Switching Format to Vignettes

I know I named this blog 'Shoebill Diary,' but I am less interested in giving a daily play-by-play (which obviously I have not kept up anyway) than in sketching some impressions and hopefully provocative anecdotes that seem to come up regularly as my 10th day in Uganda is sliding past. They can be about animals (duh!) or have nothing to do with animals.

Yesterday, for example, we were boating back from the "northern marsh" habitat where we've had our best luck finding shoebills and saw a huge male Cape buffalo having a nice soak in the Nile. He was all alone and a bit nervous when we slowed our open boat to have a look, so he erupted from the shallows, scrambled up a steep bank, looked back at us, snorted loudly, and thundered into the dim riparian forest as if afraid we were after him. Kenneth laughed at his act and said, "Watch...he will double back in case we follow him."

Needless to say, we weren't about to follow him or even get near the shore. But we killed the 40 hp outboard and waited. Surely enough, the underbrush suddenly trembled with a great thrashing he was giving it, a pretty cool example of what classical ethologists (Konrad Lorenz, in particular) called Redirected Aggression (If you're bullied by someone you can't deal with (e.g., your boss), go pick on someone less daunting (kick the dog, snap at your spouse, etc.). Kenneth grew up in a fishing village 20 km south of our lodge and learned important details about animal behavior from local knowledge that had been gained the hard way. After all, Cape buffalo are famously hyper-aggressive and annually kill more humans than any other animal in Africa.

Less dramatically, this morning's commute along the river back to our northern marsh began with Ivan (one of the two Uganda Wildlife Authority rangers engaged to keep us alive and operate the boat) had learned of my music web site and seems to have explored it last night. Mogicis (the other ranger, whose name I may have just misspelled) fetched us from the lodge and accompanied us on the 1 km walk down to the river's edge, pausing at times to make sure I noticed the fresh leopard tracks in the mud created by the morning rain. Arriving at the boat, Ivan helped me get my equipment and geriatric self aboard and suddenly said, "My favorite song is 'Scotch and Soda'!" That seemed surreal, but was compounded a bit later when he began playing another song from the web site aloud from his cell phone! Specifically, I found myself riding on the Nile to the tune of "Big River," a Johnny & Roy Cash song from 1958 about a man futilely pursuing a woman down the Mississippi. And I was singing and playing it!

On a more petty quotidian level, I find myself wowed by small things that cumulatively change my perspective on random things. Local women doing laundry, for example, or carrying water from the river back to their homes. These range from very young girls of about six, who fill what look like 2-4 liter plastic jugs, to young women of 15-30 who balance large (10 l) jugs on their heads, often not even needing to steady the heavy (ca 60 pounds) vessels with either hand. The perfection of their posture cannot be over-stated!

Most of the laundry work is done right at the river, of course, rather than carrying the river back home. Young woman arrive with a large bundle on their heads (of course) and a couple plastic tubs in their hands. Tubs are filled, soap added, garments scrubbed with stooped over (hinged at the hips...) backs laser-straight, then the rinse cycle, much wringing by hand, etc. If there is a good stand of bulrush handy, the garments may be spread atop them while other tasks are done...the drying is FAST when the sun is directly overhead. Much work. Little apparent concern about crocodiles...

I am impressed!