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.

I'll Give You a Good Meal if You Castrate My Pigs



Herbert's pig house in rural Uganda, just outside of Kampala




Herbert loves his pigs




Herbert (second in from right) and his wonderful family




My new FB profile pic, can't get enough of these piglets!




This one was named Dominico after you know who because he invested in Herbert's farm.




Dominic and his photographer trainee



Boy is it great to hang around vets.  They do the dirty work, I photograph and practice my Luganda, and we all get a great meal in the end.  Dominic, Mac and Jonna are all vets, but I just love animals. Together we make a good team in Africa.  Everyone needs help with their animals, whether it is a dog, cat, pig or chicken, and of course they all want help for free.  We have a work friend named Herbert who has a busy but lovely farm in the rural area just outside of Kampala.  He invited us over to castrate his piglets, and we received a yummy traditional Ugandan meal, not to mention a peaceful afternoon from the polluted, crazy city in return.  His family is wonderful, and they love their animals too, which is a rare attitude to find in these parts.  As in the states, the animals are for growing and selling. 

Lunch included: bananas for a snack, pilau (flavorful rice), peas in the tastiest brothy sauce ever made, beef with broth, and the infamous bean-sweet potato mash, much like a sweet re-fried bean for all you Mexican food lovers.  A tray of perfectly ripe, juicy pineapple was for dessert.  Mmmmm good!  This meal takes a long time to cook and to buy the goods, so most Ugandans do not eat like this every day.  Having mazungus in the house can be a big deal, and if they come to fulfill a favor it is even a greater deal.  Not to mention the day was a holiday, Liberation Day, the day that the army marched into the capital in 1986-ish, so the whole family was home and Mac and Dom were off work =)   Herbert’s family was extremely welcoming and they are very warm people.

Piglets really are the cutest things I’ve ever seen.  If you haven’t noticed I have become quite the pig lover, one day we will have our own, with chickens!  I think I will start a pig orphanage, or better yet I will become a surrogate sow.  Farmers can give me a few piglets that are weaned, and I will fatten them up while giving them lots o’ love and a nice yard. They will be sold for the mazungu price and will have lived a nice life, or go to the farm to become mommies.  I like the latter idea better…

Anyway, the castration was “quick and easy”, and I won’t go into detail or post pictures, I’d rather forget I observed it all together.  The piglets scream and sound like little babies, that’s the worst part. But again, it’s “quick and easy”.  Sorry if you have a tough stomach and wanted to see. Dom has video.

Herbert and the family also have turkeys, chickens, very loud ducks, and guinea fowl.  They are healthy and happy.  The ducks and the guineas are used mostly as alarm system as the ducks can be quite territorial, and the guineas freak out if a predator is in the area.  There is a fish farm down the road managed by a Peace Corps guy.  We all took a walk and ran into a few cows tethered in the grass and munching away.

It’s getting hotter and drier here day by day.  It used to be bearable to walk in the sun during midday, but now you want shade at all times and it is no fun running errands midday.  At least it is mostly dry heat.  However, none of this is worse than the cold and snow you are having, sorry folks (we’ll be back in a month).  The next rains are expected at the end of February, this will cool things down, however these days Ugandans have learned not to have many expectations about the weather because the climate is changing.  By the way, I heard 3 airports on the East coast shut down again?  Yikes!  At least the Premiership is not playing in snow anymore.  That was ridiculous!  All of the games were re-scheduled after the Uganda newspaper we had with the full 2011 schedule was printed.  Hooray for the iPhone!   

Wrestling Pigs

On Tuesday, I was invited to work with an African Swine Flu (ASF) team, through Makerere University in Kampala.  ASF is endemic to Africa and this research will add to what is not quite known.  Karl, a Swedish vet and PhD researcher, has been studying this disease for over a year now, taking samples from domestic pigs outside of Kampala.  I was invited to help this week. The first site was in Kalangala – in fact the same place I spent Christmas this year.  Luckily the disease does not spread to humans, but is extremely contagious to domestic pigs.  Warthogs and bushpigs carry the tick-borne disease with no symptoms.   

