Africa – At home and abroad

Girl party in the land of the Swazis

October 16, 2023October 17, 2023jdewyze6 Comments

Imagine you have recently grown a pair of breasts, and it’s a beautiful spring day, and you can take off almost all your clothes, get together with your pals and thousands of other girls, and sing and dance for the king. This is a blast, I can report, having just observed eSwatini’s Umhlanga Red Dance Festival, where all this action unfolds. Attending it was one of the biggest strokes of luck of my travel life.

Months ago, I had read about the festival (which Lonely Planet describes as “one of Africa’s biggest cultural events.”) The main event is a week-long celebration in which girls from all over the country flock to the main royal palace in Lobamba bearing reeds to (symbolically) help repair the queen mother’s home. Traditionally the monarch of this tiny (still-polygamous) state also chose a wife every year from among the nubile young dancers. The political unacceptability of a 50-something-year-old man annually picking out a teen virgin to add to his harem ended the match-making aspects of the festival around a dozen years ago. But in other ways, the tradition remains unchanged from its inception. “It’s like your 4th of July. Or Thanksgiving.” A celebration of national identity, asserted our guide, Myxo Mdluli. (I thought: not quite. I’ve never been to any turkey-eating feast that was this much fun.)

Back around May, I looked up the date of the festival, and any hope of attending it vanished when I learned it takes place sometime in August or September. What I didn’t know was that a one-day satellite reed-dance festival also happens at Embangweni, another of King Mswati III’s residences. At some point on Friday, during our seven and a half-hour drive from Pietermaritzburg (in South Africa) to a game park in southeastern eSwatini, Myxo mentioned the smaller event would be taking place the next day. Would we like to go?

Changing our itinerary and driving 90 minutes to get to Embangweni seemed a trivial price to pay for participating. We arrived a little before noon at what felt like a combination fairgrounds and sports field.

A large area for food vendors had popped up, and a gigantic VIP tent was serving a buffet lunch. Myxo spotted a cluster of colorful figures moving up a dirt path and urged us to get closer; it was a group of local girls arriving to participate.

He prodded me to walk up and greet them, and I felt like an instant rock star. The girls exploded in grins. They threw their arms around me and began mugging for the camera.

I should mention that they weren’t just strolling in, they also were singing, producing a marvel of complex harmonies and rhythms and solo counterpoints. We moved on and soon realized all the groups were singing, pretty much non-stop; floating among them took us through an archipelago of enchanting musical islands.

I also realized, with a jolt, that unlike that first group we encountered, most of the girls were topless and wearing beaded mini-skirts that covered either tiny black panties or simply their bare bottoms.

This group was composed of Zulu gals who came to dance (but couldn’t present reeds, that being reserved for the Swazi females.)

The Zulus gathered into a little group and individuals took the center ground to show off their stuff. The ability to deliver kicks very high and fiercely seemed to be a goal.

The range of ages was remarkable, from quite young…

To confident young women…

Though the costumes were skimpy, the stylistic variety was riveting.

We learned that participating royals (princesses and maybe their close cousins?) could be distinguished by the feathers they alone were entitled to wear.

Around 1:30, phalanxes of Swazi girls began lining up at the palace gate to deliver their reeds.

The numbers were staggering. We never heard a count, but the dancers clearly numbered in the thousands. For a while we watched them entering the arena, a parade that looked more jubilant and exultant than anything Macy or the Rose Bowl organizers ever dreamed of.

With no end to the marching girls in sight, however, we sadly had to depart before the formal dancing ceremonies began.

We had to go because we knew it would take us two hours to drive to the cabin I had booked at Hlane Royal National Park. Indeed the sun was setting and the front-desk receptionist was closing up when we finally got there a little before 6 pm. Once again we lucked out. Myxo had suggested Steve and I see if we could join the 5:30 (“sunrise”) game drive the next morning, and for about the price of two movie tickets at The Lot, we were able to sign up for seats in one of the game-drive vehicles. We went to bed early in the cabin, illuminated only by two kerosene lanterns and a candle.

As if the reedy extravaganza hadn’t been enough, we wound up seeing more famous animals up close on the next morning’s game drive than anything I’ve experienced before.

Almost instantly a giraffe appeared in front of our vehicle, strolling along as if to say, “Follow me and I’ll show you some cool stuff.”

Everyone in our Cruiser wanted to see lions, so we drove into that section of the park and in less than 5 minutes came upon this guy, patrolling the perimeter of his domain.

Our driver-hide said the predator wouldn’t see us as individual potential snacks but rather would only register our lumbering Land Cruiser, smelling of diesel fuel.

If you’d never heard of lions, I think you’d still know this guy was dangerous, he’s so muscular and powerful.

He looked indifferent to us, but a shiver ran down my spine as he passed.

A bit later, we came across one of his lady friends…

Then we almost drove into this mature female white rhino and her two-year-old offspring.

…but as mothers will do, she ignored him and he finally settled down to snooze beside her.

In any normal week of my life, encountering this many high-octane marvels in less than three hours would have been enough excitement to call it a day. But with Myxo, we spent the rest of Sunday doing more: visiting a cultural center and then the national museum, stopping at a craft center, seeing a bit of the capital city, Mbabane. By the time he dropped us off at our last hotel in eSwatini, we felt we had lucked out with him too.

I’ve reflected that the biggest roll of the dice for any independent traveler, like me, is who I hire to drive us around. For the Lesotho/eSwatini part of this trip, I didn’t have many choices. It’s not like mobs of people want to fly from Joburg to Maseru then be driven across Lesotho, then up to Swaziland and schlepped around there for several more days. In the end, I had to use two separate outfitters. Pretty much all I knew about Myxo came from his website, and while extensive, some details were sketchy.

Topping that was the fact he showed up in Pietermaritzburg with a young woman named Mazui whom we assumed was a girlfriend. (Myxo introduced her but never explained her presence in our vehicle.) It was an odd twist, but she was very nice and we didn’t mind buying her a burger and milkshake at the Wimpy’s where we stopped for lunch. (Myxo declined any food, saying he had some snacks to munch on.) When Steve asked if we’d fill up at the Wimpy’s stop, the guide said he wanted to wait until we crossed the border. Petrol would be 2 rands a liter (about 40 cents a gallon) cheaper on the Swazi side. The border crossing was a breeze and Myxo didn’t hide his relief at the fact we hadn’t run out of gas. He made a beeline for the town’s only fuel station only to find they had nothing to sell.

We continued on down the highway, and I must report, the situation felt pretty grim. The sun was setting. Myxo seemed unsure where he might be able to find another fuel source. I spent several long minutes wondering what would happen when we shuddered to a halt in the gloom, in this distant part of Swaziland near the border of Mozambique. Then miraculously, we saw a station up ahead. It had gas for sale.

Mazui also seemed relieved as the numbers mounted on the pump.

