Chapter 24 - Uganda - Lush Diversity on the Equator

After crossing back into Rwanda from a day trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Toto took a bus into Uganda. Uganda is very lush and green, full of small farms that grow many of the crops you eat all the time. This is because Uganda gets lots of sun and rain. Almost everywhere I looked I saw banana trees and men like these riding to market with bunches of green bananas strapped to their bicycles.

One of the major reasons Uganda is so green is that it's one of only ten countries in the world that lies on the equator. This means that it's quite warm year round as there is no cold winter. Instead there is just a rainy season and a dry season. I realized that while I had flown over the equator many times, driving in Uganda was the first time I had crossed the equator over land.

People say that water drains counterclockwise north of the equator and clockwise south of the equator. This actually isn't true, although hurricanes do rotate counterclockwise in the Northern hemisphere (a "hemisphere" is half of the globe--the Northern hemisphere is above the equator, and the Southern hemisphere is below it). Water in toilets, bathtubs and the like drains both directions in both hemispheres depending on the design of the drain and the motion of the water. 

While watching the water swirl down the toilets in Uganda might not be so interesting, the many waterfalls throughout Uganda were quite spectacular. Uganda gets lots of rain and has lots of hills. So I was able to see several waterfalls. The Sipi Falls near the border with Kenya were quite stunning to see from a distance and up close.

While I was hiking through the farms around Sipi Falls, I met this man and his family. They were collecting new straw for the roofs of their homes. As I was there at the start of the rainy season, they needed to replace last year's old rotting straw with new straw they were collecting in the fields. It seemed like hard work, but they were happy to do it in order to keep dry during the coming rains.

On another hike in Uganda I met a nice farmer who took me around his small plot of land. He showed me this plant. Can you guess what it is? It is cacao, which is the main ingredient in chocolate! So that candy bar you love starts like this on a farm in some tropical climate like Uganda. The Latin name for cacao is Theobroma, which means "food of the gods." I think I would agree! After learning what the farmer has to do to make cacao suitable for chocolate, I found it interesting that anyone actually discovered how to make chocolate. He told me that before he can sell his cacao crop, he must break open the seed pods when they are yellow and ripe. Then he has to let the seeds sit and ferment for a week, which is sort of a controlled rotting. Only then can a chocolate company buy the seeds and use them in their recipe to make the chocolate we love.

I am continually amazed by the food (like chocolate) and medicines humankind has discovered from the wild. Much of this knowledge was discovered by native (or indigenous) nomadic hunter-and-gatherer tribes living in the forests. In Uganda I had the pleasure of meeting a group of people that live in the jungles of central Africa, including a tribe near border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. As I was driving through Semliki National Park, a village of pygmy people invited me to stop and visit. After living hundreds of years in the forests, the tribe knows how to live off of the plants and animals in the forest.

The pygmy people are also famous for being very short - only 150 cm, or 4.5 feet on average. As you can see in this photo of me with several grown men from the village, they are perfectly proportional, just shorter than me. They are not midgets or dwarves. Rather, over time they have evolved due to their environment so that they don't go through the teenage growth spurt like most other humans. Just as some communities have traditionally straight hair or a certain eye color, these people are simply traditionally short. The gentleman in the green trousers next to me was the very kind thirty-year-old king of the village who asked me (in the perfect English he spoke) to take this picture.

The king invited me into his home, which contained a small bed and a place for a fire to keep warm at night. His community lived next to another village, and I believe their children went to the same local school. Unfortunately while the pygmy people have had contact with other tribes and villages for many years, they are finding their traditional lifestyle increasingly threatened. This is because there are fewer forests within which they can live freely. In fact, the Semliki National Park where they lived was taken over by farmers in the 1970s during economic hardships and civil war in Uganda. Only recently has the government taken over the park again and let the trees and forests grow naturally. Hopefully, the unique pygmy culture will not become extinct. Like many humans, plants and animals their traditional culture depends on the lush and wild forests of Africa which are found less and less in countries like beautiful Uganda.

Travel Questions on Uganda:

1. How many countries lie on the equator?
2. True or false, water always drains counterclockwise north of the equator?
3. What was the name of the waterfalls Toto hiked around?
4. Why was the farmer's family gathering straw?
5. What does the Latin name for cacao (Theobroma) mean?
6. Define "indigenous."
7. What was the name of the National Park in which Toto was invited to the pygmy village?
8. How tall are the pygmy men on average?
9. How old was the king who invited Toto into his home?

Global Nomad Questions on Uganda:

1. Draw a picture of you hiking somewhere in Uganda.
2. Look at a globe or map and list all ten countries through which the equator passes.
3. Find a recipe for chocolate. Describe what you would need to make chocolate if you were stranded on a tropical island.
4. Do a cybersearch on the pygmies and their culture. Write an essay on what you discovered.

Comments

[yitz..]

Hi,
I actually found your blog because my wife and I had lunch yesterday at the house of a couple who apparently met you on a tour of the old city of Jerusalem. Anyways, she mentioned your site, and it sounded so creative and original that I had to take a look. It's really amazing, you're doing a great thing.
I noticed this article on pygmies, and thought I'd share that there is apparently a pygmy community here in israel. Is it possible that some ethiopian Jews are pygmy relatives? I was in Beer Sheva at the central bus station once and I saw 5-6 of them in israeli army uniform. They looked so happy to see eachother, it made me smile.

anyways, thanks for putting such a useful blog on the web.