#14 Village vibes in rural Uganda – a walking diary 

Jul 17, 24

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Episode 14 Village vibes in rural Uganda – a walking diary

[00:00:00] Charlotte: Good morning from Western Uganda. You’re listening to the East Africa Travel Podcast. My name’s Charlotte Beauvoisin, author of Diary of a Muzungu. This is episode 14.

[00:00:31] Charlotte: I’m back in the village for a couple of weeks, but preparing to travel again so I just thought I’d share a recent walk with you.

[00:00:38] Charlotte: As happy as I am to walk around the 43 acres here at Sunbird Hill, the rewilding site on the edge of Kibale National Park, once in a while it’s nice to have a destination to aim for.

[00:00:52] Charlotte: On my last walk I headed to Bigodi, the local trading centre. And this is a typical kind of walking diary that I was sharing with friends and family during lockdown. And really it’s what inspired me to launch the podcast.

[00:01:06] Charlotte: Let me know what you think.

[00:01:16] Charlotte: I have just had a lovely couple of hours just walking back home. It’s Sunday, so people are sitting outside their houses and everyone’s super friendly. It’s one of those days where everything just feels right. I’ve had people on boda bodas wave at me, a guy on the back of a truck, of course lots of kids.

[00:01:41] Charlotte: There was a big group of very young kids playing outside a shop that hires out bikes. They shouldn’t have been touching the bikes. I can see their fingers getting stuck in the spokes and there being lots of screams. And I looked around and there were four kids climbing up a ladder, climbing up a tree. I don’t know how old they were. They were like six, seven, eight, really young. And one of them said, “Muzungu!” And they turned around as one, all waving at me with big grins on their faces. It was an absolute picture.

[00:02:14] Charlotte: Yeah. So today’s a happy day. I’ve got goats walking towards me now. Beautiful. White and black. One at the front. Beige black ones.

[00:02:24] Charlotte: Hello, how are you? There’s a young boy, herding goats.

[00:02:32] Charlotte: Fine. Thanks. How are you? How are you? Agandi!

[00:02:38] Charlotte: I’m Charlotte. Okay, nice day. Thank you.

[00:02:53] Charlotte: People often confuse me with Julia, being the only female muzungu around. People say, “Ah, she’s your sister!” It’s like, we don’t actually look anything alike, but

[00:03:07] Charlotte: Hello!

[00:03:12] Charlotte: See: it’s a Sunday thing; everyone’s relaxed and home. Well, a few people are working.

[00:03:22] Charlotte: It’s quiet today apart from the goats and I’m just walking the last bit of marram dirt road back towards Sunbird Hill. I’m about 15 minutes away from home now. Oh, it’s nice to be off the tarmac I could go through the village but you don’t always want everyone saying, “How are you?” And all the staring. I mean, it’s unavoidable really. And today it felt good. Doesn’t always. Sometimes you don’t want anyone to see you. Or comment on you.

[00:04:01] Charlotte: Oh, there’s a big bouncing branch in the forest. I don’t know if it’s a chimp or another baboon, or another kind of monkey.

[00:04:14] Charlotte: So today I had a rollex and spiced tea at the Bee Hive which is a restaurant in Bigodi. It’s a great place to go after chimp tracking, or if you do the Sunbird Hill Experience, or if you go to KAFRED and do the Swamp Walk. The famous Rolex, which is rolled eggs, an omelette, basically, served in a chapati with a bit of salad.

[00:04:47] Charlotte: What’s that noise? Somebody is up in the butterfly garden, doing a bit of hoeing up in the medicinal plant garden.

[00:04:58] Charlotte: I also dropped in to say hello to Mzee Silver Kyamukama, who I’m going to be talking to very soon. He’s an absolute legend. He’s 70 years old and he’s a reformed poacher. He reckons he never got caught. But I believe him. I don’t doubt him. So he is the absolute best person to go walking with because he knows everything. Like: I can just smell something here walking down the track. He would know what that is.

[00:05:32] Charlotte: And he knows the medicinal uses of all kinds of plants, not just for humans, but for chimps. He’ll say, “oh, there’s a broken branch. That means the chimps passed by and it’s got a stomach problem.”

