The "M"-word.

When Ugandan’s learn that I have a girlfriend, I am often offered a wife on the spot.

“You take a Mutooro woman! They are very beautiful. Take this one!”

When I decline, I must always be sure to inform the speaker that, “yes, Mutooro women are beautiful,” and “no, I have nothing against Ugandans/Africans.” Once that’s diffused, I am inevitably asked a series of questions about our relationship. Two in particular always bubble to the surface:

(1.) How can you know that she is true to you?

(2.) Don’t you get feelings?

I’ve discussed my answer to the first question in a previous post, but obviously, it boils down to trust. Trust is often best conveyed by using the word “faith” in its place.

“Well, how do you know there is a god that has a plan for your every daily choice and future?”

“Because I believe in him.”

“So you have faith in him?”

”Yes, faith. I have faith in my lord and savior.”

“Well, I have faith in my girlfriend. I have faith that she does not want to find another man.”

“That’s good… but don’t you ever get feelings?”

And there’s question number two.

Feelings of course mean “sexual feelings.”

“Yes. Of course I do.”

“Well,” they say, giving me a deeply questioning look that says What do you do about them?

That question, if posed to any American child from somewhere around middle school age and up, has an obvious answer. To most Ugandan’s, however, the solution is not so straightforward. While perusing the manual outlining the “Presidents Initiative on AIDS Strategy to the Youth” (PIACY, pronounced “Pee-Aww-See”), I stumbled upon the reason why.

The book uses a question and answer format:

“Is it wrong to practice masturbation?”

Answer: In Africa and in Uganda, it is socially, culturally and morally not accepted. Likewise, religious principles do not allow this sexual practice.”

Why doesn’t the word “masturbation” jump into a Ugandan’s head as a potential solution to “feelings”? Because to participate in the act is an affront their country, their continent and their religion.

Straight from the PIACY manual, incorrect grammar/spelling and all.

PIACY doesn’t stop there:

“Does masturbation protect one from HIV/AIDS?”

Answer: It does not provide you with effective protection from HIV/AIDS because you are likely to end up in penetrative sex. Penetration is the predominant approach to sex in Africa. Many young people who practice masturbation as a “safer sex practice” therefore end up being emotionally triggered into penetrative sex, which increases their risk to HIV.

How are marijuana and masturbation alike? It turns out they are both gateway drugs!

Fear not. PIACY gives young Ugandan’s the means to abstain this devious act:

“How can one resist pressures to masturbate?”

Answer:

(1.) Do not let your mind dwell on thoughts, pictures and literature that influence sexual feelings.

(2.) Avoid watching or reading material which arouses your sexual feelings.

(3.) Avoid hanging out with people who say and do things which may arouse your feelings in that direction

(4.) Be assertive and speak out your stand regarding your values.

(5.) Develop Godly principles and honor them.

(6.) Keep close company with people and friends who share your values.

(7.) Find active ways of occupying your redundancy period such as sports, music, drama, reading positive literature.

[Note: The exercise of picking each of these points apart is left to the reader to be done in one of their “redundancy period[s].”]

"Masturbation is wrong.

Do everything to stop it.

Yes it is possible to stop it."

["With friends like these, who needs enemies?"]

Needless to say, the super-majority of Ugandans choose the lesser suggested and HIGHLY effective method of both resisting the urge to masturbate WHILE relieving sexual feelings. They…

(8.) Have A LOT SEX, UNPROTECTED and with a VARIETY of sexual partners.

…the results of which are catastrophic:

The population of Uganda is exploding. As of 2010, there were an estimated 33.8 million people (49% of which are under the age of 15) living in a space somewhere between that of Utah and Wyoming. Following current trends (3.4% /year) the projected populations for the years 2025 and 2050 are 53.5 and 91.3 million, respectively. (Source: http://www.prb.org)

The percentage of people infected with HIV in Uganda is 6.5-7% (though many believe these to be very optimistic), and the number is climbing. In fact, Uganda is the only sub-Saharan recipient of The United States Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) money where the prevalence of HIV/AIDS has recently INCREASED. (Source: http://www.unaids.org)

So how do I handle the topic of “it” when it comes up in the conversation?