We drove 2.5 hours to the southwest of Kampala to catch a (FREE!) ferry to bring the equipment to the island (1 of 70) in Lake Victoria. The ferry ride was flat and only 45 minutes, phew. The drive from Bukakata ferry launch to Kalangala is one hour exactly.  You should have seen the dirt that came out of my hair and laundry when I got home, yuck, and the snot in my nose, sorry!  Lots of dust and bad roads, but at least they were doing construction. Hey, it’s like I’m back in Chicago!  We visited one healthy pig farm before we visited an infected farm. The second farm was actually a group of pigs owned by many farmers, housed under the same roof. This is a very common set-up here.

Here is a picture of me wrestling a pig.  It looks like the pig is winning, but really my huge muscles are engaged and I am popping out of my shirt (yes I gained weight this week!). Ha!  So they use this ugly thing called a snare that catches the pig in the mouth. The pigs do NOT like this at all and I don’t blame them!  I felt bad using it, they scream and make a scene, and they can’t wait until it is all over.  Me too.  A wildlife vet, Dennis, took blood from the jugular, and this was actually when the pigs quieted down.  The whole time I was dreaming of having a bucket full of carrot pieces to reinforce them positively (i.e. thank them!) for their discomfort and blood.  I also wanted to say hello to my warthog buddy, Sammy, from Lincoln Park Zoo (these animals are so smart and have feelings too =) I was very grateful when I woke up the next morning having not dreamt of screaming pigs. 

P.S. This is why I didn’t become a vet.  Sadly, these pigs could be dead within a week, this disease is no joke and there is no vaccine.  You won’t hear about it in the US or UK because our governments won’t let it in as you can imagine.

I go out again tomorrow to help, this time in a district on the “mainland”, about an hour outside Kampala.  Wish me luck!  Piggy-Poo to the rescue!



A really healthy pregnant pig. This is what you (and I) eat, isn't that sad?? Don't think it doesn't make me want to be a vegetarian.




Karl and the Makerere truck



A fun and busy weekend in Uganda

On Saturday, Dom and I were invited to go behind the scenes a Uganda Wildlife Education Center (UWEC) AKA. Uganda Zoo.  This is the most impressive African zoo that I can ever imagine exists (though I have only seen one other so don't quote me, but I can't imagine anything nicer, really).  The land is owned by the government and is ON beach front property (LPZ comes close).  The green areas are astounding, large trees and vegetation and parks, it is beautiful.  The restaurant/cafe looks out onto the beach, where you can walk and swim, and the birds include egret, crowned crane, ducks - the white ones, hammerkop, Egyptian geese - all the same as the ones from Ssese Islands.  It's fun to see them all hanging out together and everyone gets along.  While drinking our tea during a short storm, 3 camels walked by with their keeper, who eventually got frustrated with two of them when they decided to sit down in the grass and not get up.  The stories are true, camels are notoriously stubborn, Dominic is a close second.

David, the education officer, spent quality time with us.  He started explaining the Outreach Program.  This is no ordinary travelling zoo.  UWEC brings lions and 150lb boas to the schools.  Ummmmmmm I had a little problem with this, but like a good girl, said nothing.   He showed us the snakes, the rare shoebill stork - very cool looking indeed- and then brought us to the giraffes =)  They aquired 3 young giraffes and they want to provide a giraffe feeding service to the patrons, who buy food and stand on a deck at the height of the giraffes.  David said the giraffes don't go to where the deck is, and he wants to start traiing them to do so....ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm right down my alley.  My eyes perked up and i mentioned a few ideas and then decided i better shut my trap.  Anyway, it semms this may have left David with an impression - I certainly hope so!

We saw the vet cliinic, which was very advanced for any African zoo, and they need just a few new gadgets that are broken or very out-of-date.  Dom is hoping to help them acquire such things. Lincoln Park Zoo finds old, but working vet gadgets from across USA to send to places like this, so hopefully we can make the connection...The primary vet showed us the quarantine areas, and told us a story about how they received 4 small boxes of grey parrots stuffed inside. They were confiscated in the pet trade, and 130 survived and are housed at UWEC.

At the end of a great tour, I was encouraged to apply for their volunteer program.  I am very excited for the opportunity and will let you know if anything happens.