Luckily (again), that was the last flaky thing Myxo did. He always showed up on time. His vehicle was new and impeccable (and capable of operating on fumes!) We never would have seen the dancing virgins or those lions and other animals, had he not suggested those activities. He didn’t get us killed on the road (the biggest danger anywhere we travel, in my opinion.) And we had some of the most wide-ranging and provocative conversations we’ve had with any driver anywhere. Steve and I and Myxo talked about human origins and culture and whether he should start a blog to promote his business and Swazi politics and race relations and more. I’m not sure how long I’ll remember what we learned in the national museum. But I don’t expect to forgot how fortunate we were to spend three days of our lives with him.

Lesotho

October 14, 2023October 14, 2023jdewyze1 Comment

Who knew the capital of Lesotho is Maseru (our destination early Wednesday morning)? I learned around 10 years. It was then, a few years before Steve and I had retired, that I conceived a crazy plan for us to go on an epic quest to visit every one of the 54 countries in Africa. I had this notion we would set up a website and attract legions of readers who would be riveted by our adventures as we tried to accomplish this difficult task. Steve gulped but agreed to go along; we announced our plan to a number of friends. I learned the name and capital city of every African country and spent many hours working on routings.

Reality (including the fact Steve’s mom was in her late 90s) finally changed my mind, and now I know it would not have been a good plan. I think it would have quickly worn us down; become drudgery. But I’ve retained some of my huge appetite to see as much as possible of this continent I like so much. That’s part of why we tacked on quick trips to Lesotho and eSwatini (the former Swaziland). Another is that we so enjoyed our visits two years ago to Europe’s smallest microstates. The same questions apply: how do these little chunks of territory surrounded by big burly states survive?

We blew through Lesotho in less than two days, yet even that brief interval delivered a strong taste of the place. I had found a South African company, Roof of Africa, to drive us clean across, and one of their driver-guides, Sandile, met us as we emerged from the brief immigration formalities at the airport. Sandile, 35, spoke excellent English and proved to be thoughtful, well-informed, and curious — an excellent traveling companion.

Over the course of the next 34 hours, we learned a lot about each other, as well as the history of Lesotho, which was occupied for millennia by San (aka Bushmen) hunter-gathers. Bantu peoples from the north arrived in the 17th century, and irritated by the Bushmen’s propensity to snatch their cattle, they drove them to the Kalahari Desert and other places no on else wanted to live. Later those Bantu clashed with white Boer settlers and their neighboring Zulus. The modern history of Lesotho began when a charismatic leader named Moshoeshoe united all the Bantu clans, placated the Zulu’s rapacious leader, Shaka, and worked out a deal with the Boers in which he traded a bunch of territory for independence. Sandile took us to the Thaba Bosui, Lesotho’s Plymouth Rock, birthplace of the landlocked little country that still survives.

This was a reproduction of the original founding community. Note that residents of Lesotho are known as the blanket people. Staying warm here is an issue.

Now that I’ve driven across it, I understand why both Shaka and the Boers decided it wasn’t worth trying to conquer the place. The land is harsh and high (over 9000 feet in many places), and icy winds slice through the passes, even now, in late spring. Massive mesas and buttes reminded Steve and me of a grayer, grassier version of the American West. It looks nothing like anything we’ve seen anywhere else in Africa but at times reminded us of the South American Altiplano or Tibet.

Most of Lesotho’s 2.5 million citizens are very poor. They survive by farming crops like sorghum and wheat, and grazing animals. Nowhere have I seen so many shepherds, young boys who’ve dropped out of school to spend their days and nights looking after various types of sheep (Merinos being most prized) or Angora goats or cattle.

More than once I did a double take when I realized the cowboy riding a horse near the road was black.

The biggest disappointment of this trip came in Lesotho, when I learned Sandile would not be driving us back into South Africa over the Sani Pass. Travel writers rank this road through the Drakensberg Mountains as one of the world’s great driving experiences. When I received Roof of Africa’s proposed itinerary, I assumed we would experience it, as it was on a straight line from our hotel Wednesday night and our destination Thursday (the city of Pietermaritzburg.)

But Sandile explained there was simply no road connecting the dots. Few roads of any kind cut through this brutal territory. Instead we had to cross the border at lonely place called Qacha’s Nek, then jolt for an hour to get back on good South African tarmac. (We learned that many South Africans like the idea of Lesotho residents coming across the border about as much as some Americans welcome Mexican immigrants.)

Neither Steve nor I regretted our little dash through the mountain kingdom. It’s fun to be reminded of the existence of places like Ha Moka (another stop we made Wednesday.) A tiny village today, it began in the early 1800s when a guy named Moka moved into a big local cave to hide out from the nearby community of cannibals. (Apparently they had been driven by drought and starvation to start catching and eating humans.) Moka married and eventually invited four other families to live in the cave. They built tidy little clay houses that look more like hobbit homes than anything we’ve seen outside the movie set we visited in New Zealand.

The inside of the cave houses was actually clean and pleasant.

Our guide at the site told us the last member of the fourth generation of the cave dwellers just died last month. She has descendants, but it’s not clear any of them will move into the family’s cave house. As for the cannibals, even though they had eaten his own grandfather, King Moshoeshoe got them to stop their evil ways by giving them some cattle. More proof that he was one of the world’s better kings.

The spiral aloe, the national flower of Lesotho.

Wet and Wild

October 12, 2023October 12, 2023jdewyzeLeave a comment

A more accurate name for this post might be Lazy and Boring. After we reached the Zambian border and turned in our Land Cruiser, mostly what we did was luxuriate in a glorious setting. Great for us but not much to read about. Still, we did get wet and saw a couple of wild marvels.

One of the great natural wonders of the world lies at the far northwest corner of where Zimbabwe meets Zambia, so the first thing we did upon driving there from Hwange National Park was to go to Victoria Falls National Park (on the Zimbabwe side). I’d been worrying for months that only a trickle of water might be pouring over the escarpment. The end of the dry season is an excellent time for seeing animals but six months off from when the water levels are highest.

I had nothing to worry about. A poster near the park entrance makes it clear that high and low season at the falls offer very different experiences.

At the peak-flow times, the mist is so dense it’s hard to see much. Instead we watched a breathtaking amount of water plunge over the cliff in some places…

…but also got clear views of the rocky geology. It was spectacular, and seeing it in person fulfilled a long-held dream.

Friday night we ate crocodile croquettes and good pizza at the Vic Falls branch of The Three Monkeys then slept at the B&B where we dropped off the Land Cruiser. The next morning a local guy transported us to the Zambia border, where the passport-stamping formalities took only 20 minutes. A second driver drove us across the 118-year-old bridge financed by Cecil Rhodes…

and then on to our splurge for the trip — a beautiful lodge on the banks of the Zambezi.

Both of us were tired, so it was pure pleasure to enjoy the river views, nap, and swim in the riverside pool.

In the late afternoon of our full day at the lodge, we boarded a sunset cruise on the river.

