next is the grey headed kingfisher that was perched on a tree in a small town called Mto Wa Mbu, or mosquito river.

Last was a group of female ostriches. There was a male around, but the females were hanging out in a group together.

Arky 101

2008-02-08T19:43:00.001-05:00

In Arusha, there is a very nice little National Natural History Museum that houses many of the Leaky's famous discoveries in Olduvai Gorge. Our archaelology professor, Dr. David Pokotylo demonstrates how our ancestors used a hammerstone and raw materials (such as quarzite, chert, obsidian, flint, etc) to make stone tools by hitting the raw material in such a way it would flake into a very sharp edged tool.

We were also in luck as Dr. Robert Blumen- schine let us look at some very nice specimens that he and his team had discovered. One was a tooth from an early hominid, and the really cool thing was an entire hominid jaw dated to about 1.8 MYA. The jaw was in pieces, but had been reconstructed, and only one tiny pieces was missing from the plate.

Ol Donya Lengai, Pascale, and MS-TCDC

2008-02-07T19:25:00.002-05:00

Because of the political violence in Kenya, we flew to Tanzania from Uganda. I'm not normally a window seat person, but not only did I get a window seat, I ended up on the proper side to see Ol Donya Lengai which means 'Mountain of God' in Maa, the language of the Maasai. We did experience turbulence which we assumed was associated with passing relatively close to the volcano. While that was very cool, we were in for a treat later that month when we got to pass right by the volcano.

Psacale was a tortoise (can't remember the species name offhand) at our campsite outside of Arusha. At least, I think that's what we named her (it). She tended to hang out near the fences where there were plants, and while we tried to give her some vegetables and stuff, she didn't seem to like the food we gave her.

MS-TCDC or MS Training Centre for Development Cooperation was part school/part research centre. We went there for some lectures, the most interesting and entertaining (IMHO) of which was the political history of Tanzania. We had some nice lunch breaks, and we were allowed to wander the premises which had a wonderful array of birds, primates, and reptiles. I saw my first blue monkey (primatology saw them in Kibale I think), and when I was trying to figure out the name of the primate, I didn't believe there was such a monkey as the blue monkey. Turns out there is. I also saw some violet backed starlings, and a Nile monitor.

Jinja

2008-02-04T22:55:00.000-05:00

First, we had to get from Lake Nabugabo to Jinja, and this involved a trip through Kampala. We only briefly stayed in Kampala the first day we arrived, but I ended up driving through it on many different occasions. Everytime, the traffic and congestion amazed me! However, once we got through the craziness of Kampala, it was a smooth ride to Jinja, a beautiful town at the source of the Nile river.

Jinja is home to NsFiRRI - the National Fisheries Resource and Research Institute, a public organization responsible for giving scientific information to lawmakers, policy makers and the government. There, they have a small aquarium with a huge lungfish, an airbreathing fish. This particular one is white due to being in mostly artificial light in the aquarium. Normally, they are a dark brown.

Our hotel was located very close to Owen dams, a major dam that provides much of Uganda with electricity. Our hotel had the best view of the west from it's balconies, but we could only take pictures in a certain direction so we wouldn't take pictures of the areas near Owen Dam. While we crossed the dam, we were given strict instructions not to pull out cameras, or even binoculars as taking pictures is a problem of national security.

Kaz's Lagoon and Lwamunda Swamp

2008-01-30T22:18:00.000-05:00

Around Lake Nabugabo are these very cool swamps. The ecology group got to go to two different swamps. One was on the edges of Lake Nabugabo and was called Kaz's swamp. I'm not sure what the official name was, but Dr. Chapman and her research team call it Kaz's lagoon. The swamp is dominated by miscan- thidium, another plant that does well in water logged areas with low dissolved oxygen content. Since we can't cut papyrus down to use to keep from getting wet, we got to don waders. We laid out minnow traps and then took them the next day to see what we found in the different areas. We learned how to identify different types of freshwater fish, and one of these pictures shows a psuedocrenilabrus multicolor. The name is such a mouthful we call them blue lips, and they are actually the fish I am working on for my summer research grant back in Montreal.

The last picture is from Lwamunda swamp. We met up with the primatology group and in groups, we got to ride in a pickup truck and head to Lwamunda swamp which surrounds Lake Nabugabo, but is 3km from where we were. There, we did some seines, and some of the primatology group donned the waders to chase the fish into the seine nets.