Sunday, Dom and I went rafting on the Nile with Jonna, Mac, J.C. and a random English girl travelling the world between University and real life.  I had never done a full day of rafting, just a few hours here and there.  It was awesome, but for this kind of rafting there is no way not to get dunked somewhere along the way. We went over 10 rapids! The raft flipped 2 or 3 times, I'm still burping up the Nile but my sinus headache is going away.  It was a blast though!!!  4 hours of excitement but also long stretches of paddling, which is what I haven't experienced in the States.  During the last paddle a small storm decided to start blowing wind against us.  But we fought through it and luckily the storm blew past.  When we came up to a level 6 rapid, we all had to park the rafts and walk through a lot of big and small rocks (they didn't let anyone wear shoes the whole trip).  It was funny to watch the local Ugandans, who live on that side of the river, enjoying watching the blinding-white mazungus baring their skin and acting like crazy people throwing themselves into the rapids.  We really are a sight to see!  Unfortunately, Dom's sunburns are worse than mine, despite our best efforts to keep on sunscreen.  Bare, blinding white skin + sun + equator + 4 hours = red skin.  The tour operator fed us well. The BBQ at the end was phenomenal, beef skewers, veggie burgers - more like potatoe pancakes, avocado salad, rice and green beans, german potatoe salad, and chipati - basically an oily flour tortilla - soooo good!   We will never forget Nile River Rafting because our sore muscles will remind us! 

Oh yeah, and we stopped by Stone Pub for more pork on the way home from UWEC. mmm mmmm good.
Many more pics can be seen on FaceBook.

Kidney Stones and Giving Birth

First and Foremost, I have to give a shout-out to one of my best friends in the whole wide world, Lizzie Ephraim Davis (and Beau!) who just gave birth to her first child, a beautiful baby girl named Harper Ephraim Davis. Congrats to you and the family! ...and I am very sad I can't meet her until March =(

Ironically enough on the same weekend, Dominic gave birth to a beautiful brown kidney stone. You know, "they say" passing a kidney stone is as painful (or more) as a woman giving birth.  Luckily, there is a small doctors' office down the street and it is modern enough.  Within 3 hours, Dom received drugs and an ultrasound, then was given more good drugs and sent home to drown himself in water.  It worked!  Congrats Dominic!  What did you name it?

Dom's Deep blog

Race and Friendship in Africa

Warning, this blog will be awkward, but I think people appreciate both updates and philosophy from their blogs, so Im going to ‘go there’ since Amy is covering our activities so well.  The day before Christmas, we went with friends to the Ssese Islands in Lake Victoria, to a resort popular with local people…….it was fantastic!  We were an interesting group racially, one white couple, one black, and one mixed black and white.  It was a wonderful display of racial harmony and friendship across race, gender, profession and cultural boundaries – the way it should be – in an area of the world where things have not always been so.  Race and politics are things that you are constantly faced with when working in Africa as a white American; it gives one a huge new perspective on what it must be like to be a minority in the US (not that it is exactly the same of course).  At first, it is incredibly difficult to reconcile what they call ‘white man’s guilt’ and you have to resist the urge to try to make up for all the sins of our past in one fell swoop.  In my case, I have decided that being real while trying to positively contribute in my own way is the best way I can help combat history and show that it is now a different world – this has luckily resulted in some of the best friendships of my life.   However, I have at the same time been amazed at how we can make light of this issue from time to time and how it does not affect (or at least obviously not) work relationships negatively over here.

Previously, the most ‘in-your-face’ the sorted history of the slave trade has been for me personally was when visiting Jinja, Tanzania, which is on Lake Tanzania (next to Kigoma, the launching point for Gombe National Park) while reading a book on the history of the slave trade.  Jinja is notorious for being the ‘end’ or ‘beginning’, depending upon your point of view, of one of the major routes of the East African slave trade.  It is now a small, mostly Muslim town, but there are remnants of the past.  The old wide avenue is lined by huge mango trees (virtually planted by captives), and is the spot purported to be where Stanly finally ‘presumed’ to have found Livingston after being guided there largely by slave trading arabs.  When visiting, one gets an eerie feeling of the past, but in the sense that there are still ghosts wandering around, not unlike other places with traumatic histories. 