Along with drinks and hot hors d’oeuvres, it served up views of animals strolling or snoozing on the banks:

…as well as our first hippo of the trip…

…and some startling views of an elephant orgy featuring both sex…

…and snuggles.

Then it was time to pack up, say goodbye to ZImbabwe and Zambia and head off on the last phase of this trip: South Africa, Lesotho, and eSwatini.

Camping in Africa

October 9, 2023October 10, 2023jdewyze1 Comment

Years ago when I was working as a journalist, I met a remarkable character named Bill Wheeler. Bill had abandoned his career as a San Diego anesthesiologist to devote his life to adventuring, mainly in Africa. He documented his travels using his prodigious photographic talents. In one interview, Bill recounted how he had spent his very first night on the continent: driving to a game park, getting out of his vehicle, and pitching a tent. He was terrified of being eaten alive, but all he could do was to take a couple aspirins, the strongest pain relievers he had with him.

I remember laughing and laughing at the thought of pitching a tent in an African game park. I couldn’t conceive of it. Now I know what it’s like, firsthand.

Steve and I self-drove and camped for a couple of nights because it made Zimbabwe affordable and accessible and because Ant Bown (of Manapools.com) convinced me we could do it safely. We did NOT do it because we love camping so much. Steve was a Boy Scout in his youth, and over the course of our long marriage, we’ve camped on a number of occasions. Still, given a choice between a cozy lodge and a sleeping bag on the ground, I’ll usually pick the indoor snooze every time.

To say I was nervous about the camping portions of our Zimbabwe program is an understatement. Yet when we finally reached Ant’s base in Harare and had our 90-minute introduction to our vehicle, I felt exhilarated by the ingenuity of the Land Cruiser’s outfitting. It had AC and a two-person tent affixed to the rooftop. A sturdy freezer held the frozen meals and other supplies we had pre-ordered.

We could heat our meals and water for coffee on a cute little cooktop…

…using a compact armamentarium of kitchen tools.

We’d be able to recharge our battery with solar panels, if necessary.

In such a rig, I could see how we might actually be comfortable.

We had four nights of cottage stays (first in the eastern highlands and then in the Save Valley Conservancy) before our first taste of tent life. By then, Steve had become convinced he didn’t want to sleep on the Cruiser’s roof but instead would use the ground tent with which we also were supplied. Our destination was the Lake Kyle Recreational Park, not far from the Great Zimbabwe archeological site (one of our top sightseeing goals.)

A commanding but friendly official at the park’s front gate toted up our fees — $29 for the park entrance and campsite. We also opted to pay an extra $50 a person to go on a 4 pm “rhino walk” with a ranger guide. The entrance official told us how to get to the campground, and he said we could pick any site; we’d be the only folks there. Since we had time, we decided to set up our tents so we wouldn’t have to do that after the game walk.

Nothing disastrous happened during the set-up, but it reminded me of the contrast between staying in a hotel and erecting a ground tent. Hotel: you sign the register, maybe show your passport, then you can walk in your room and flop down for a nap. Tent: you have to haul out the cumbersome tent bag out of the Cruiser, find and roll out the ground cloth. Unpack the tent. Stake down its corners, find the poles, fit them together, get them to stand up so you can clip the tent body to the framework, pound in more stakes. It’s a pain!

Opening up the roof tent presented different challenges. You had to start by wrestling off its straps and cover, very tough to do since it was so high and we had nothing to stand on.

Here’s a view of Steve struggling to do it.

Once it was uncovered, one of us had to get up on the tires to extend the ladder.

Eventually I learned to scramble up there.

The other person then used the roof tent ladder as a lever to pop the structure open.

When I climbed up and into it, it felt solid enough, and unzippering the windows covers yielded some cool views.

I particularly appreciated being able to see the sky.

Later I would have to get my gear up and into it (including the instant-coffee canister I’d bought in Harare to serve as a chamber pot. No way was I planning to climb down that ladder and toddle off to the “ablutions” in the dark.)

After this setup, we had a splendid rhino walk with a gun-toting ranger who led us straight to two large groups of the massive herbivores.

Shot with my long lens, these white rhino look closer than we actually got to them — but not by much.

Although our guide said most white rhino were pretty chill, he didn’t like the stare we were getting from this big male. So we moved on.

Back at our campsite, Steve and I made dinner, which included grilled burgers, a nice salad, and brownies washed down with cold milk.

I thought the table cloth, supplied by Ant, was a nice touch.

Both of us went to bed early, slept well, and woke at 5:30 to pack everything up and put it all away. Because we were clumsy, almost 3 hours passed before we cranked up the Cruiser and hit the road. I felt grubbier than I had in memory, but we were otherwise fine.

We stayed in hotels for the next four nights. Our final two nights of camping came in Hwange National Park, one of the biggest game preserves in all of Africa. Ant had booked us into two separate sites, and they couldn’t have been more different from each other. The first, Tusker’s Camp, is located in a forested area just outside the east side of the park.

It’s not far from the property occupied by the Painted Dog Conservation group, a non-profit devoted to helping this highly endangered predator (not a dog at all, although they look like they could be relatives.) We spent almost an hour learning about them and visiting the only current occupant of the rehab facility.

After being attacked by a lion, Lucky (as she was named) was treated at the center. But she still limps too badly to return to the wild. So she’s a permanent resident.

We then found the park administration office, booked a 7 am game walk for the next morning, and made our way down some truly awful roads to find Tusker’s.

We never glimpsed the fancy Ivory Lodge that Tusker’s adjoins. Our home for the night was an unfenced piece of land overlooking a distant water hole lined with elephants.

That black clump at the water’s elephant consists of elephants…

They looked like this through my telephoto lens.

A solitary, laconic attendant named Reginald showed us the amenities — a clean bathroom close at hand; a pleasant dining platform. I asked if any dangerous animals were likely to put in an appearance, and he replied that they usually didn’t come to where we’d parked but tended to stay in the brushy area maybe 50 yards away. Reginald then chopped some wood, built a fire, and disappeared. We never saw him or any other human again during our stay.

Some parts of the hours that followed were sublime. We set up the tents more efficiently than we had done at Kyle Lake. Steve made gin and tonics, which we carried up the viewing platform.

As the sun set, we sipped our cocktails and took in the action around the water hole. The elephants had tanked up and moved on, but dozens of baboons dashed in to get a drink, then retreated back into the woods. With the light fading, we dined on excellent beef stew (the last of our pre-ordered meals), and by 9 I had climbed up the stairs to my sleeping perch. Within 5 minutes, I was dreaming.

I awake with a jolt shortly after midnight to the sound of footsteps and soft rumbles below. Peering out my windows, I couldn’t see what was moving, but it felt very close. “Steve!” I hissed. “Do you hear that?”

“Mrmph,” I recognized Steve awakening. A moment later came the unmistakable sound of a big feline, growling.

“Oh my,” Steve said.

