Steep Learning Curve

This week was one of a steep learning curve.  I spent my time at the Kasiisi Project in Kibale NP.  The week was filled with tutoring P4 students (Primary 4^th grade), Board meetings, Wildlife Club Meetings, one job interview, an electricity celebration, photography presentation and lots of good traditional food.  It’s the time of year when the living quarters are full to the brim – 8 duplexes, a dormitory to fit 50, and others that I’m sure I don’t know about.  University students from Canada, Germany, U.K., grad and PhD have come to study the forest ecology.  I slept in 3 different beds this week, because visitors were moving in and out of the duplex where I was staying, luckily each had a mosquito net.  Per Elizabeth Ross, who has lived and worked and brought up three sons in Kibale, this is supposed to be the dry season. But it rained nearly every day.  I happened to enjoy the rain, coming from Chicago’s gray skies, I tend to enjoy a break from direct sunlight, plus here the rain cools everything down, and it’s fun to see the dark clouds, wind and thunder change the landscape.

               Back to the busy week.  One Harvard volunteer, Michelle, is completing a summer course with Kasiisi.  She won a grant to work with P4 students asking them to write a legend or story, in Rutooro and English, and illustrate it.  This was the 3^rd week the students were working on their story and it was time to edit their English into a final draft and assist them in organizing which sentences should go with which illustrations on which pages.  For two afternoons, I had the pleasure of tutoring four students. Their stories were commonly about animals, which I enjoyed very much. They were simple and cute. The first girl I helped, I found out later in the day, was 14 years old and has a baby. The school actually accepted her to come back to school – which is rare, normally pregnant girls are kicked out. She couldn’t understand any English, but we communicated through writing words spelled correctly on paper, and lots of smiles.  The next girl understood my English fairly well and had very good grammar.  The two boys understood my English fairly well too; we communicated best by writing on paper.  Typically, English is taught beginning in P4.  It was so fun to spend quality time with the students. It was the first time I had an experience one-on-one with any of them, in a learning setting, so that was great.

               For all fairness, Michelle’s roommate and best friend, Brennan, also from Harvard, is doing a summer project on student nutrition. She weighs the students and asks them what they eat, and they wear a pedometer for one day. Last year she did the same thing in Tanzania.  All very interesting information.  She completed 3 schools and is on to the fourth, Kigarama next week. And these girls are only undergrads starting their senior year (and they are quite mature for their age may I add.)

               I was invited to attend three big Kasiisi Project meetings. I felt special and very grateful.  This might get confusing.  The first was a landmark meeting whereby 3 people from each of 14 schools located on the western edge of Kibale National park were invited for a meeting about Wildlife Clubs in their schools.  The WLC teacher, headmaster (principal) and one from school management were invited. All schools were represented – an impressive turnout!  We discussed the need for WLCs, and which schools are interested in getting assistance from a full-to-part time WLC assistant to help all teachers with developing and organizing effective conservation activities, paid for by The Kasiisi project (which we don’t have money for yet!).  After a thorough conservation lecture by John, one of the most knowledgeable men I am beginning to get to know, and Chairman of the Board, it seemed as though the teachers were excited to do more for conservation. 

At that time I gave a lecture explaining further what our assistance meant and gave examples of activities that could be carried out in their schools.  Finally, Joshua (also on the Board) put the cherry on top and asked if the audience would like to “be baptized by the water that ‘this lovely lady’ was offering”.  I was quite confused because I was pretty sure he was talking about the Bible, but then he turned to me for a reaction and I had to ask what he was talking about.  Needless to say, all schools seemed excited to sign up to be a part of this “new age” Wildlife Club.  I was happy to give out my contact information on the chalkboard, as all my brand new business cards – which I bought for free from vistaprint.com, and specifically for a moment like this, were tucked away in my bag back at camp. I had even remembered to bring them to Kibale…argh.

               Directly after this meeting was a Board meeting.  The Kasiisi Project is going through a big management change, the CEO is retiring.  This was the first Board meeting where new members attended.  I sat in to most of the meeting, but without sharing details, I am slowly but surely learning the ropes as to what it takes to run a successful, established non-profit. 