However, our recent boat ride to the Ssese Islands, the day before Christmas, left me with an entirely different, gut wrenching feeling.  To my knowledge, there is no specific historical significance to this specific place, although L. Victoria has witnessed its share of atrocities.  The ‘ferry’ to the islands was a typical large African wooden lake boat, sometimes infamous in the international news for sinking with passengers aboard, other times for moving refugees around.  There are 1000’s of these plying the African Great Lakes.  To enter, one has to climb over a small ladder and down another large one into the belly of the boat.  This one, unlike many, had long lines of padded seats under a large tarp suspended above with about a foot of space – a 5’10” person could just see over the edge in the middle when standing, but would have to climb to see over the side on either end.  There are no windows or toilets, but there are kids with chickens, a man selling drinks and big orange life vests for about 80% of the people on board.  Once the masses are done boarding and have found some compromise in the seating arrangement, the boat sets off with only a small change in noise and movement – on a calm day.  The success of the ‘three hour tour’, plus one hour for boarding, depends upon the weather, the waves and the state of well being of all of one’s newfound ‘close’ friends!  Luckily, our rides were relatively smooth and uneventful, with the exception of Amy not feeling great and the newlywed bride next to us with seasickness.  However, I could not help think, as we sat in the belly of the boat, lined up almost on top of each other in uncomfortable positions, with no decent toilet for four hours, that this would have been one of the easiest days imaginable for someone two hundred years ago chained aboard an old wooden ship on top of his/her newfound friends, again with no toilet…and nothing else in life.  I looked at my good friends next to me, black and white, and forgot for a moment that this was my first Christmas away from home in a looong time, and remembered what it was like to be thankful for just a few minutes – and I am thankful for that. 

Entebbe pizza and helping doggies

We had 'za for the first time in a month (and) in Uganda, and well, the crust was quite nice but they forgot the sauce, well they call it tomato and it turns out you have to ask for tomato on your pizza.  The ambiance couldn't be better, it was on the beach on Lake Victoria. The lake flies are only active for an hour, like a cloud they pass, and then they mate and fall asleep or cuddle in the bushes or something. So you only have to cover your drink for an hour and make sure you don't chew with your mouth open. Entebbe is a 1 hour drive north of Kampala and also where the main airport is.  Coincidently enough, Entebbe is also a 2 hour drive from Kampala during rush hour on a Friday, see just like Chicago...  I don't miss not driving at the moment. Hey Ma, no road rage =)

Meeting James from Uganda Wildlife Education Center (UWEC) went very well.  We all just wanted to get to know each other and not talk business too much.  Dom and I, Innocent and Lawrence (who Dom is working with on a PhD) all drove together from Kampala.  As expected, UWEC reminds me just like Munda Wanga Environmental Park in Zambia.  We were all invited by James to see the park, and behind the scenes on Saturday so we are very much looking forward to that. I hope to be invited to volunteer sometime, we'll see. It is definitely NOT ok to be pushy in Africa... especially as a muzungu... I'm sure you are all holding your breath for me, yes I'm working on holding my tongue in everything that i do!

Jonna and Tasha applying Frontline



dark dog run over by a bus-twice. blondie has two limbs macheted off.




Did you think this strip mall photo was a mistake from my chicago batch? nope, in Kampala, SUVs and all




Kampala traffic at a round-a-bout. not efficient, who designed these things in the first place?




polluted sunset, very nice though, barely out of the city now.

 Jonna took me to the ASPCA (in Uganda =USPCA?) where she volunteers on an almost full-time basis.   The dogs were due for their monthly Frontline application. Luckily this is not invasive, it's just some goo that goes on the skin on the back of their necks to kill ticks and fleas.  Jonna was hoping to get half the dogs done with mine and Tasha's help, but things went smoother than we expected and we finished 50+ dogs in less than 2 hours.  And no bite wounds to boot!  The doggies were sweethearts, each wth a different story.  The puppies were adorable and need homes, anyone, anyone? from Uganda? haha. I didn't bring one home, but it was tempting...The cats were cute too, for all you cat lovers.

Most cultures don't worship their pets like we do in the States. In fact, they usually abuse domestic animals, especially the street cat and dog.  Not only are the animals misunderstood, but the people do not have the means to help them even if they wanted to.  So as you can imagine, the issues involved in stray animals is complicated and numerous. But this is not different at all from the problems we have in the States where animals are also abused and not neutered, etc. The only difference in the States is that the spectrum is wider - those who hire masseuses for their pets, and those who ignore 'em.

   So, the moral of the story is: take a visit to your nearest ASPCA in whatever country you reside; they need your help.   
 xoxoxoAMY