“Do you want to come up here?” My voice was pitched at least an octave higher than normal.

“No,” he said. “Go to sleep.”

But how could I? Given what Reginald had said, I didn’t really think the lion or leopard would make it up to the Cruiser’s roof to rip my tent apart. I was less sure about Steve’s fate, and more than anything, I felt flooded with adrenaline, on full alert.

We didn’t hear the big cat growl again, but for the next two hours, a wild panoply of noises surrounded the Cruiser: snorts and chuffles and lots of footsteps. They would disappear for a few minutes, then some new creepy noise would make me sit bolt upright. At one point, I heard the loud improbable whisper of rain. Outside it was still dry as a bone, and I realized I was hearing the shish, shish, shishing of what sounded like a large group of heavy-footed animals moving through the nearby stand of brush and trees. Elephants? Buffalo? I think it had to be one or the other, but I couldn’t see well enough to confirm that.

And then the noises all stopped. The animal party broke up. When I woke up around 5, my fitness device showed that I had finally gone back to sleep a little before 3. Comparing our sleep scores later that morning, mine was 66, “Fair,” according to my Oura ring. Steve, in contrast, snoozed for almost 7 and a half hours, bagging him an “Optimal” sleep score of 88 (one of his best for the trip.)

Somehow I got through our busy slate of activities for Friday. We packed up our stuff faster (practice does help) then went on yet another great walk with a sweet and patient ranger. We slogged over some of the worst roads of the trip to cross a blackened section of the national park that verges on the Kalahari Desert.

The ravaged landscape was so grim, we began to wonder if we would find any place to stop and eat our lunches. But we continued to spot bunches of elephants, including a large group near a place on the map labeled Shumba. The entry gates looked almost Gothic.

But a large tree provided welcome shade.

One old female elephant made her way from the herd to near us. Steve and I argued for days over whether she was checking us out (my theory) or just hoping for a spare banana (Steve’s.)

Robin’s Camp was our final campsite. When we reached it, we concurred it was nicer than many campgrounds we’ve visited in America. Like Tusker’s, Robin’s abuts a lovely lodge equipped with an inviting swimming pool we could have used, had we more time, but again we wanted to get the tents up before the sun set. Unlike Tusker’s, the Robin’s campground was fenced, and two of the other campsites were occupied by tourists. Inside the spotless lavatories, overhead rain-shower heads provided abundant hot water. Our spot had a picnic table, a grill, even electrical outlets for charging up our devices. Once again we ate well and I was asleep before 8:30. This night I didn’t hear a sound other than the buzz of insects.

It almost felt mundane. But two final encounters transformed our stay into something extraordinary. While we were sipping our morning coffee, a pair of red-billed hornbills landed on our Cruiser’s doors and seemed amazed to see their reflections in the windows.

They acted fearless as they hung around, and when I tossed one of them seeds from my muesli, it gobbled them down.

Around sunset on Friday evening, I also had noticed a large group of what looked at first like squirrels — maybe 20 or 30 animals — bolting toward us. They came very close and then tumbled into several holes so close I could have tossed a pebble into one of them. A couple of them stood up on their back feet, and I gasped.

“Are they Timons?” I wondered, thinking of the Lion King’s comic meerkat.

Steve knew better. He exclaimed that they were mongoose. “I’ve never seen one before!” He sounded awestruck. (He now insists they are his favorite of all the animals we have ever seen in Africa.)

They didn’t reappear again until around 7 the next morning (Saturday), when one or two popped up. They looked around, clearly cautious.

Our Zimbabwe guidebook later helped us identify them as banded mongoose.

Within a moment or two, chirping noises erupted. The animals seemed to be discussing whether the coast was clear. They reached some consensus, and the whole group spilled out again and streaked away, shockingly fast.

I’d camp next to those guys any day.

In the footsteps of our ancestors

October 8, 2023October 8, 2023jdewyze5 Comments

Last Tuesday as the afternoon sun lowered, Steve and I stood over the grave of Cecil Rhodes.

This guy, after whom the country of Zimbabwe once was named (Rhodesia), occupies one of the most dramatic final resting places I’ve ever seen.

I knew almost nothing about Rhodes before this trip, but now I can tell you: he was a ruthless, rapacious visionary. The son of an English minister, he was so sickly as a child, his family sent him as a teenager to Africa in the hope it would toughen him up. Once there, Rhodes heard about about the diamond action in Kimberly (in what’s now South Africa), moved there, and raised money (from the Rothchilds) to start buying up mine leases. He wound up essentially cornering the world diamond market and founded the De Beers Company (still a powerhouse in the diamond world.) He also resolved to build a rail line from Cape Town to Cairo through all the British possessions along the way. To do that, he needed to take the land ruled by the Ndebele king (basically today’s Zimbabwe and Zambia) and fill it with Englishmen, who would ride in comfort upon those Rhodesian rails.

Using lies, deception, and the muscle of the English crown, Rhodes succeeded so well that by the 1950s and 60s, white people held all the power in Rhodesia, and they transformed the place into something that warmed many Western hearts. At the same time, resentment among the natives built, and a vicious guerrilla war began in the 1970s. The insurgents triumphed in 1980, when the Brits relinquished their claim on the place, and the modern state of Zimbabwe was born. For most of the time since then, the black Zimbabwean elite, every bit as greedy as Rhodes, has done a pretty dreadful job of ruling. But personally, I can’t fault them any more than I blame Rhodes. He started the mess. I didn’t spit on his grave, but if anyone else had been there and done that, I wouldn’t have objected.

Nonetheless Monday through Wednesday nights, Steve and I stayed in an institution that symbolized the heart of white Rhodesian rule for 127 years, and if I’m honest I have to report: we enjoyed it.

The Club Bulawayo, both a private social club and a hotel, today is still a grand old structure paneled in expanses of dark, very shiny wood.

We were more than comfortable in our large room, spotless and equipped with comfy beds, a nice shower, and decent internet. Food served in the building’s central courtyard was good, and the handful of folks on the staff (all black) were uniformly warm and welcoming. In many ways, however, the Club is as broken as were Rhodes’ dreams of continental mastery. The 300-plus-year-old grandfather clock on the second floor still chimes, but the elevator doesn’t work (so we had to lug our bags up 62 grand steps to reach the second story). The parquet in the lobby gleams, but the corridor outside our door looked shabby.

We saw so few other guests that at times I felt like we had sneaked into and made ourself at home in a museum.

Steve and I devoted one of our two full days in Bulawayo (Zimbabwe’s second largest city) to urban amusements: visiting the national Museum of Natural History, the old railroad museum, the central public library, and more. Like our stay at the Club, these provided more tastes of lost imperial glory.

Rhodesia’s railroad system was once a marvel.

Rhodes had ordered that the streets of this city be built wide enough so a wagon pulled by 24 oxen could make a U-turn. When the ox teams disappeared, hordes of cars never replaced them, so today you can stroll around the central business district without fear of being mown down.

