Esselinks in Uganda

You know what I hate? I hate it when I complain about being too busy to blog, and then somebody demonstrates what truly insanely busy looks like, and manages to blog about it anyway. From a third world country, yet.

My awesome cousin Frank and his awesome wife Barbara have spent the past month doing volunteer work in Uganda and blogging about it. Barbara, who is a doctor, has been working in a hospital, and Frank has been tutoring math students at a nearby school.

They did take a side trip to the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest (and doesn't that sound like a stop on the way to Mordor?) for a close encounter with the mountain gorillas:

About 20 min later, we’re there. They were sitting right in a glade of tall grass, leaves and small trees about 5 feet tall, eating, about 200 feet away from some very tall forest trees. We just saw some rustling branches; then, all the sudden, we saw a gorilla not even 10 feet away from us! It was indescribable. They’re about human height but weigh closer to 150 kg, I’d guess. There were 9 of them, including 1 baby. They were just sitting there, munching on leaves and branches. As we stared at them and took picture after picture, they didn’t even look at us half the time. It’s like they really didnn’t care that we were right there. The silverback didn’t like us much, when we got too close he’d roar a little and beat his chest and walk away, but otherwise, he left us alone. The baby was so curious, it was just like a human baby. He had soft long silky fur and kept looking at us and inching closer until the mom got fed up with him crawling away and grabbed him and put him in her lap. Then the baby started sucking his thumb! It was amazing. The rest of the family just ate with clear enjoyment all around us and casually watched us watch them. We spent our allowed one hour with them, then trekked back.

I don't know what you did for spring break, but I bet it didn't involve getting attitude from a silverback gorilla.