First, I tell my listener what PIACY suggests.

Then, I line those suggestions up against a wall and execute them with a quiet-rage reserved for a government who is systematically planting land-mines that will inevitably kill cities of innocents.

Finally, I dispel the myths (“No, you will not lose interest in wo/men.” “Yes, you will still be capable of producing children one day.” "No harry palms..." etc…), and I praise the benefits (“No HIV/AIDS!”, “No BABIES!”, “It’s FREE!” etc...).

Ultimately, we part. I’ve spoken. They’ve listened. But like a farmer who lays the seed, walks away and never returns: I’ll never know what’s grown.

And the weeds continue to strangle everything in their path.

Thanks for reading!

I love you all (but especially you, Michelle!).

Devon

P.S. These are old but no less relevant: Human Rights Watch, Success Story Unraveling

My First Portrait.

After first noticing his drawings of other students and people done using MS paint, I was quick to praise the artist, an S3 student here at Kyenjojo SS. Unlike most of the students here - who do the same thing day in and day out, typing the same words over and over again exactly as they were first given to them by a teacher - he is using the computer as a creative outlet.

He found MS Word, he found the "Spray Paint" can and he hasn't looked back.

One day he came to me and says, "Masta', you come look."

And there it was: my first portrait.

It immediately drew a crowd.

Kids giggled and laughed all around, because there I was: a beard, my long straggly hair up in a pony-tail, my cargo pants and SSC shirt... even my long-worn bracelet (though he got the hand wrong).

[And what do I do when using the computer? I check Gmail, of course!]

I saved it to a USB like I have a few of his other drawings.

This morning he showed me yet another picture of me - this one done in a sketch book for is Fine Art class - only this time I was walking across the school yard with my backpack and water-bottle in hand. The picture was accurate right down to my Chacos.

While I am flattered by the sentiment, I must admit, it is just a bit unnerving (ahem, creepy) to realize that when I think I am sitting alone at a computer or walking across campus, I never escape the watchful, curious eyes of my community. And now, one of them might just be recording it with sweeping strokes of a pencil or mouse.

After 17 months in Uganda, there is still a small piece of me, deep inside, that screams when it knows that it is being watched. But every day, the scream diminishes.

Thanks for reading!

I love you all (but especially you, Michelle!)

Devon.

Tetanus for Teaching.

About two months ago, my friend Charlene (a PCV, and also a fellow Virginian [she lives about 8 miles from my dad and we share 8 or so mutual friends... small world]) invited me and a few others to her Primary Teacher's College for a Science Demonstration Day. She asked that we bring around 5 demonstrations to show the kids and told us we would have three 30 minutes sessions attended by 50 kids each in which to teach.

For some reason... I wanted my session to steal the show, to bring the house down, so start a riot... And what accomplishes this desire with students better than the potential for DANGER and EXCITEMENT??!?!! (The correct answer is: NOTHING.)

I built a bed of nails!! (DUN, DUN, DUNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!)

This project in the states would have taken about an hour, maybe less with right power tools. Here in Uganda? It took about 6 hours of SOLID work. I had to locate the wood, haggle over the price, find a drill-bit, fix my stupid hand-held drill (twice), drill a shit-ton of holes, pound a bunch of nails through those holes, sacrifice my back to the evil contraption to see if it "worked", drill MORE holes, pound more nails and sacrifice my back again to ensure that I was successful.

It was AWESOME! And using it was even BETTER!

My original grid was 1 inch x 1 inch.

Here is my POS hand drill.

A close-up of the tip. Note 2 things here: (1.) The "drill bit" is actually a NAIL! The carpenter in town didn't have bits, but he said I could sharpen the tip of a smaller nail with a file and it would work fine. It worked GREAT, and I saved money on the bit! (2.) See the welding? Yeah, these drills are the six-sigma rejects that no one else in the world would accept... save Uganda. I had it tack-welded the first time (that failed). I had the guy use half a welding stick the second time.

Drilling A LOT of holes. There were around 400 nails in the finished board. On each of the 10 lines along the boards width, there were 22 nails. 22 nails on on would grain creates MONSTER cracks. Pre-drilled holes are a must (in the states you can just use peg board).