Lake Nabugabo

2008-01-29T19:56:00.000-05:00

Lake Nabugabo is a satellite lake of Lake Victoria, only about 4km from the shores of Lake Victoria. Lake Nabugabo separated from Lake Victoria relatively recently, only about 4,000 years ago. This makes Nabugabo an ideal study lake to try and understand Victoria's ecosystem. Lake Victoria is the size of Switzerland and bordered by 3 countries, making diversity and ecosystem studies very difficult. We were only there for a few days, but the sunrises there were some of the most beautiful we saw on our trip through out East Africa. The lake is fished by the locals for Nile perch and tilapia, and there is even a resident female hippo there. She is solitary however, as any potential mates were likely hunted. I believe CFSIA names her Henrietta. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of her.

At Nabugabo, there are vervet monkeys, which we didn't see in Kibale. Like the baboons in Kibale, the vervets liked to hang out near our food areas; however, we don't have to worry about three inch incisors on the vervets (though they do have teeth!)

Papillon!

2008-01-28T20:40:00.000-05:00

At Kibale, there is a long term butterfly research project going on. Or ecology class had the opportunity to tag along with the researchers for a day as they censused fruit eating butterflies. There are beautiful butterflies in Uganda, and while the most common fruit eating butterfly (B. smithi) was good lucking, but didn't have spectacular colours, some, such as the African leaf butterfly had gorgeous colours. The team was very knowledgeable and had many different projects going on including mark and recapture projects to learn about the life history of some species of butterflies.

The top picture is how you sex some species of butterflies. For the one genus, the bicyclus, brushes between the wings (or lack of in some cases) can be used to determine the sex. It is hypothesized these brushes are used to attract mates (secondary sexual characteristic)

Birds around Lake Nkaruba

2008-01-25T21:06:00.000-05:00

Another attempt to link form my website - if this doesn't work by tomorrow, I'll upload proper ones.
Edit: Doesn't want to work for the moment, so uploaded...

Anyways, just like Kibale, the birding around Lake Nkaruba was fabulous. I saw my first African fish eagle, grebes, yellow billed ducks, a palm nut vulture, great blue turacos and a black throated wattle eye. I also took a picture of a random bird flying directly overhead. Upon closer examination (digital has it's advantages!), it was identified as an African grey parrot.

Lake Nkaruba

2008-01-25T20:51:00.000-05:00

Hmm, I'm trying a new thing in blogger to link to pictures directly on my website and it doesn't seem to like me. (I give up. I loaded them on, but some of the pictures can be found on my website)

Anyways, there are four pictures here. Lake Nkaruba is one of a series of over 80 crater lakes around Kibale. What makes Lake Nkaruba very nice is that the it is owned by the Catholic church which in turn leases it to a group that promotes eco-tourism. It is a semi-pristine lake with minimal deforestation and agriculture around it. Other crater lakes in the area are heavily deforested and have become eutrophied, causing a detrimental change in the lakes ecosystem.

There, we learned about paleolimnology. A core of the sediment at the bottom of the lake is taken and then analyzed. Looking for certain things, the history of the lake and region can be determined using indicators such as pollen, detritus, leaves and aquatic insects - very cool stuff.

Lake Nkaruba is also an open source of waster for many of the locals. While we were collecting data, a group of locals came down to the waters edge to collect water (last picture)

Work and play

2008-01-24T22:45:00.000-05:00

Considering this was a field school, work was a lot more fun than usual. For the primatology group, work included laying on their back observing families of their selected study species for long periods of time. For the environ- ment group, it meant going into the local village and interviewing the locals and playing with the children. For the ecology group, it meant going dip netting for aquatic invertebrates (see earlier post) or putting on gumboots to navigate the papyrus swamps. For everyone, it meant sitting outside under a tree or in the common area and working together on our various group projects. Basically, work was lots and lots of fun, though there was time for 'fun' as well.

An impromptu soccer game was played with the teams being determined by who was in shorts and who was in pants on the large grassy area near the dorms in Kibale.

Even more fun was the football (soccer) match that pitted the locals against us. Most of the students at CFSIA participated, and while we were clearly outmatched, we still played and had lots of fun playing!

Primates!

2008-01-24T22:38:00.000-05:00

Kibale National Park boast the highest biomass of primates of any national park in the world, and when you're living in the park, you believe it! There are two species in this post, the red tail monkey (top picture) and the red colobus. The red colobus is actually an endangered primate, but are so abundant in Kibale, it is hard to believe. They are also incredibly acrobatic with entire families (that can number over 50) jumping and falling incredible distances in the canopy of the forest. These feats are not without consequence as they apparently do suffer an larger number of fractures and injuries.

Around Kibale

2008-01-23T22:33:00.000-05:00

In the hand is sorghum, used to make local brews!