For our other full day, we had to choose between two excursions outside the city. We could have visited the Khami Ruins built about 600 years ago by people who had abandoned Great Zimbabwe after it collapsed. Steve and I had visited the Great Zimbabwe complex a few days earlier. Considered the greatest archeological site south of the Sahara, it met my (very high) expectations.

A young archeology student named Shylet was our excellent guide.

Part of the site, where a series of kings lived, crowns a high vantage point.

The king’s chief wife occupied this enormous lower complex.

But Great Zimbabwe is basically a medieval castle, and the Khami ruins would have been more of the same (only smaller and younger.)

The alternative offered an experience of antiquity orders of magnitude older. So on Tuesday we drove about 30 minutes south of Bulawayo to the Matobo Hills. You could visit Matabo National Park just for the geology (or to see Rhodes’ grave, which lies within it.) Fantastic rock formations dominate the landscape, including gigantic boulders that look like they could crash down at any moment.

For us, however, the big draw was the rock paintings that line the walls of thousands of caves.

We visited two of them. The first was relatively easy to reach, down a shady dirt byway off the rocky main road. A friendly young museum attendant greeted us. His name was Knowledge. (“Yeah, seriously,” he said, aware of the humor in his parents’ choice.) He gave us a thorough, adept tour of the small but excellent museum, which filled us in on the humans who once lived in these rough shelters as long as 40,000 years ago.

Some time around 13,000 years ago, they started decorating their caves with paintings of the world around them. (Actually, even older paintings may exist; the layers underlying the cave floors have not been conclusively excavated.) The little museum contains reproductions of some of the best — far more complex than any cave paintings I’ve ever seen before.

I can’t explain everything that’s in this reproduction of a painting in the Botwe cave, but the guy at the top left was trying to hunt the huge lion and got his arm bitten off. The person two rows below him, horrified by these happenings, has his arms on his head — a prehistoric Munchian Scream.

After our tour, Knowledge led us to the Pomongwe cave a bit further down the path. The space is lovely, big enough to have housed a clan of maybe 100 folks, but sadly, the paintings were damaged around 100 years ago, when inept curators tried brightening them up with linseed oil (in preparation for a visit from some British royalty). Still, we could see how extensive and impressive they once must have been.

Knowledge urged us to visit Nswatugi Cave, less accessible but in much better condition. To get to it, we had to drive quite a bit further along dirt roads that were all but deserted. Then we had to find and follow a series of green arrows painted along the path.

This sign refers to just the short final bit. The beginning part was much steeper.

Parts of the hike required scrambling up steep rocky inclines lined with brush where black mambas and puff adders lurk; other sections went up stairs and across flats. What we found at the top was worth it all.

A wonderful menagerie parades across this cave’s walls…

The images moved me in a way I find hard to articulate. Thousands of years before the Egyptians began playing in their sands, these simple hunter-gatherers stood in this space, re-creating the world that surrounded them. One thing we’ve learned on this trip is that traditionally, Africans have seen their ancestors as a link with the divine. I’ve never been able to empathize with that. I’m not particularly interested in my own great-great-grandparents and certainly can’t conceive of worshipping them.

But it strikes me now that the San people who lived in and decorated Matoba’s caves are also my ancestors. Now that I’ve seen their art, it’s not that big a stretch to imagine kneeling before them.

Wild and free

October 1, 2023October 2, 2023jdewyze1 Comment

Throughout the course of our travels, Steve and I have stayed in a handful of places that felt like the ends of the earth. Our time in the Save Valley Conservancy adds another to that short list. After turning off the Mutare-Masvingo highway, we had to jounce for almost two hours over fawn-colored dirt washboard. Steve had to drive the Cruiser through the Turgwe River. During the dry winter and spring, it shrinks to a fraction of its high-water levels, but enough water still flows through it to get my adrenaline pumping.

Steve locking the hubs to engage the 4WD, to help us get through the water ahead.

The guard at the gate off the main road had radioed that we were on the way, so a guy on a motorcycle was waiting to lead us to our lodging on the Humani Ranch: “Goma 2.” It’s very clean and comfortable, and after a delicious dinner, I felt cozy and relaxed. Around 7:30, a sound shattered the night. A growl verging on a roar exploded close enough to be on our porch. This lion sounded murderous. He (or she) emitted its blood-curdling threats 3 o 4 more times. Then another scream pierced the night. The shrieks went on and on, terrified and pleading (if an animal can plead). I don’t know what it was (maybe a bush pig someone suggested the next day) except that it was prey about to be eaten alive.

I felt astounded to be so close to such noisy exotic violence but not particularly scared. Goma 2 was built from stout concrete blocks. It has big windows, but a lion would only crash through one of them in a Hollywood movie. And soon this would not be a hungry lion. I did feel a bit nervous the next morning, as Steve and I set out on a walk led by a 32-year-old guide named Justice. He wore a green uniform and had a handheld radio but brandished no weapon.

It soon became clear his English was minimal. He knew the word “lions” but didn’t understand my question: “Are they dangerous?” I tried “Will they hurt us?” He still looked uncomprehending. I went for something simpler: “Will they eat us?” He said they wouldn’t.

We walked for awhile alone a broad dirt road, and at one point passed a gaggle of kids of various ages heading to the ranch’s school complex. If little kids could be out by themselves, I figured, we three grownups would probably be okay ambling through Lion Country.

After a half hour or so, we left the main road and struck off through a lightly wooded area toward the Turgwe. Descending into the riverbed, the terrain was so open, it seemed clear no killer animals were close enough to menace us. Soon, however, Justice pointed out a buffalo far in the distance.

We advanced toward it, and I realized it was part of a group.

Closer still, we could see them watching us, wary.

We’ve read, recently, that African buffalo aren’t as dangerous as their reputation. Only the cranky old solitary males are life-threatening, Justice told us. But he didn’t imply the rest were petting-zoo animals, and we soon left the riverbed. The buffalo herd thundered off, surprisingly fast. Over the course of the next few hours, Justice pointed out bushbuck, eland, kudu, and the always charming impala.

Shocking fast, they also leap higher than you can imagine.

He spotted some kind of monkey high in a tree (I only saw the branches swaying.) We noted a pair of warthogs trotting across a field, and we laughed at baboons stealing oranges from the farm’s huge grove.

Toward the end of our walk, our guide directed our attention to a solitary zebra, camouflaged by the thicket of branches.

We saw no lions or black rhino or elephants, all of which live here. What flabbergasted me about the game walk, though, was how present all those big animals felt too. There! A fresh black rhino track.

Enough elephant poop to fertilize a substantial organic garden.

Trees smashed up in the unmistakable manner of elephants. (SUCH messy eaters.)

Our guide explained that a hungry elephant had stripped the bark off this tree (which would die as a result.)

Justice said the mysterious holes in the ground were the work of “antbears” (later clarified for us by Google as aardvarks.)

