Friday

Well it’s Saturday morning so hopefully I can remember everything that happened yesterday. Yesterday we had breakfast and then jumped right into filming and editing. Katie and I went and tried to finish the volunteer interviews but we got a slow start because the tie mic stopped working and a wild de Brazza monkey came and stole a banana from Laurence. He was quite aggressive about it. We hadn’t seen a de Brazza monkey until then. Laurence just peeled the banana back and he appeared from nowhere and Laurence tried to walk away but the monkey just started chasing him. Laurence got worried and so just threw his banana into the field and then the monkey ran and got that and then never got close to us again, however we got some great video and still shots.

After the monkey stuff we got back to work. We quickly filmed the last 5 volunteers and I then got a lesson in Final Cut Pro. I actually liked learning how to use the program (it reminded me a lot of the recording studio stuff). Unfortunately, the audio from the first day of interviews were absolutely terrible so we might not be able to use every one of them. The editing of that stuff took me about the rest of the day until dinner.

The cook group decided to show everyone up and made a three course meal for dinner and then the majority of the group decided to go up to the hotel up the street for a few after dinner drinks. I must say it was really nice to get out of the little area where we work in for a change. It was really quite nice, we just all relaxed out on the patio bar and had drinks and really got to know each other and didn’t talk about work. A few Tusker beers later (very delicious) we walked back down the hill to UWEC and to our dorms to get a few hours of sleep before we had to wake up and do it all over again.

I do have some big news as right before dinner I talked to the organizers of the group and we discussed how my primatology background is not being put to good use and that it might be a good idea to switch to the anthropology team. I did like learning the new film skills but I didn’t feel like I was doing as much as I could for the group being stuck in that group, so I am very happy about the switch. I will still be helping the video team when they go interview people at JGI and I will be also helping the education team when they work on education things with Roots & Shoots. So yea! I think this could turn out to be a very good switch for everyone involved (except my film partner, Katie….we had such a fun time working together).

Some other random notes….

We had a lady come and asked if we wanted our clothes washed for 5000 shillings (about $2.50). We all jumped at the chance of having clean clothes that we didn’t have to clean ourselves so I imagine the lady made a decent amount of money for a side job.

Lucy also had an interesting story when she came back from the market in a taxi with the organizers. The taxi stopped at one point and the door opened and a man appeared speaking in a Ugandan language and the taxi driver informed Lucy that the man was trying to buy her. Lucy turned down the offer but the man still gave her some candy in case she changed her mind. I have heard men try to buy women here quite often, very bizarre.

It’s also quite interesting to be walking around UWEC or anywhere actually and lots of people yes and point at you screaming “Muzungu”. At first you might get a bit offended but then you learn it is not to be derogatory, it’s just it’s still a big deal to see a white person. We have learned that now a days people use the word when they see white people, but it actually derives from a Swahili word meaning “traveler” or more literally “here and there”. In the past they would meet travelers and they were always running around going to different places so they would describe them as always on the move and “Muzungu” was just a simple way to characterize that group. It turned more into a term for white people because when the young children heard the word they would always see the travelers being white so as they grew up they related white people to the word “Muzungu”.

Alright that was probably a bad description but I am tired so that is as good as you are going to get for now 