Here is the product after throwing nails into all of the original holes. That empty space is the location of what developed into a full board-length crack. I didn't put nails there in hopes that the crack would not propagate (it did anyway, so later I put in the nails).

Here is my back after my first try on the board. The inverted pictures shows the holes better. It hurt like HELL laying on this thing, so I had to add almost 200 more nails.

I placed the extra holes in the middle of each square. The big crack is clearly visible, but the bed didn't fall apart because of the added supports across its width.

FIERCE! It was hilarious traveling with this thing from Kyenjojo to Ibanda. As I walked by I kept hearing people say, "VERY! VERY! DANGEROUS!" while pointing to me. The cool thing was that I didn't even have to bargain down the Mujungu-price set by the Fort-Kamwengi and Kamwengi-Ibanda taxis like I normally have (I don't think they didn't want to risk my fury :)).

I saved the bed for the last demo. I gathered all the students together around the stage. Here I am inciting their cheers ("Listen, I'm scared of this thing! If I don't hear your cheers, I don't know if I'm going to have the strength to do it! CHEER, CHEER, CHEER!!!"

(Sorry about the blur.)

The first part is the worst. It does hurt a bit.

SUCCESS! It didn't kill me after all!! I love the faces in the background. People were cheering and clapping and jumping up and down. I never really thought I'd enjoy a stage... but on occasion, I definitely do! (look at that dirty butt!)

Of course others in the crowd had to try it out.

Try as I might, I could not get a girl to try the bed. But plenty of guys either volunteered during the demo or simply ran up to the front of the class when my back was turned to try it on their own. It was definitely a hit!

The bed of nails was a TOTAL success. It accompanied 4 other demonstrations that showing various applications of pressure.

While the kids may not remember the MATH behind the "magic," I doubt they'll ever forget the day when they saw an irish-potato get STABBED right through the middle by a 3.5 inch nail but then watched in amazement as a (part)-Irish MUJUNGU tried to go to sleep on a hole bed of the same damn nails a few minutes later!

Thanks for reading!

I love you all (but especially you, Michelle!)

Devon.

P.S. How do you like my pink, cut-off denim shirt? The back is covered in white Hawaiian flower outlines. I am the epitome of elegance and taste!

Physics Blows?

When I think back on high school physics at Northside, I remember three things off the top of my head.

(1.) A competition to see who would create the best egg catapult that fit inside a 1 ft cubed box and weighed less than 1 kg (2.2 lbs): I came in second place to Jamie Close. (His father, a mechanical engineer, designed and built his... it was INCREDIBLE [It took Jamie, a HUGE football player, all his strength to cock the damn thing!]) Mr. Simmer's didn't think a single one of us would be able to break 50 yards with his design requirements, but Jamie's catapult, if I remember correctly shot his egg 54 yards.

(2.) Mr. Simmers had jokes or small puzzles at the beginning of each class. Example: "What do you call a millionth of a mouth-wash?" Ans: A micro-scope. (Get it? Micro = 1e-6 = 1 millionth, and scope is a mouth-wash!). Another example: "What is a Joule per second?" Ans. A WATT (get it? What = Watt!) Jokes are always better when explained.

(3.) One day, Mr. Simmers brought a glass tube with a plunger on it to class. He put a small piece of paper inside the tube, inserted the plunger and with a massive pressing motion forced the plunger downward. What happened? The paper caught on fire!!!

Two thirds of the things I remember of physics in HS happened in a total of about 10 seconds. The time it took to tell 2 jokes plus the time it took to slam a plunger down. And sure, the jokes were corny as hell, but I've never forgotten that "micro" means "millionth" or that a watt, a unit of power (i.e. rate of change of energy), has a unit of a Joule per second. And I'm never without a picture of what an Adiabatic Compression process can result in!

That information STUCK!

My point: sometimes, it is the small stuff, the things that teachers could look at and think my god that is trivial, that really lodge bits and pieces of information into kids heads.

