The Kasiisi Project: Chimps and monkeys and birds, Oh My!

The famous Richard Wrangham and wife Elizabeth Ross



Wonderful couple, Caroline and Ronan, new Assistant Directors to the Kasiisi Project




Students on first day of school at the Kasiisi [Model] School




Male chimp named Mgze at Kayanchura in Kibale NP



Head Guide, Harriet and two others



Dobbyn Foundation and Scholars




Despite asthetics this is a very functional classoom that was renovated. You should see the ones that haven't been helped yet.  Renovation is where most of the Kasiisi project funds go, and for good reason.




Pani, AKA Elizabeth, getting a bath




Colobus napping in the tree above the lunch patio




This fig tree was planted in 1991 by Richard and it is huge - fertile soil in Uganda!




Gotta get my inverts in here - preying mantis in cup



THE KASIISI PROJECT:    Where do I start?  I guess I should start at the part where one year ago I was invited to visit a project in Uganda called The Kasiisi Project.  I met a woman named Elizabeth Ross at the “In-Situ Zoo Conservation Educator’s Conference” at Brevard Zoo a year ago and told her I would most likely be in Uganda before the end of 2010.   I just spent 4 days at her project in Kibale National Park, 5 hours directly west of Kampala, on the edge of DRC.  In fact, this is the same NP that Richard Wrangham, the male version of Jane Goodall, has completed 30+ years of chimp research.  While Richard was running around in the forest studying chimps, his wife established a non-profit to improve the community schools on the edge of the park where they are stationed, called The Kasiisi Project.

Some of the main goals of the Kasiisi project are to improve school buildings, build latrines, provide lunch (porridge), give out scholarships to the best students, provide extra support to girls especially during the sensitive time when they become women, and teach environmental education through classes and through Wildlife Clubs.  Wildlife Clubs are supposed to be in action in every government school, in fact all schools have many clubs.   Elizabeth asked me if I would like to become a volunteer to strengthen the Wildlife Clubs within this area.  With free transport and a place to stay, I agreed.  Starting in May I will visit between 5 and 14 targeted schools twice a month.

One of the goals (as agreed on by each school and Kasiisi) will be to start or continue a vegetable garden.  The soil in western Uganda is volcanic, which is highly fertile.  One of the schools had mature banana trees and cabbage, and it looked like a well—established garden. When I asked how long it took to grow these plants she said she started this garden from scratch less than 6 months ago!!  I was flabbergasted and it gave me lots of hope that this goal shouldn’t be too difficult to establish in other schools with a little funding.  The funding is already there, which is a huge help!  Then the produce is sold in the market and the profit is used to buy the next season of seeds, or perhaps to go into another Wildlife Club project.  Because Uganda has two rainy seasons, growing is not difficult, which is one reason the country is called the Pearl of Africa (and also the Breadbasket).  The picture of the big tree is to demonstrate how quickly things grow, this one was planted by Richard in 1991, but just needed some elephant dung to take off!

Other goals of the Wildlife Clubs might be to teach how to plant trees and plant more trees on school grounds, make paper machete chimps and masks to use in plays directed by the students, show movies that teach how to properly wash hands and why, show conservation movies about over-grazing, healthy water, deforestation and waste management produced by Jane Goodall institute and UNITE.  There is funding to bring the Wildlife Clubs on field trips to Queen Elizabeth National Park, Kibale (their backyard; they would never be able to afford the entrance fees), and a one week overnight Camp Uganda experience at UWEC (Uganda Wildlife Education Center where I will hopefully be volunteering at too – see blog #4).

There were 3 other Americans visiting for the week, fundraisers of the Dobbyn Foundation, which raise money for the Scholarship Program.  Kevin, Bill and Akshita got to meet face to face with the scholars that they support. We also went chimp tracking together.

CHIMP TRACKING

For $90 each we followed one male chimp for 3 hours. For two of the hours though, he was sitting in a tree and we all took descent pictures with pretty bad backlighting from the sky, but at least it was overcast.  I was happy that at least we got to see a chimp because during the drier season, when fruiting trees are scarce, chimp groups don’t vocalize to other chimp groups because they don’t want to share their food.  So even though the male chimp we were hanging with only vocalized once to his friends while drumming the buttress of a fig tree, not one chimp answered back.  When chimps want to move fast in the forest, they come down from the tree and walk on the forest floor.  Mgze allowed the 7 of us to follow him on the floor, 15 feet behind him, for 45 minutes, until he went up another tree.  It was time for us to hike an hour back to the station.  Had been a whole family on the floor it would have been a more intimidating experience, though thrilling no doubt.  Chimps are strong, unpredictable and can be really aggressive.  Chimp lovers, am I right? 

LAST BUT NOT LEAST!!

All in all, the highlight of the week was the plethora of [RARE] animals in the forest, like black and white colobus, red colobus, red tailed monkey, bush baby, and over 300 birds and butterflies… AND running into a group of forest elephants. Well not exactly.  I didn’t actually see them because the person I was following suddenly turned back towards me and started running down the trail from where we had just hiked (of course I followed with speed!).  You see, forest elephants in this area have a tremendous reputation for chasing away people, for more than just 200 yards.  Even the guides change course once they see/smell that elephants are close.  Luckily this female was not interested in us. 

Other excitement: huge troop of olive baboons rampaging through the research station banging on tin roofs and entering people’s open doors (exciting but not cool), we had to chase them away, it’s called “hazing”.  Colobus monkeys taking a nap in the front yard above us while we eat lunch.  Catching really cool insects to photograph.  Watching a beautiful bee eater (bird) sitting on two eggs in a hole in the ground.  Ironing all clothes to keep from mango fly larvae crawling into your skin.  Eating yummy traditional food.

In case you were wondering where Dom was all week, he had to host all the Deans of the University of MN and Makerere University Vet and Public Health schools.  Breakfast meetings, lunch meetings, dinner meetings galore. Tomorrow he leaves for a conference in Rwanda, and I pet/house sit for some workmates who will also be at the conference. I will then meet Dom in Rwanda in a week and we will stay a week. Then off to another conference in Paris, this time I am tagging along, you bet your bottom dollar!  By March 1 we will be back in the States and look forward to seeing most of you we hope!  As long as I can get to internet, I will blog about each week coming up.