Put Me in the Zoo

So far on this trip, I have not had an opportunity to visit any of the amazing National Parks that East Africa has to offer; I have been so busy visiting mission sites, meeting members of the Apostles of Jesus and Evangelizing Sisters of Mary, assessing the most pressing financial needs of the AJs, speaking with groups of community members, and making all of the preparations to bring the first official group of volunteers to Africa this summer with the Come & See Mission, not to mention all the time on the road- well, there’s hasn’t been a lot of free time.

But this girl wanted to see some big animals!

Luckily, on Monday Fr. Manana, Fr. John, and I went to the Entebbe Zoo. It is not actually a Zoo in the truest sense of the word; its real name is the Uganda Wildlife Education Center. All of the animals in residence there were either rescued from poachers and illegal animal traffickers or were injured and brought to the center for rehabilitation. UWEC doesn’t try to acquire animals to display for public enjoyment, but they allow the public to come and see the animals that they take care of. Theirs is a mission of education and conservation.

It was wicked cool to see the animals up close. Yes, I know I can see most of these animals at any zoo back home, but it’s really cool to see them in country where they actually lived in the wild. On the day we went, we were practically alone at the Center (as we were leaving, several buses full of school children pulled up- bullet dodged), and it was bright and blisteringly hot. The Center has carefully created spacious habitats for the animals, endeavoring to make them as close as possible to the animals’ homes in the wild. Of course, the trouble with having very large enclosures is that there is plenty of space for the animals to go and hide. When we got to the enclosure for the White Rhinoceroses, we couldn’t find them anywhere. So we did what anyone would do in this situation- we left the path and walked all the way around the perimeter of the enclosure, through the trees and brambles, until we found them standing sedately under the shade, a pleasant refuge from the ruthless sun. Well worth going off the beaten path.

We had a similar experience when we got to the chimpanzee enclosure. From what I could glean from the informational placards on the viewing platform, there were at least 7 chimps living in the habitat, but we couldn’t see a single one. Determined to see some monkeys apes (they don’t have tails), we struck out once more for a different view of the enclosure. We found a maintenance road that went roughly the direction we wanted to go, so we started following it.

When we were completely out of sight of the marked trail, the trees around us began to rustle threateningly. I put on a good show of being cool with this new development, but I was feeling increasingly uneasy. Shrieks started to come from the foliage, and suddenly we were surrounded on all sides by monkeys (tails in tact). Words like “monkeybite” and “rabies” started bouncing around in my head. My stoicism started to waver, but my companions had no other thought than to pose for pictures with the little terrors. Gradually, the monkeys receded once again into the trees, and we continued on our quest to locate the chimps.

We came across a gap in the dense trees and a long-neglected path, so we left the road. Just a few meters ahead, we emerged at the far end of the chimpanzee habitat, exactly opposite of where we had started. And wouldn’t you know it? There they were! We saw four or five chimps, sleeping in the shade or playing in the water, all of them just out of the line of sight for someone trying to view them from the Center-sanctioned areas. Little scamps.

All in all, it was a lovely day. We saw serval cats, lions, hyenas, wart hogs, giraffes, cobs, gazelles, buffalo, ostriches, zebras, and and many more. Most of the animals were snoozing away the hot afternoon, a noble endeavor for any creature. I am glad that places like the Uganda Wildlife Education Center exist, for both the animals that are recued, and the people who get to behold them.

Terrors of the Savannah

I have a long-standing debate with my dear friend Mo regarding the disposition of kangaroos. While she maintains that they are, by nature, cute and/or cuddly, I hold to the opinion that they are aggressive, vicious beasts to be respected and feared.

I am right, of course.

At dinner on my first night in Arusha, I learned that there is another animal equally misunderstood and life-threatening. My eyes have suddenly been opened to the horror of animals I hitherto believed to be graceful, gentle herbivores.

Giraffes are cold-blooded killers.

I really wish I was being glib or flip or sarcastic, but the hard truth is that giraffes are incredibly dangerous creatures. It was not immediately apparent to me exactly how giraffes go about killing people. Not biting, obviously, as their heads are in no way proximal to humans, unless you are up in a tree or something. I once saw a YouTube video of giraffes thwacking each other with their necks, and while it looked painful, it didn’t look like it could harm humans on account of our collectively short stature. So how, you ask, do they wreak their havoc?

They kick you.

It makes sense, when you think about it for a second. Giraffes are 49% neck, 49% legs, and 2% everything else. If I ever took a course in physics, I could make some comment about pendulums and fulcrums and velocity, but I am very obviously out of my wheelhouse. Just take my word for it: giraffes should be admired from afar and never ever approached on foot.

For real real.

Pets

Last night, I dreamt that my cat, Fagan, died. He had gotten some kind of wound on his neck, and by the time I got him to the KSPCA (Kenyan Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) on Langata Road here in Karen, he was already cold and stiff. There was nothing to be done for him. I very calmly excused myself, and blogged that I was “deep in sorrow”.

Of course, when I woke up, I knew instantly that it had only been a dream. Fagan is much bigger than the cat in the dream, and he is nowhere near the KSPCA. Why my subconscious felt the need to blog about it I’ll never know.