When we found this single elephant bone…

…Steve asked, “Where’s the rest of him?” Justice replied, “Hyenas.”

On foot we drank in the sight of things we would have missed entirely in a vehicle: spring blossoms…

Wine-colored sap bleeding from a tree…

The beauty of thorn-tree needles up close…

By the end of our walk, I felt completely at ease. My epiphany was: of course! Humans evolved living with these animals for tens of thousands of years. Long ago we got established as the top predator along with a couple of others. (That lion!) But in a game reserve, we don’t compete with lions or leopards or buffalo for resources. That doesn’t mean we can blunder into their spaces or threaten them. But if we’re careful and respectful we can walk among them without fear.

After a break for lunch and a rest, Justice came back around 2:30 to accompany us on another outing, this one in our Land Cruiser, with Steve at the wheel. Crashing through the bush, we filled in some gaps in what we’d seen. We passed giraffe that reminded me how much I love those guys.

We watched a solitary elephant bull happily chowing down on dinner.

And at the wheel, Steve had a wildly macho experience that he loved.

Throughout our time together, Justice never grew more talkative. At first, his lack of English disappointed me. I would have asked so many questions, if he could just understand them! By the end of the day, however, I was happy about his linguistic limitations. If he’d been more fluent, we would have spent a lot more time yakking. Being quiet forced me to see more,

My one big regret was that we never met the owners of the Humani Ranch. Everything I know about the ranch and Conservancy comes from my guide book and the Conservancy’s website. The Whittal family sounds larger than life: former cattle ranchers and legendary big-game hunters who were leaders in getting their neighbors to tear down their fences, fencing only the perimeter and creating what the guidebook says is the largest private game reserve in the world. I had hoped to write more about all this but it’s too complicated. I give up. I can just say I’m happy to have glimpsed the life there.

The scary highways of Zimbabwe

September 30, 2023September 30, 2023jdewyze2 Comments

I was nervous about the driving part of our “self-drive” Zimbabwean safari. Steve also was worried. We’d heard the roads haven’t been maintained for 30 years. That drivers were almost suicidal in their obliviousness while speeding through intersections. That potholes and other obstructions turned traveling on rural roads into a potentially deadly game of Chicken.

As we approached the start of our trip here, I awoke on a couple of nights thinking about how easy it would be to die. But we’d heard from several sources that we’d be fine if we just took it easy. Were they right?

Now that we’re two long drives into the adventure, I’m think they were. A little before 9 Monday morning (9/25) we climbed into our loaded Land Cruiser and drove east from Ant’s guesthouse, heading away from the heart of Harare. The few stoplights we encountered seemed to be working, a rarity, according to what Ant had said. Traffic was light and no one did anything crazy. Soon we paid our two dollars at a toll booth and were passing fields and wooded areas. The further east we went, the lighter the traffic got, and I can tell you I this: When you’re almost alone on the road in a bruiser of a vehicle that can blow over potholes and other rough patches with ease, you begin to relax.

That’s not to say driving in Zim is just like driving in La Jolla. Paved roads are narrow but shrinking, the edges nibbled away by rain and wear. Those ragged fringes often are an inch or two above the adjoining dirt, and if one went over such a mini-escarpment at high speed (say, to avoid a head-on collision with a bus trying to pass someone), one could flip one’s vehicle and come to a messy end.

But Steve never drove at high speed, and the sights and landscapes entertained us: folks unloading huge truckloads of oranges…

,,,or making bricks or selling wooden sheds (or were they tiny homes?)

When we got hungry, we lumbered off the tarmac and parked on a dirt stretch near an informal bus stop. We opened up the Cruiser’s back, unfolded two chairs, let down our cooking shelf, made ourselves cheese and tomato and avocado sandwiches, and gobbled them down with chips.

To reach our destination in the northern highlands we had to pull off the main road and bounce over dirt and boulders for more than an hour. That wasn’t pleasant, but I don’t think we saw any other vehicle along the entire punishing stretch. We had that night and another full day to relax and enjoy the glorious countryside.

This self-catering “cottage” where we stayed was actually a four-bedroom house.

Although we had only candlepower our first night there, we still enjoyed a delicious dinner of chicken lasagna (pre-cooked and frozen and packed into our Cruiser’s freezer by Ant’s team), a nice salad, and brownies.

Tuesday morning we hiked for five miles around the lovely lakes down the hill from our cottage.

It was one of the most peaceful walks I’ve taken in memory. I think we saw one other person the whole time.

That pink house in the distance is our cottage, with the Cruiser parked next to it.

Wednesday we drove eight and a half hours, stopping midway to refuel at a Total Station. For 13 gallons of diesel, we paid $88 (plus a dollar tipto the friendly guy who cleaned our windshield) — more than the price at home. But it was still a relief to see confirmation we wouldn’t be dealing with fuel shortages (another Zimbabwean thing, at least occasionally).

Descending out of the mountains, we dodged more animal traffic…

And I thrilled to this sight of our first baobab trees on this trip.

I bought that large colorful rug from the lady on the right, who made it.

Human automotive competition for the road remained light, and it disappeared entirely once we turned onto the washboard lane leading to our destination in the amazing Save (pronounced Sah-vay) Valley Conservancy.

The other scary byway in Zimbabwe is the Internet highway. If good paved roads are scarce, access to the global information stream is rarer. Here our beloved T-Mobile phone service, which gives us instant connectivity in more than 100 countries, provides only text and phone coverage, No data. Ant’s guest house was equipped with good WiFi but we haven’t been anywhere else that has had it.

As part of his services, Ant did provide us with an aging Galaxy Android phone, and we bought $20 of air time from a roadside vendor near Ant’s Sunbird Guest House. It took some work, but Steve finally figured out how to use the Android as a hotspot for all our devices. That’s how I was able to publish my Zimborientation post from our remote mountain shelter Monday night. It felt miraculous.

Since we left there, however, we haven’t had any phone signal most of the time (and if the Galaxy can’t get a signal, we get nothing.) If you’re reading these words, that means I finally found a spot of service. In the meantime, we’ll have to make do with focusing on the actual world around us. That’s not a bad thing.

Will bonobos survive?

January 28, 2020jdewyze2 Comments

DSC07830 2.jpeg I’m not a wildlife expert, and maybe even the experts don’t know what the future holds for bonobos. But what I want to say is: after visiting the Congo, I feel optimistic.

That may be naive. The DRC is one of the most corrupt countries on earth. Its national politics are still in turmoil. Atrocities continue to unfold in the war-torn east, where Ebola has broken out again. And yet… the biggest threat to bonobos isn’t habitat loss, as it is for so many animals in so many places. Congo still has plenty of equatorial rainforest where bonobos can thrive. The bonobo population has plunged because Congolese people eat them. And even that isn’t as bad as it sounds. People don’t think bonobos are endowed with any magical properties (like rhinos, for example, burdened with their theoretically aphrodisiacal horns.) Bonobos are just meat, for which Africans have a big appetite.