Many times in the last year-plus that I have been here in Uganda, I've gotten completely wrapped up about the amount of material that I have to cover. I get so stressed, so frazzled, that I focus more on the derivations than presenting the principles in a way that makes my kids ABLE to remember them, in a way that makes them worth remembering ... that makes them fun.

Classes like that suck. I hate them. Surely my kids do to.

So I've tried to incorporate more 5 minute demos here and there to illustrate more complex topics we've been studying. I present them as "magic" tricks, and afterwards, I discuss the science behind them.

In the next few blog posts, I'll try to post a few of the better demo's I've done along with some pictures. We'll start with Bernoulli's Principle.

Have you ever seen the ball above the blow-dryer trick? You turn a blow-dryer on and place a light, round ball in the air stream. One who has never seen the trick before when asked might suggest that the ball will simply blow away when dropped into the stream. What happens? It levitates! Why?

Bernoulli's principle!

Air passes around the ball with approximately equal streams of air on all sides. Because the total pressure along a stream line is constant and all the stream lines are roughly the same, the pressure and thus the force acting on the sides of the ball cancel out (thereby keeping it above the stream of air). The ball levitates above the stream because of a static pressure at the bottom surface of the ball. The static pressure creates an upward force that eventually equates with the balls weight, so the ball floats within the air stream.

I didn't have a blow-dryer here in Uganda (though absolutely need one after 18 months of not cutting my hair). So my air supply was limited to what I could generate with my own body. It needed to be constant over a longer period of time, so the tube I blew through could not be to large (large area = more space to air escape = one breath escapes a lot faster... it takes less time to blow a chest full of air through an open mouth than lips puckered to whistle). A STRAW!

Now, what type of ball could I use? It had to be small and light enough to be balanced by my measly puffs of air. A PING-PONG ball! (The problem of course is that these are hard to come by here. I had to wait until I passed through Kampala at mid-service to get one).

Well, I finally got the supplies, and last week I was able to do my experiment. The following pictures show how it went.

Proper execution requires that you hold the straw perfectly straight up and down so the air flow is vertical AND drop the ball on top once you've begun blowing. Clearly, this was not a one man job for Mugisa.

... so Moses stepped in to help. The next important step is to coordinate when you drop the ball onto the air stream. If you drop the ball to soon, you get hit in the face with a ping-pong ball. If you drop it too late, there isn't enough air flow to keep the ball up. We ended up doing an "Ok, on the count of three, you start blowing and I will set the ball down then." Of course then it was a "Is it one, two, three...?" or "is it one, two, three, go?"

Here I am marveling at our fist successful levitation. Moses is holding the straw, and Mugisa is acting like a bag of hot air.

Moses gets a turn. Suzy, the only girl in the class does the drop while Ivan (at first completely against the experiment because he was just 'too cool') holds the straw ("Vertical Ivan, VERTICAL!").

Suzy, wearing a skirt, is unable to lay on the three stools we had set up, but the table worked just fine.

All in all, the experiment worked our perfectly. Each kid got a chance to try. Afterwards I was able to go through the physics behind the magic, and before leaving each of them, almost at once, they asked me if they could keep the straws and borrow a few ping-pong balls so they could do the trick for their families.

"Of COURSE!" I replied.

I am still stoked by their excitement.

Thanks for reading!

I love you all (but especially you, Michelle!),

Devon.

Poor Billy

“You cut a [goat]’s throat to let the blood out,” said Jack, “otherwise you can’t eat the meat.”

“Why didn’t you – ?”

They knew very well why he hadn’t: because of the enormity of the knife descending and cutting into living flesh; because of the unbearable blood.

Lord of the Flies, William Golding

“Dude, he’s still alive! Just fuckin’ kill him, would you?!” I shout.

I’m up to my elbows in blood. Spatters extend as high as my face, my glasses freshly freckled. People stand around us, staring in various degrees of wonder. Cameras snap and roll, recording these moments for eternity.

His back legs, initially kicking in fear are now clamped in Brian’s rock-climber grasp. His front legs are held by a stranger. And clasped between my hands is the head of an old billy-goat, his neck exposed and gushing as his executioner works quickly to finish the deed.

