Gorilla Tracking

We traveled to Southwestern Uganda on the weekend and were amazed at the scenery.  Beautiful vistas of green mountains, endless fields of vegetables and gorgeous wild flowers everywhere.
It was nice to get out of the office for a couple of days and away from the traffic in Kampala.  

Since it was Easter Weekend we came across several groups of 

Christians moving with their crosses and singing 

Proud to be a Christian - Remembering our Savior Jesus Christ 

We reached Bwindi Impenitrable National Park.  After an orientation we headed out into the 

Jungle with a guide in the front and one in the back with a gun.  We were fortunate that it 

was not raining.  It turned out to be a very nice day.  

The guides do not know exactly where the gorillas are or how long we will have to hike to 

find them.  There are two trackers ahead that communicate with our guides and lead 

them to where the gorillas are.  

Our group that we hiked with consisted of Alfonzo, from Spain, a girl from Ontario,a girl from 

England and us.  They were a great group to travel with.  

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Our guides are coordinating with the trackers.  This is after four hours of hiking up the slippery slopes 

of the mountain through some pretty tight spots that the guide had to slash through.  We discovered 

that the group of gorillas we were tracking were on the move so we decided to rest for awhile 

to see where they were going to settle to eat.  

 There was a monkey with a long fluffy tail checking us out.  I am sure there were many other animals 

in the jungle but they stayed hidden.  

The Gorillas were getting closer so we headed out through the thickest part of the Jungle. 

Sometimes we were crawling through the vines and slashing our way through. It was about 

another hour of hiking to get to where they were. 

The Gorillas, Mishaya Family were pretty uninterested in us.  

Do you think she is happy to see us? 

Tough life having to entertain tourists
all the time

Com'in through.  Now that is close!

This was a little one.  They eat a lot of leaves and green stuff.  They get most of their water from the food they eat because the streams are at the bottom of the mountain and they don't travel all the way down to get water.  There is a enough in the vegetation they eat.  There is no shortage of greenery in the jungle.

Remind you of anyone? 

You guys still here? 

The Silver Back Gorilla weighs about 300 - 500 pounds and stand 6 feet tall when they stand upright.  

There are 700 - 800 gorillas left on Earth and they all live here in this area.

It is a surreal experience to lock in a stare!

Very skilled guides finding the location of the Gorillas in the middle of the jungle 

and they hike all day long in rubber boots

Ken & Audrey 

End of a great day.

Jigger Diggers

We went to Suzie's Village just outside of Jinja to see the kids and to help her with her Jigger Program.  Many of the kids there do not have shoes and they don't have good access to water.  They have to buy their water from a neighbor and carry it in a yellow plastic jerry can to their homes.  They do not have good hygiene and as a result they get "jiggers" in their feet and sometimes their hands.  It can be very painful and can cause systemic problems if it isn't treated.  In Uganda there are estimated 20,000 infected and 20 people have died as a result of these little parasites.  The families in this village, mostly single mothers, do not have money to take their kids to a doctor and they are embarrassed when their kids get jiggers so they keep quiet about the problem.   We loaded up wash basins and disinfectants and headed out to battle the jiggers.

   

 The bubbles were fun for distracting the onlookers

Sister Chatfield, Ann, another Ann, Sarah, Sister Hansen, Suzan, Sister Squire, Sister Wallace 

The team  

The kids like the feet washing part.  It feels good and they get a sucker to distract them from the hard part.

The jiggers are little worms just under the skin.  They have to be cut out and disinfected.

We had just an hour to shop for shoes for the kids.  We were told that there were 15 children that we were
going to work with.  There was not enough time to go down town to the big market so we just went across the street to the Nakawa market.  It started to rain when we got there and people started to put away their stuff.  We found a shop with shoes still open under a canopy and they had the kind of shoes we were looking for.  We picked out the best ones and there were various sizes and brands of shoes.  All of them were second hand, good quality shoes.  We bought all that they had and hoped we had enough and the right sizes.  It turned out that we had 23 pairs of shoes and there were 23 children that came to get treatment.  As the children were washed up and treated we put a pair of shoes on them to keep their feet clean which is all they need to prevent jiggers.  For each child that was treated there was a pair of shoes that fit right down to the last child.  Clearly one of the Lord's tender mercies.

Clean Feet - New Shoes & a Sucker - It doesn't get much better than this. 

Entebbe Zoo

The Beauty of Africa 

                          On the way to the airport to pick up missionaries we stopped at the Wild Life Conservation Park to pet the Leopard.  

Sister Chatfield worked hard to get to pet the Leopard but they were 

not having any of it.  The cat rubs up against the fence and purrs like a kitten.  

A big kitten with sharp teeth and claws.  

Love the Zebras  -  pronounced Zebra not zeebra 

Hold still a little longer - just about done

Boys having a chat - do you see a difference?

Feeding the giraffe 

Lazy Lions  

Just thinking!

The animals, the vegetation and the people are amazing in Africa.  I see why people love Africa.