Children around Kibale

2008-01-23T19:48:00.000-05:00

Whenever we walked through the village just outside of Kibale, we inevitably found ourselves followed by the children from the village. They were great fun to play with, and though there was a language barrier, sign language and big smiles was often all the commu- nication we needed!

Aquatic invertebrates

2008-01-22T23:28:00.000-05:00

While in East Africa, we did take a full semester of courses; contrary to popular belief, this was not a three month vacation! Two courses span the entire time we are there, and then there are three modules that offer 2-3 courses while we are there. For the Uganda leg, I took the East African Ecology course.

Though the courses are between 2-3 weeks, they are full time courses, so the number of hours devoted to the course are actually more than what you would get in a normal lecture course. One of our modules within the course was the use of aquatic invertebrates as a bio-indicator of the state of an ecosystem. Many insects we see, such as dragonflies, have an aquatic larval stage, and are very sensitive to the environmental condition of the water. We used dip nets to sample aquatic invertebrates in a high oxygen stream and a low oxygen papyrus swamp. Except for the random army ant that managed to crawl up our legs while we were picking through our dip net samples, we had great fun finding and identifying all the different critters!

Immanuel, his family and farm

2008-01-22T19:27:00.000-05:00

One of our research assistants for the ecology course was a wonderful man named Immanuel. He has a large family with seven children of his own and then takes care of many of his sibling's children as well. He has a farm and grows many different crops including ground nuts (like peanuts), matoke (a starchy banana), sweet bananas, sweet potatoes, beans, maize and tea. Here, with two of his children, he shows how you pick the top 2 1/2 leaves. The leaves are picked and sorted and then processed at a nearby tea factory. He also has many cattle, goats, chickens and pigs on his farm, and some adorable puppies as well!

Baboons!

2008-01-21T00:02:00.000-05:00

When we arrived in Kibale, we were warned to keep our doors closed and locked, and to not put any food in the trash cans. Baboons are around, and they like to raid the trash and will go into your rooms and find the chocolate and hobnobs (excellent oat cookies you can get!) you were saving for a rainy day. Sure enough, baboons ended up in unlocked rooms and were spotted pilfering our trash! Despite this, they were amazing creatures to see up close and personal. If you ever walk into your room to find a baboon inside, don't corner it. They have massive incisors and are not afraid to use them!

Birds around Kibale

2008-01-20T23:29:00.000-05:00

Uganda is known for its' amazing array of birds. I was never much of a bird person, and tended to live vicariously through my friends who were avid birders. However, I can now say I'm a convert. East Africa boasts an amazing array of birds of every size, shape and colour one can imagine. Photographing them is also a challenge! Here is a smidgen of some of the beautiful birds we saw.

First is a male and female crowned hornbill. Female hornbills hole themselves up with their eggs and are fed through a small hole by the males. Talk about devotion!

Next are a pair of Ross's turaco. The brightly coloured turaco family is endemic to Africa and like to hang out in the canopy of trees.

There is the blue breasted bee-eater, recognizable by the white wedge on its' cheek.

A friend of mine heard the beautiful song of the aptly named Africa Emerald Cuckoo.

The relatively common Africa pied wagtail had a successful foraging effort. The wagtails are appropriately named for when they are walking on the ground, they often wag or bob their tails.

Lastly are a series of lesser striped swallows, who were one of several species of swallows found around the park.

Travel to Kibale National Park

2008-01-19T23:01:00.000-05:00

So, we pile onto what will become our second home (after our tents) and head off for Kibale National Park on the western side of Uganda, near the Democratic Republic of Congo. I staked out a spot on the low back truck. Many of us quickly developed a preference for one truck or the other. Good luck kicking me out of my spot! Though it was the dry season, the roads were muddy from recent rains, and one of the truck ended up in a rut just outside the gates of Kibale. However, with the help of our crew and metal grates, we made it through the gates of Kibale National Park.

Uganda: Kampala

2008-01-19T22:25:00.000-05:00

I'm working on getting pictures up on my website, but I realized that I wouldn't be able to put sufficient captions on some of the pictures to really be able to describe what was going on, so I thought I'd resurrect my blog. Most of the pictures will be on my website: http://www.pidgephotography.com under the travel section, but give me a few days to get that going. In the meantime, here's where we started: Uganda.

We flew into Entebbe via Amsterdam. Originally, we were to start in Nairobi, but due to the political violence that erupted just after Christmas, we instead, went directly to Uganda. From Entebbe, we were loaded onto our trucks and went to Kampala where we spent the night. We didn't do much our first evening in Uganda, but we did have a meeting...

We were awakened by morning prayer, and came out to watch sunrise over Kampala. Not such a bad way to start our adventures!