During breakfast this morning, Fr. John asked if I had any dreams during my sleep. My family will tell you that I always have extremely vivid dreams, and I am always eagerly relating them. So I launched into this story about my poor beloved Fagan’s untimely end. By the time I finished, Fr. John was staring at me with the now-familiar look of absolute confusion. “Jo, I do not want to be rude, but that just makes no sense to me. Why do you have a pet cat?”

Ah, yes. Pets, at least the way we Americans think of them, do not exist in East African culture. Yesterday, when Fr. John was showing me where the guard dogs live, I told him about my own dogs, two German Short-Haired Pointers called Pip and Magwitch. When I told him that they live in the house, his jaw nearly dropped to the floor. He told me that sometimes, the white people who live in the area will allow their dogs to ride in the car with them, the thought of which had him shaking his head in disbelief. When showing me the rabbit hutches, he grabbed one by the ear and held it out for me to inspect. I quickly cradled its hind legs with one hand, while gently petting his middle with the other. Fr. John had never seen someone handle a rabbit with such care! When he pointed out the KSPCA from the Matatu, he was quick to say that *this* was not started by Africans.

I can understand his incredulity at our adulation of animals. How can people concern themselves with the welfare of animals when the welfare of humans is at risk all around them? The animals here have their purposes: protection, pest-control, food, income.

But all the same, I am glad that my Fagan is safe and sound back home.

(… he is, right? This wasn’t a malaria-medicine-induced premonition, was it? WAS IT?!?)

Tanzan-imals!

I'm alive! I've been in Tanzania since Monday and have only gotten to an internet cafe this morning. What a fantastic country! We are staying in Tengeru, right outside of Arusha, in the shadow of Mt. Meru. Oh! How I love mountains! Sometimes I'll forget it's there, and the clouds will suddenly lift, and there it will be, grand and stately. The other day we were driving on the Moshi-Nairobi Road, and suddenly we saw Kilimanjaro peaking out behind Mt. Meru. It was probably 80 kilometers away, but it was awesome awesome awesome.

But that's not the story I want to tell toay.

Yesterday, Dave, Fr. Kamanzi, Fr. Godfrey (aka- My Man Godfrey), and I went to Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area. (I have very limited time right now, otherwise I would link to it. You should google it because it is pretty fantastic). Basically, this crater formed from a collapsed volcano many millenia ago and, over the years, the various fauna of Tanzania found its way in and never bothered to find its way out. The crater is a huge, lush valley with every kind of terrain, from lakes to swamps to forests (think: The Great Valley from Land Before Time). We circled the entire crater in our (totally bad ass, semi-convertible, ideal-for-a-zombie-apocalypse) jeep, and then descended into the crater, switch-backing down an impossibly steep slope. We were immediately greeted by a herd of Zebras (which, for the record, are donkeys with stripes). As we drove through the crater, we saw everything! Full grown bull elephants eating in the woods; a lioness stretched out, resting next to a recently killed buffalo, and a hungry hyena circling in the distance; an enormous herd of wildebeests, milling around and grazing; a pile of hippos lazing by a lake; a group of young male lions lounging carelessly by the road (literally inches from our car!); zebras, zebras, and more zebras! It was such an incredible experience, to be so close to these creatures in their natural habitat. I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn't at a zoo!

I can't wait til I'm home and can post some pictures!

Where Kenya See Lions?

I touched a baby elephant yesterday.

Dave and I had been here for 6 days, so I guess Fr. Kamanzi decided it was time for us to see some of Kenya's famous wildlife. That is, other than the baboons that we see almost every day playing by the side of the road (I know, right?!). Happily, Nairobi National Park is located just minutes up the road.

Yesterday, the three of us went to the David Sheldrick Elephant and Rhino orphanage, housed by the park. Everyday from 11 to 12noon is feeding time, so people flock to a paddock and handlers guide the herds of baby elephants to the gathered crowd. These are some flipping cute animals. The run full-speed to the gargantuan baby bottles scattered around, and begin feasting immediately. Then the just kind of hang around, playing with each other and their handlers, being, well, elephant-ish. They're aged from 3 to 25 months, and all of them have been orphaned in the wild, mostly by poachers. (The rhinos didn't come out yesterday.)

This afternoon, Fr. Kamanzi, Dave, and I were once again on the prowl for big game. This time, we went to the Animal Orphanage at the park, and took a safari walk. The orphanage had all kinds of animals: monkeys, lions, cheetahs, leopards, warthogs, wild cats, hyenas, baboons, more lions, and more cheetahs. All of them were orphaned in the park and were rescued by rangers, but they will never be able to live in the wild again. For, like, a second I thought to myself "Huh, this is kind of like a zoo back home." But then I realized that A.) The animals are closer and friendlier, B.) All of these animals came from right here, and C.) Instead of peacocks, there are baboons positively everywhere, running amok. It was really a beautiful center. We went from the orphanage to the Safari Walk, which was kind of like an extension of the orphanage, in that the animals there were in pens and had also been orphaned in the Park, but there were some different really cool animals, like albino zebras, pygmy hippos, buffalo, turtles, and rhinos.

On Monday, we depart for Tanzania, and there are some major "Seeing Animals" plans in the works, but I don't want to give away any surprises. Be assured, this is not the last time you will read about East African wildlife!