Fancy basket fish traps on the Nile
The villages along the Albert Nile have three main economic options: livestock farming, crop farming, and fishing. One or more of these are central to village life. Given that our work is with shoebills, an aquatic and piscivorous bird, we see the fishing trade mostly. And, as described in earlier postings, our two ranger companions (Mugisa and Ivan) represent the legal constraints against fish-poaching (not the cooking technique...) within 200 m of Murchison Falls National Park. My collaborator Kennneth Tumusiime grew up in a "livestock" community on the shore of the Nile Delta, a large papyrus & bulrush swamp where the stretch of river running west from Lake Victoria (the "Victoria Nile") filled another large basin (Lake Albert) and then turned north as the Albert Nile, leading to Murchison Falls itself.
The Nile, you may recall, is not only the largest river in Africa, but the only major river on earth that runs south to north. It took me a few days to digest this last detail, as I kept trying to convince myself that it was just like the Mississippi! Oops...
The very first day we had use of the Uganda Wildlife Authority boat and the company of UWA rangers Mugisa & Ivan, we beelined for the Nile Delta, searching for shoebills. Finding none, Kenneth directed Mugisa to beach at Kenneth's home village (a place he left over 20 years ago to seek education in Kampala). With a motorized boat containing uniformed and armed rangers landing, the initial response was one of alarm and dismay: villagers began to flee (apparently on the assumption that arrests were imminent!). But escape ended abruptly when Kenneth called out in their local language and the people began to gather at water's edge to view the remarkable sight of two UNAGGRESSIVE rangers and an equally unaggressive Mzungu. (Kenneth says these two phenomena were equally puzzling.)
Needless to say, I had no idea what Kenneth and the locals had to say, but it apparently included queries as to whether they had seen Gomaku (shoebills) recently. Cell phone numbers were exchanged. It also seems that he was quizzed as to his ancestry and that one man admonished him for leaving the village for Kampala, implying that he was no longer welcome.
A few minutes after we left that village, we saw the stern of a small boat paddled hard by a man in a red cap ducking behind an island. It looked vaguely suspicious and we veered in that direction to explore. The boat contained two large bundled of (illegally harvested) national park papyrus plus ten women ranging in age from perhaps 12 to 65. Much chatter ensued and the rangers took photographs of everyone (Kenneth took the shot below) that might serve as evidence when (not if...) they were caught again.
As we left that group, my curiosity (also known as total ignorance of local culture) led me to ask an awkward question: "How many of those women are wives of Red Cap?" My three companions answered in unison, "None!" I was relieved. Apparently, the man owned a r..ickety boat and the women had done the harvesting and bundling. But then I remembered that 1-2 of the women had been bailing continuously as we parlayed and, as one who had spent three summers life-guarding as a teenager, I asked my second nervous question: "How many of them can swim?" Same answer.
Within five minutes, we found another group of women actively cutting and bundling illegal papyrus on another small island. No boat was to be seen, which means of course that they had no way to escape if hippos or Nile crocodiles came after them. Most likely, Red Cap would be back for them later (and there may have been other harvesting teams on other islands).
***
On Day Two of having the boat, we opted to search toward the north, shaking fingers of disapproval at fishermen working too close to the eastern shore as we went, till we came to the Pakwach Bridge, a three-span structure that supports the highway between Kampala and Sudan. Good shoebill habitat, but no birds. We found a poacher north of the bridge who said he'd seen shoebills just a bit farther north. Would he show us for a fee? He was very cute about this: clearly caught poaching, he was eager to help, but initially he would NOT consider getting into our boat (fearing the rangers would haul him to jail). So he began paddling his sketchy watercraft in the indicated direction, but eventually tired and decided to "trust" us (after all, the rangers could have abducted him at gun point, at any time). Thus, he dished off his boat to a couple friends and away we went. A bit later, having seen no shoebills, we acquired a second guide who had seen them a bit farther north. On we pressed, now numbering six in all.
Stopping to query fishing villages as we went, we came at last to a single hut landing with boats and a gaggle of villagers roasting small fish over a wood fire. They had also seen Gomaku and would lead us there by foot! This seemed especially promising! Kenneth and Mugisa, plus our two fisherman companions, joined a few of the villagers and they set off by land. Ivan and I remained in the UWA boat. The roasting fish, incidentally, were bichirs (which I knew about because they are air-breathing shoebill prey). Once the explorers had departed, one of the remaining fisherman explained to me that these particular fish were believed to be good for 'cleaning the blood,' which he then elaborated were boost male sexual performance! This can't be good news for bichirs...
Local fishermen came down to their boats, including one wearing an OU "Sooners" shirt with Heisman-winning QB Sam Bradford's number on his front and name on back. There is truly no escaping Sooner Nation!
By now, the disadvantages of unpigmented skin were becoming increasingly obvious to me. Murchison Falls is 2 degrees north of the Equator and I was cooking! Nobody else was even bothering to wear a hat, but I was hiding inside a sun-blocking 'kayaking' shirt and under a floppy hat, SPF 50 cream on my exposed hands, face, and legs...dark glasses...etc. For the next two hours, Ivan and I were either in the boat or standing behind the thatched hut (with me trying to keep exposed skin in the minuscule bits of shade produced by by hat and shirt). Looking out toward the hills, I counted about fifty thatched huts, representing the actual village served by this one beachfront hut.
Meanwhile, Kenneth, Mugisa, and the multitude of guides went on a looooooooonng cross-country hike as they searched (in vain) for shoebills. Returning exhausted in mid-afternoon, Kenneth handed out some cash and we boated on, eventually giving up and turning back south toward Pakwach Bridge, dropping guides here and there as we went. For the hell of it, wee took one last quick look at the bridge-side marsh and there, almost grinning, was our first shoebill, a fine young male. TRIUMPH!!!
At least we knew where we'd begin work the next morning!
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