[00:05:45] Charlotte: Really? That’s amazing! Anyway, Silver gave up being a poacher to join Uganda Wildlife Authority as a tracker and he was there for many years. He is a specialist in chimpanzees and Julia got to work with him when they were habituating the chimps deep in the forest, something like 12 hours a day, dawn till dusk, following the chimps, getting to know them, getting the chimps used to being around humans and having all kinds of adventures. So Silver’s a very big part of Sunbird Hill, although he’s semi retired now, just comes in for the occasional day when people want to have the walk with him, the walk with the reformed poacher, or if they want to learn more about butterflies.

[00:06:34] Charlotte: Silver’s helped set up the butterfly garden, which is an enclosure where you can go and see butterflies. So regardless of the time of year, we always have a few butterflies that people can see. Anyways, you can tell how excited I am about having him on the podcast soon. I’m in a great mood today for many reasons. Being back in the forest after a few weeks away always gives me a massive morale boost. Doesn’t matter that I’ve walked up and down these trails hundreds and hundreds of times during lockdown in particular.

[00:07:11] Charlotte: The elephants have been around so I don’t need to listen to my recordings to see what I’ve got. Chimps have been around as well.

[00:07:23] Charlotte: The other reason that I’m in such a great mood is that the Sunday Monitor, they’ve featured a three page article today about the podcast and Diary of a Muzungu, the blog that I’ve been writing for 15 years. They also highlighted a couple of recent interviews, one with Philip Briggs, a travel writer. And another one with Chris Ketola, the researcher.

[00:07:48] Charlotte: Thank you if you’re listening this far, and please let me know what you think. The stuff you like, the stuff you want less of, because I’ve got a very strong idea about what I want to do. But ultimately, it depends on you. It depends on what you like, and it depends on you telling me what you like as well. Rather than not listening, just tell me what you think I need to work on, and I will try my best. to figure it all out.

[00:08:27] Charlotte: Oh, it’s very squelchy here, isn’t it? We had so much rain yesterday. Dillon said it hasn’t rained for weeks and weeks and it was very dry and but yesterday afternoon it rained and then it rained the whole night and half the morning but we really needed it. Oh, it’s very damp and dank and soggy and dark here on the edge of the forest.

[00:09:05] Charlotte: It’s just what I need though after 45 minutes walking quite fast on the main road. I’ve seen four drivers that I know in the last two days. Drivers that I know from all around the country. Sam. Hello, Sam. Drove past and gave me a big wave just now. Sam Bamwesigye. Sam works for Wild Frontiers, one of Uganda’s best tour companies. We did a fantastic trip up to Murchison Falls one time.

[00:09:47] Charlotte: And yesterday I bumped into my very good friend Rashid. He’s the one who named me Nagawa of Nkima clan. That’s one of the best gifts that anyone’s ever given me- giving me a local name – because I have so much fun with it.

[00:10:05] Charlotte: It’s almost six o’clock. Time for me to be away from the forest edge. Because it’s elephant o’clock. They will start appearing soon. There’s at least one around. We’ve heard some hilarious noises like, out of nowhere you hear this, I wouldn’t have known it was an elephant unless Julia said, “did you hear the elephant?”

[00:10:40] Charlotte: It’s like, really? Elephants make that noise? Still learning.

[00:10:51] Charlotte: And this one, guess which end of an elephant that comes out of?

[00:11:03] Charlotte: On next week’s episode, I’m delighted to introduce you to Ian Redmond OBE, one of my conservation heroes. I was lucky enough to be introduced to Ian in Kampala when he was visiting with The Gorilla Organization. I’ve also met him at Kwita Izina, the gorilla naming ceremony in Rwanda. Hoping to be back there again in September for the 20th anniversary of Kwita Izina, which is a world class event.

[00:11:29] Charlotte: Ian is arguably best known or certainly first known for his work with Dian Fossey and Sir David Attenborough, a close friend of his. Really honoured to get a chance to speak to him. So much to share with you on the next episode.

[00:11:42] Charlotte: A big thank you for the reviews on Apple and Spotify and the comments on my blog, Diary of a Muzungu.

[00:11:49] Charlotte: If you know just even one person who’s interested in conservation issues or travel to East Africa, please share this episode with them.

[00:11:57] Charlotte: What kind of content can people expect? Well, these gentle kind of nature walks, interviews with experts, conservationists and travel writers, but also conversations with “the average Joe”, somebody who visits East Africa, and people with Africa and particularly the natural world in common.

[00:12:15] Charlotte: Let me know what you think.

[00:12:16] Charlotte: Until next week – thanks for listening!