Final week in Uganda (for now)

My last couple days at the field station were filled by watching the red colobus and black and white colobus monkeys that filled the tress around my bungalow as I worked to get everything packed up and put away in storage. It took some serious puzzle solving skills to get everything I wanted to leave packed into the one storage box I had, but I did it. I am fortunate that Colin Chapman of McGill University was willing to let me use some of his lab/storage space to keep my things. When I arrived I had three pieces of checked baggage and a full-sized carry-on. If I hadn't filled one large bag mostly with souvenirs, I could have made it home with one checked bag and a small carry-on. When I come back here in June it will be much easier to pack and prepare now that I know what to expect and I already have supplies over here.

My time here in Kampala has not been spent in meetings as I expected. My collaborator at Makerere Univerisity, who I was counting on to set up meetings, introduce me to other faculty members and show me around had her baby on Tuesday. I spent some time trying to get my soils ready for shipping. They are all ready to go but are waiting on some paper work for the permits and so they won't be shipped to me until the first week in March, Fortunately, I have a colleague who will be returning to Kampala for other business at that time and has agreed to finalize the soil shipment.

My bungalow mate Amy told me that I hadn't truly experienced Africa until I had a mango (or tumbu) fly. Well, I guess I have now truly experienced Africa, today I discovered I had acquired my first mango fly larvae. (Squeamish readers should not read the rest of this paragraph) I first noticed it as I experienced a bit of pain and an itch that came and went as, I suspect, the larvea moved around under my skin. When I went to look at it I realized right away what the problem was so I went to a store and bought some nail polish, then painted over the area and waited for the larvae to suffocate. Then I was able to peel back the nail polish and pop it out. Kind of gross, but not really that bad. I thought I was going to escape Africa without picking up one of these things, but hopefully it was just the one.

Tomorrow, I will spend my final day here at the Botanical Gardens next to Lake Victoria in Entebbe, close to the airport. My flight doesn't leave until 11:59pm so I will have quite a bit of time to kill, and I don't want to spend any more time than necessary in the airport. This will be the last entry in this blog until June, when I will return for nine more weeks of research and adventure in Uganda.