Hikes, Cows, and Tunes near Mount Elgon

Part 1

9 April 2005

These three tales are from the same weekend excursion in Uganda. We were fifteen students from a university just outside the national capital, where I spent my final semester of college.

We visited eastern Uganda, which boasts some of the prettiest waterfalls and foothills I have ever observed. We hiked along one side of a massive mountain, Elgon, whose 14,200-foot summit we neither approached, nor even saw.

Part of the hike was in a national forest, and official guides had to accompany us. Our group size posed a problem for our two guides. They said we had to divide into two clans—one group three to five minutes behind the other. They added that every person in both groups had to walk single file behind our guides on the path. Disgruntled, and curious as to their reasoning, we asked for an explanation.

They politely informed us that their methodology sought to protect the environment. But this was despite two obvious factors. First, all of us would be walking along the exact same route whether we were in two separate groups or one large group. And second, the path was already well worn. There was nothing that walking single file or in separate groups could do to the environment that one group walking two abreast would not also have done.

But they insisted!

Part 2

9 April 2005

Later that day, after we left the national park and could trek with more liberty, we were treading through villages and on paths through local farms and fields. A few of the people on this hillside kept a small number of cows—an uncommon, valuable commodity in East Africa. For myself, I grew up on a cattle ranch in Montana. So I like cows, and like conversing with them sometimes.

I was lagging behind my group. And since I had not seen many cows in Uganda, I said “moo” to one lone cow eating separately from the herd. She immediately looked up. Pleased, I said “moo” again, and she looked ever so intently at me. A third “moo” and she started pacing toward me.

She was distant enough that I could not discern her mood. But I was very curious, since a “moo” back home never arouses more than a lazy glance. I half guessed that if eastern Ugandans called their cows this way, perhaps she thought I had food. My speculation soon changed!

I called once more and to my great humor and surprise, she began to charge! I took off, but I was already a good distance from her, so she eventually stopped. I tried one final time and she picked up the chase again! It is quite an experience to run for your life while laughing at the same time!

Eventually she halted, and I pressed on and left the poor beast alone. She watched me closely for another five minutes. I have been charged before, but never for offering an innocent “moo!”

Part 3

9 April 2005

Back in our weekend lodging, we met a small band of British students. They were celebrating the 21^st birthday of one of their members, and spent the evening drinking themselves silly. We talked with them around a campfire awhile, and in time a few of them started singing.

If you have spent much time overseas with Brits as an American, you probably have traded jokes about colonial disobedience, royal tyranny, and the like. Our new friends were singing distinctly American songs, including patriotic songs like Yankee Doodle Dandy or even the Star-Spangled Banner.

Then in strong British—and fairly drunk—accents, one or two began teasing us and calling on us to “Sing us a tune, sing us a tune!” We smiled. Almost like cat calls, they pressed again, “Sing us a tune, sing us an American tune!” We kept chatting by the campfire. One or two of them looked embarrassed and tried to distract them or make them stop.

Finally, the annoyance was bathed in humor as they cried, “Sing us an American tune! Sing us—sing us an anti-British tune!” We still pretended to ignore them, until somebody in our group said quietly, “We don’t have any anti-British tunes...we won the war!”