All of this started several weeks ago with a simple declaration: “I’m going to kill a goat and roast it for my birthday.” Soon thereafter, the sacrificial grounds were selected, friends were assembled, the goat was purchased and before Lex knew it, the desire to expose his inner hunter/gatherer was realized.

I’ll admit, I was stoked about the weekend and the prospect of being so “Peace Corps.” After all, how often does one get to partake in the selection, slaughter, butchering and roasting of their meat back in The States? Sure, we’ve seen farm animals, but how many of us have actually acted according to our lofty position in the food-web? I dare say, not many.

I was excited about the learning opportunity… right up until I saw the damn goat and realized, whoa, that is a living, breathing creature. He experiences pain. He enjoys food. I bet he enjoys sex. We have a lot in common.

There he was, chomping away on elephant grass, completely unaware of the fact that in less than ten minutes, he would be dead. You poor bastard, I thought, you don’t even know what’s coming. I pitied him.

Soon, I was holding his head, splashed with his fear and hoping, as surely he was, that it would all just - end.

Those present at the killing will tell you that I was clearly shaken by the experience. How so? Did I become a vegetarian? No. Did I start believing that “animals are people too!”? Absolutely not. More than anything, I was interested in finding the source of my intense discomfort born of the slaughter.

I found it. You don’t even know what’s coming. What a strange thought. Because neither do I; neither do we. While we know which way our on/off-switch invariably flips, during the interim it has a mind of its own. But the same cannot be said for animals. More often than not, their life-switch is controlled by a bigger, more blood-thirsty being.

I had aided that being. I, too, had blood on my hands.

Perhaps I sound regretful over my participating in the goat roast. I am not. It was a learning experience that provided an extreme adrenaline rush. But unlike the emotions that arise from, say, adventure sports, those that I experienced were of a more brooding nature, and they forcefully opened the “ethics of an omnivorous diet”- can of worms (an extremely healthy food for thought) that I had previously shelved.

“Devon, would you do it again?” Absolutely. “Will you do it again?” The jury is still out.

Note: For a fantastic investigation of the world-wide economics (Ahem, “sustainability”) of meat-eating, I highly recommend the book Hope’s Edge written by Francis Moore Lappé and her daughter Anna.

More Pictures? Already?! YES!!

Weebaleo! Welcome back!

The last pictures I posted were pretty animal-heavy, so I thought I would a few pictures from the people side of my life. As you may know, my group and I recently hit the 1 year mark (it happened on April 21), so we were given clearance to head through Kampala for a Mid-Service Conference in Seeta earlier this month. These are a few of the pictures from the week before the trip and as I passed through Kampala.

This is one NOISY-ass bird! He has some sort of edible-something in his mouth, and still he is able to making screaming, high-pitch squeaks. He and his buddy landed here, one on the rail, the other on the window ledge. The one on the ledge was looking at his reflection and screaming as a result. The bird on the rail was screaming right back. And I was screaming to scare them off.

Strangest contents of a pannier I have ever seen. Hands down.

A few of us got together to build a climbing wall at a buddies place. These were the climbing holds we made from spare bits of wood laying around his parish. While the manufacturing of the holds was successful, the wall itself was an epic fail, as (a.) we, I mean, I broke the drill bit that allowed us to pre-drill the holes for the concrete nails in the wood. This left us driving the nails through brittle wood... which is similar to driving nails through glass bottles... CRACK, SPLIT, DESTRUCTION! and (b.) We were trying to anchor the pieces in the wall with cement nails instead of expansion bolts. Getting the nails in was a challenge, but once in they tended to wiggle loose and then pull out of the wall. Bummer. The good news is that we did get a few holds to stick, we built a very cool rope ladder attached to my buddies rafters that he can do some strength training on, and, ANNNNNNND, we got to drink some VERY classy Bushmills Whiskey. YEAH BABY!!

Halt. Who goes there?

Peekaboo!

Yeah! Funny faces! This was a group of children at Elizabeth's site who waited with us for a taxi. We began playing around with them, and this collage is the result. Take a closer look... some of these kids are hilarious. (One of the hand gestures was an attempt at Spock's "Live long and prosper.")

The horse became a motorcycle, the carriage a small sedan. The tumbleweeds became empty vodka plastic baggies blowing in the wind. But the immortal dust remains. Uganda: A slightly more modern Wild West.