Still, just as most humans (even hungry ones) don’t eat other humans, when people learn how similar bonobos are to humans, they can change their minds about bonobos’ place on the menu. And if protecting bonobos instead of eating them can make communities more prosperous, folks can be marshaled to protect them.

Suzy Kwetuenda at Lola ya Bonobo has spent countless hours talking to Congolese villagers in the rainforest about why bonobos deserve protection. She says some of them bristle at the notion of outsiders trying to stop them from eating their bush meat. But she retorts, “You know, we are lucky to be the only ones in the world to have bonobos! They are very precious. The BIG value of bonobos is not in your stomach! It’s very important to have bonobos for development. If you protect them, this area will have more and more visitors. They will come and help you!”

This has always been a core premise of the Lola team: that the communities surrounding any bonobo release site must see concrete benefits from fighting against the hunters and poachers. Les Amies des Bonobos du Congo and its US-based fundraising arm, Friends of Bonobos, don’t have huge budgets. The money has come mostly from small and medium-sized donors. But a part of those limited resources has been devoted to improving the schools, infrastructure, health care and other services near the Ekola ya Bonobo release site. In the ten years since the Lola team began releasing bonobos back into the wilderness, more and more of the bonobos’ neighbors have become believers.

I’ve seen first-hand how a similar approach has worked in Uganda. There tourists who come from around the world to see mountain gorillas have become an engine of prosperity. Ugandan communities that have benefited now see the animals as a priceless resource. It’s possible to imagine something similar unfolding in the Congo.

What Claudine Andre has accomplished in the last 25 years also fills me with admiration and awe. Starting from nothing, she’s built a team that’s adept at saving baby bonobos on the verge of death. These survivors now routinely thrive in the garden that is Lola. The team also now knows what’s required to successfully reintroduce these very special creatures into the wild. (Only one of the 60-odd reintroduced bonobos has died, a youngster who was bitten by a poisonous snake.) And back at Lola more than 30,000 Congolese school kids already have visited Lola and been inspired by these stories.

It saddens me that so many people still don’t know what bonobos are. (I’ve gotten a lot of blank stares when I’ve mentioned our recent travel plans.) But that can change. A hundred years ago no one had heard of pandas.

A hundred years from now our closest animal relatives could be thriving in the African rainforests, showing us a different model for primate behavior than that demonstrated by chimpanzees and us. If that happens, a lot of things will have made it happen.

Some have already unfolded. Claudine has already dedicated a big chunk of her life to the bonobos’ preservation. Field researchers and veterinarians and the sanctuary crew and others have already learned a lot about what it takes to keep bonobos flourishing. But more will be required. Humans all over the planet will need to recognize bonobos as readily as they do pandas, and many will donate money to help them out. Congolese people will have to learn to treasure them.

That would be the happy ending to the bonobos’ story. Maybe it won’t come to pass, but it should. I’m hoping it will.

A barrel of baby bonobos

January 21, 2020January 23, 2020jdewyze4 Comments

On this trip, I have learned it’s more fun to watch baby bonobos play than it is to watch many movies. The action is almost nonstop. They sock each other; pounce. One chases another, catches up, and smashes into him. They tickle each other and make a noise that sounds like panting, but it’s not; it’s the sound of bonobo laughter. Sometimes they go too far and someone gets hurt. Ear-piercing shrieks erupt. Others may beat up the bully in retaliation. The smallest ones never stray far from their surrogate mothers. Older ones sometimes mimic copulation. They’re far too young to actually have sex. It’s just instinctive, practice with the tool they will use soon use daily to diffuse social tensions.

Here’s a glimpse:

img_08175-10

I don’t think there’s anywhere else on earth where you can watch a whole pack of young bonobos play, by themselves. Seven little ones were living in Lola’s nursery during Steve’s and my stay. They ranged in age from two to five, and they all had shiny black fur and boundless energy. Most (if not all) had arrived malnourished, ill, and so traumatized they were close to death.

Over the years, Claudine and her team have developed a detailed protocol for caring for the tiny victims, many of whom have seen poachers shoot their mother before their eyes, then hack her into pieces to be sold as meat. After a thorough medical screening and treatment for any critical health problems, the orphan must be quarantined for six weeks to ensure it’s not carrying any disease that could decimate Lola’s entire bonobo population. But you can’t confine a young bonobo to a cage, all alone. It would die from the absence of love and physical contact. Instead at Lola, each newly arrived youngster is assigned a human surrogate mother who rocks and cuddles it, feeding and caring for the little one in a way that’s looks even more challenging than caring for a human toddler.

The Lola team says love is just as important as food.

I can’t imagine what the surrogate moms go through during this quarantine period. Claudine says usually it takes about two weeks before the newcomer begins to accept and trust the human female. The mom has to try everything she can think of to get the orphan to eat. The poacher/trafficker may have fed it beer or tainted water or scraps of offal or handfuls of rice. The Lola staff says Coke is often the thing that will entice a baby into taking its first sips before transitioning to a more nutritious formula. During a quarantine, the mom returns to her own home at night, but then she got back to work each day without any break until the baby at last can be integrated into the larger group.

Being a surrogate mom to one or more bonobos may get easier after that, but it’s still hard work. The youngsters cling to the women. They climb (or pounce) on their backs and arms. They tug at their pant legs. It’s intensely physical and also essential to the youngsters’ survival.

If you don’t like being alone, a job as a bonobo surrogate mother might be just the thing for you!

Day visitors to the sanctuary must view the youngsters through this glass. As resident visitors, Steve and I got to go a bit closer. But to lessen the chances of the youngsters catching some germ, only the surrogate mothers get to hold them.

Steve and I visited the nursery several times. We went early one morning to observe the morning ritual: a daily bath.

Fresh from his bath, this little one hangs on effortlessly, as do all the babies to their human or bonobo moms.

Twice we also returned late in the afternoon to watch the bedtime preparations. (The residents sleep in hammocks in a couple of large cages.)

We heard all their names, but we only memorized one: Balangala, that of a 5-year-old male, the most confident member of the gang. One morning we watched him climb a large bamboo stalk that was growing into the enclosure. His weight bent it over, and he jumped from it onto a trampoline. After a while he lured most of the younger ones up onto it with him. Eventually the stalk broke, and the moms had to call for a staff member to cut and haul it away.

Balangala came right up to the fence where we were observing. He threw dust at us, demanding our attention. He reached through the the bars to grab Steve’s ear. He bullied the little guys.

But when everyone was annoyed with him, he needed a cuddle.

At the end of the day, he swung through the tunnel that leads to the nursery’s night enclosure, then stopped when he reached the place where we were standing. Penis erect, he thrust his hand through the grating: the classic bonobo handshake (the title of Vanessa Woods’ entrancing book).

Balangala was clearly excited to see Claudine.