I also had a meeting with our new WLC Ugandan assistant, Francis.  Francis and I will be working in tandem with the Wildlife Clubs.  He is graduating with a Conservation degree from a University in Kampala in January and is finishing his thesis until then.  He was hired yesterday to join our team and I think he will be a great asset.  But, as any new grad, he needs to learn how to be a professional, which is a great challenge for me, because I am learning that too!  Francis’s knowledge fills in all my gaps; he knows the local, current, conservation issues that I am slowly learning. He is fluent in Rutooro and understands my English fine, as long as I speak slower.  I will be training him on the organization of lesson plans/activities, and sharing with him all the contacts I have received thus far in the community. Together we will build the Wildlife Clubs.  We have hit the ground running and I am very excited to come back in 3 weeks to see what has been accomplished.

Brennan, Michelle, me, Francis

Then there was a Kibale Forest Coalition for Conservation Education (KFCCE) meeting.  That was exciting because organizations from Uganda and even US were represented, including Jane Goodall Institute, Books Open The World, North Carolina Zoo (UNITE), Tooro Botanical Garden, Uganda Wildlife Authority, and more.  Then I met with the field director of the Albertine Rift Project with World Wildlife Fund. Hellena wants to bring a group of her WLC students to Kibale from a different district and have the students engage through WLC activities. It was nice to discuss the possible lessons we can do together in August. Though WWF has much more money to work with than Kasiisi…

After all these meetings there were celebrations.  The headmistress of Kasiisi, Lydia, had us over for a wonderful traditional dinner. My favorite dish is called “frinda”. If I understand correctly, you can use any bean, but it is labor intensive because the cook must peel away each bean skin, and it gets mashed so smoothly it looks exactly like gravy. I even drizzled it over fresh chips (homemade fries) and it was heaven.  My mom would comment that of course my favorite would be either the most expensive or time consuming dish…  The next evening Ronan shared his awesome chimp photos from the forest.  There was a great turnout from the other field students as you can imagine. He has a unique perspective because he climbs 150 ft fruiting trees and waits for the chimps to come. Some of his pics are from above the chimps. Richard Wrangham has assigned Ronan to focus on certain things, like teeth and wounds, and anything else that is interesting, such as aggression, hunting, and their nests in the trees, since he is up there.  Unfortunately due to National Park laws, Ronan can’t sell any of his chimp pictures or video, but you can see them on his website: www.ronandonovan.com.

The last celebration was a huge ribbon cutting ceremony at school put on by the parents of Kasiisi Primary for Elizabeth to show their gratitude for her initiative and funds for getting electricity in the school.  This is a huge accomplishment and now Kasiisi is rated much higher on the government scale.  For a rural school, this is almost unheard of. Congrats Elizabeth!  The celebration included song and dance from each class, P1-P7- adorable! Then a traditional drama (skit) and dance with drums, and finally Caroline was asked to introduce herself as the Field Director and her relation to Elizabeth (family friends of 25 years), and Elizabeth thanked everyone tremendously for the party. She was even given gifts from the parents, which ranged from a box of cookies, to two beautiful stalks of cauliflower, to ten eggs and a rooster!

From a busy, exciting and learned week, I was blessed with a free ride from Kibale NP (Fort Portal) to Kampala (with a 2 hour stop to re-pack my bags and take a shower) to Entebbe, because Elizabeth was on her way home and had the ride all sorted out (airport is in Entebbe).  What a great break from bodas, matatus, exhaust, gentle verbal abuse, and lots of patience!  I start a full week with Uganda Wildlife Education Center (UWEC) tomorrow and am excited to assist the keeper team in giraffe training plans – their #1 task for me when I get there!   They also received a baby elephant (mom was probably poached) last week, it is in quarantine, but I can’t wait to meet it and the two baby chimps too! Maybe I’m not done being a keeper after all!

Soccer socks put to good use!