While waiting for a taxi in Nakaseke with Brian and Elizabeth, I broke out Brian's newly purchased used guitar. This small girl sat down next to me to hear me play and was happy to help me strum when given the opportunity.

A small child in at the market.

I've presented this picture twice because I would like you to download both and use a viewer that lets you switch back and fourth between each picture quickly. As you do it, I want you to note your emotions. When you move from color to black and white, does something change inside you? Does one picture draw out more emotion? And if so, why do you think that is?

Far more effective than a "No Parking" sign.

A street vendor with her merchandise. Woman vendors such as this one can be found on just about every street around the city selling books, school materials, newspapers, sweets, locks, wallets, bracelets, necklaces, etc... you name a trinket, and you can probably find a street vendor who has it. In certain spots, fresh produce can also be found. As you move more towards the richer areas of the city (i.e. Kololo) where the malls and golf course and upscale restaurants are, you will see far fewer vendors crowding the sidewalks. Surely, this is an attempt to keep a certain *image* in the Ex-pat side of town.

Entering my favorite restaurant alley in Kampala. Crowded. Dirty. Delicious. I've visited here enough that people know me by nickname, and I always get shouts of "Amooti!" as I pass by.

My favorite dish: Chapati and Beans. A dish like this costs 700-1000 Ugx ($0.29-0.41).

The chapati-man at my favorite restaurant.

Women further down the alleyway serving up their various dishes for customers.

One of Kampala's many homeless citizens.

Ever wanted to know if it is possible to carry 10 mattresses at once? Here's your answer!

This is the street outside Owino Market in Kampala around rush-hour. Owino (the shack-looking structures with steel roofs in the upper right of the picture) has... anything you could ever want to buy.

Imagine the largest maze on the planet earth: A maze with walls, often narrow enough that you can hit vendors on either side of the isle with your elbows if you walk face-forward; walls of clothing (used and new), shoes, backpacks, chickens, belts, flashlights, tarps, ropes, hangers, metals, fruits, vegetables, sewing machines, fabrics, people, used wood, sacks of grain ... just about anything you can imagine... dirt floors that develop puddles big enough to swallow people after stiff rains because the patchy roofs can't keep the inclement weather out... and add, at least in my case, shouts of "American!", "Spaniard!", "Muzungu!", "American Height!", "Ohhhh, my friend, my friend!", "T-shirts?!", "Jeans (I've got diesel!)!", "Yes! Yes!" accompanied with sweeping gestures of the arms towards their wares (or in the case of the more aggressive, grabbing of my arm to pull me towards their stalls) and you've got Owino.

Needless to say, there are some who when presented the choice between being burned at the stake or a venture into those walls would gladly choose the fiery stake. I've grown quite fond of the market, however. Walking the maze has become an adventure, and I've made friends with several of the salesman inside, so my visits have become more fun than stressful.

The same street as before. Owino Market and Nakivubo War Memorial stadium are on the left. In the upper left side of the picture you can see the mosque in Old Kampala. (See google maps to get a better handle on where this is in the city.)

Thats all for now. Thanks for looking/reading. I'll try to get even more pictures up in the next couple weeks.

I love you all (but especially you, Michelle!)

Devon.

Murchison!

You all are well aware that I am a shit-bag at posting pictures with any regularity. Months can go by, and then 30 will pop up. A few weeks after that, perhaps 20 more will appear. By this point, you've probably ascertained that you are never fully aware of what is going on in my day to day life, what I did last weekend, the weekend before it, or even the month before that (unless of course you are Michelle, who we can all agree is RAD).

The good thing about my delayed posts is this: When I do post pictures, my guilt for having left you in the dark so long gets the best of me and the picture counts are usually pretty good. Right? Right?! Right.

(In my defense, uploading just the following 25 pictures took me close to 5 hours because of the maddeningly slow internet speeds.)

The following pictures are my favorites from a trip I took with friends in early February (I could have said last weekend to make you think I was changing my ways, but I frown on dishonesty).