Staff members say Balangala is probably ready to join one of the troupes outside the nursery. But he’ll do better if he can go with another youngster, and none of the others was quite ready yet. Bonobo societies are complicated. Before we arrived at Lola, Steve and I already knew that. But our time observing the older primates underscored that.

How we found sanitary pads on the way to the Congo

January 15, 2020March 12, 2023jdewyze8 Comments

As I explained in my last post, Steve and I made this trek to Africa because of the Ugandan grannies. But after flying here via Qatar (and stopping there for three nights), the granny research consumed only four days. It seemed a shame to come halfway around the world, then turn around and go home after such a short time. Also, another adventure called to us.

Several years ago, Steve and I became aware of the plight of the bonobo (along with chimpanzees, Homo sapiens’ closest relative left on earth). There’s a bonobo sanctuary in the heart of Africa that is doing great work for this crucially important but highly threatened species. After visiting the grandmother project, Steve and I wanted to visit that sanctuary.

This isn’t easy. Lola Ya Bonobo (literally “Paradise for Bonobos”) is located outside the city of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The second largest country in Africa, the DRC is also one of the most tragic. It’s ridiculously rich in resources, mineral and physical, yet it’s one of the poorest countries in the world, with one of the bloodiest histories. It does not welcome tourists. As far as I could make out, it has no tourist industry. To go there, someone has to invite you, the invitation has to be approved by multiple ministries in the Congolese capital, and you have to send your passport to the DRC’s embassy in Washington DC to receive the crucial stamp.

Here’s the one in my passport, acquired after Lola Ya Bonobo invited us and all the bureaucratic hoops were jumped through.

Transportation options are limited, but the Rwandan airline does fly to Kinshasa nonstop from the capital of Rwanda, Kigali. The flight is only two and a half hours long, and Rwandair has an excellent reputation. The only problem (for us) was that this flight only operates a couple of times of week. Steve and I couldn’t get to Kigali from Nyaka (the Ugandan village where the granny program is based) on Sunday, and the next nonstop wasn’t until Wednesday (i.e. tomorrow).

Happily what initially looked like an irritating delay turned out to be a pleasure. I learned that we could be driven from Nyaka to Kigali via the site of Uganda’s most beautiful lake, Lake Bunyonyi. We planned to hole up there for two nights, review the work we’d done in Nyaka, and write about it. But yesterday morning, we couldn’t resist spending a few hours in a boat on the lake.

For $20 a person, the hotel where we were staying arranged for a motorboat, a guy to drive it, and a soft-spoken 23-year-old guide named Rabson. Rabson looked very young, but he’s been guiding for about three years, and I quickly found him to be quick-witted, conscientious, and knowledgeable.

The morning had started off a little drizzly, but as we putted along, the sky cleared. Lake Bunyonyi is the deepest lake in Uganda, and it’s filled with 29 islands, most uninhabited. It has no dangerous animals like crocodiles or hippos, and almost no fish.

Only tiny ones like these, skewered for sale at the local market.

The islands create a landscape that reminded me a bit of the New Zealand fiordlands. But the steep hillsides surrounding the water are an intense tropical green, dotted with banana groves. People swim in the lake, and it provides drinking water to the local villagers.

As in so much of Africa, kids were gathering it here.

Rabson loves birds, and he pointed out many interesting specimens to us, including these.

A pied kingfisher

Uganda’s national bird, the grey crowned crane

He recounted the history of some of the islands. Then he began talking about something that startled me: namely, how most kids in Uganda reach puberty without knowing anything about menstruation.

When girls suddenly begin to bleed, it shocks and horrifies their classmates. Girls have no access to sanitary pads, so they use torn-up t-shirts or leaves or other crude substitutes for sanitary pads that sometimes trigger infections. But Rabson had met someone who was trying to do something to change that and he wanted to take us to meet her.

Steve and I had seen so many African marketplaces over the past few days, I wasn’t dying to see another, but we held our tongues. We sensed it was important to Rabson to share this.

Our boatman pulled up to a dock on the mainland. We disembarked and walked into the jumble of stalls and food sellers that takes shape there every Monday and Friday. We followed Rabson up the dirt path to a compact wooden shack, where a friendly face beamed at us from a window, welcoming us. Rabson pointed out the poster on the front of the building, explaining the project, then his friend Harriet Rwosa stepped out and invited us inside.

If someone told me Harriet was educated in England, I would have believed them; her English is excellent, an ebullient flood of words. But she’s lived all her life in this village. We learned that she’s 27 and married. But she only went through the local high school. Although she yearned to continue on at a university, her parents lacked the money to send her. Like most girls, in her school years Harriet had experienced menstruation as a curse. Every month it kept her out of class, causing her to to fall behind her male peers, a new experience for her. Time had passed, and somehow she’d gotten the idea to design and market cheap, reusable sanitary pads that would enable girls to continue their education, even while menstruating. About a year and a half ago, she’d made her first pads on a little foot-powered Singer sewing machine, and she had marshaled the funds to create a little craft shop to support the purchase of materials to make more pads. Some were lined with a soft toweling. For others Harriet uses a local fabric that resembles flannel. It costs more, she told us, but it’s also more absorbent.

For $10, you can buy 3 pads for a girl. I gave her $20.

As inspiring as Harriet was, I felt equally moved by Rabson, who believes in what Harriet is doing and is trying to help any way he can. As we walked back to the motorboat, he told us he had been bird-watching on one of the bigger islands when he happened to meet Harriet, there to pass out pads at the island high school. She told him about the project, and Rabson immediately understood its importance. One day when he was in the fifth grade of primary school, he had shared a bench with a 13-year-old girl. When she stood up at the end of class, blood stained her clothing and the bench. Today Rabson mimes the reaction of the other kids; their shock at the sight of this frightening blood. They jeered, hooted, cruelly mocked their classmate. She was so mortified and humiliated, she never came back to school. Rabson says not long after this incident, she was married and had a child, but her husband later left her. Her life was ruined for lack of a sanitary pad, something that Rabson still clearly finds appalling today.

He disapproves of giving out free condoms, without also handing out pads to girls. Having sex is something you choose, he declared. But you don’t have a choice about menstruating.

This is true. Hearing Ugandan 20-somethings testify to it, seeing some moved to action by it, inspired me and touched my heart. It made me wish I could return to make a documentary about passionate, energetic Harriet and the lives she’s already changing.

I almost certainly won’t have a chance to do that; it’s not my talent. But I’m grateful to be able to write about her here. I’m thrilled to be spending the night in a really nice hotel in central Kigali, overlooking the Hotel Mille Collines (the inspiration for the cinematic Hotel Rwanda.) I’m happy to have a good fast internet connection to publish this post. In just a few hours, we’ll take that flight to the Congo, where it’s unlikely we’ll have much in the way of WiFi or phone service. But I plan to write every day about our experience in the bonobo sanctuary, and I’ll post the results as soon as possible.