I'm gonna go ahead and quote the Uganda Wildlife Authority website to introduce you to the magic that is Murchison Falls National Park:

"Uganda's largest national park protects a chunk of untamed African savannah bisected by the mighty river Nile.

It is named for the dramatic Murchison Falls, where the world's longest river explodes violently through a narrow cleft in the Rift Valley escarpment to plunge into a frothing pool 43m below. Wildlife populations have largely recovered from the poaching of the 1980s; in the lush borassus grassland to the north of the Nile, elephant, buffalo, giraffe and a variety of antelope are regularly encountered on game drives, while lion are seen with increasing frequency.

In the southeast, Rabongo Forest is home to chimps and other rainforest creatures.

The Nile itself hosts one of Africa's densest hippo and crocodile populations, and a dazzling variety of waterbirds including the world's most accessible wild population of the rare shoebill stork."

Altogether, we spent two days in the park, entering early on a Saturday morning from our friend Jake's house, spending one night at a small lodge in the center of the park and leaving the following day after a 5 hour game drive the following morning.

A momma warthog with her babies.

This is a crop of an already zoomed shot. I dig the hair.

As the mass stampes off, the lone buffalo stands his ground. Renown as Africa's most dangerous animal, these guys are BURLY and aggressive. On seeing you in the land cruiser they usually grunt and shuffle away only to turn, buck their head up and try (with their terrible eye site) to see just what in the hell you are. If you are anywhere CLOSE to their size or smaller, look out.

This trip gave me my first glimpse of giraffe's in the wild. Let me say: If there is anything more graceful than a Giraffe sprinting across the savannah, I've not yet seen it. So smooth was their gate that it wasn't until I compared their speeds to the wild bush bucks sprinting alongside them that I realized that the "fast walk" was an all out run.

Approaching the river, we stopped to snap pictures of three elephants gobbling up leaves on the trees.

One of many baboons hanging around the river crossing site. Of course stupid tourists are keen on feeding them. And then the stupid tourists get pissed when a jealous baboon who WASN'T fed runs up and snatches their pineapple.

He must be thinking: "Washu lookin' at BISH?!"

Elephants on the riverside. At this point we were on a boat headed up the Nile towards Murchison falls. For $15, we got a three our game float up river followed by another 2 hours down the river.

Another animal you should NOT mess with. Hippos. The rule: don't get between a hippo and water lest ye be trampled.

I know what you're thinking. No. It's an African Fishing Eagle. We saw one of these guys on Lake Victoria while kicking back on Banda Island for July 4th last year. Very fitting.

NO SWIMMING!

These guys were all over the place as we approached the falls. All of us were hoping for a Planet Earth-worthy kill, but it was a no go.

A heard of elephants.

The crew with Murchison falls in the background. From this angle, they don't look big. In fact, for anyone who only sees them from this angle they usually scoff at the statement "Murchison Falls is recognized as the most powerful waterfall on the planet (in terms of water pressure)." The next pictures show why...

After the river cruise, we hopped into the land cruisers and drove to the top of the falls. We could have hiked up there and saved time, but the hike is only 2k-ish, and it wasn't even CLOSE to worth it for the 10 USD they were charging. These are awe-inspiring rapids. Your chin drops, and you gasp a bit when you see them. My first thought was, "I wonder if anyone has ever sent them in a kayak." This the Nile river at its most furious!

Brennan washing the feet gives the river some scale.

This answers the kayak question. HELL NO! no one has paddled through this.

Looking up river just down from the rapids. Ferocious.

Murchison Falls at Sunset: "Where soul meets body."

Another sunset pic.

On the following morning, we set out early to cross back over the river in hopes of seeing some lions. Epic fail. But we did see more bucks of all sorts, and we hung out a bit at the delta where the Nile meets Lake Albert. (I got bit on the foot by something with much stronger than I and got a few of my friends worried that the injury was fatal with my cussing.)

It is this type of territorial flex-nutting that leads to...

...enormous hunks of flesh being ripped out of your side!

I LOVE the trees in Africa!

That it, and that's all! I'll do what I can to have more pictures up soon (but don't hold your breath).

Thanks for reading/looking!

I love you all (but especially you, Michelle!)

Devon.