Sunday Night in September

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I was dreaming when I wrote this, forgive me if it goes astray ...

Okay, I'm not exactly dreaming, but I had planned to sit down and write a blog tonight to fill you all in on my latest news. However, it's Sunday afternoon back in the states. The colts are playing. And now I'm chatting online with my cousins micah and jon who are filling me in on the game action as I watch the stats online. So I'm a bit distracted.

When we last left off, I was living in the village of Kayanga at the Kalinzu forest education center. I've added more photos from that stint on my photo page, but this blog is mostly about my time in Entebbe.

I've been here at the main JGI Uganda office (and our house) in Entebbe since mid-August. The office is downstairs, and I've been spending my days editing/designing an environmental education curriculum for primary 6/7 teachers, basically an everyday m/f 9-5 job. That said, the house is across the street from Lake Victoria (3rd largest lake in the world) and our garden is filled with tons of cool birds, including hammerkops and great blue turaco's, being the most charismatic of the bunch.

Day-to-day, I've been playing some basketball, doing yoga and running after work and on weekends, filling in my spare moments by either playing fetch with tinker (one of four dogs here) or watching the first season of "24" on DVD, which I finished up last week.

Aside from the routine, I did get out for some fun the first weekend of September. I went with another volunteer (from Norway) over to Ngamba Island, a sanctuary for orphaned chimpanzees, co-founded by JGI. The sanctuary is amazing. Part zoo, part forest, we got a behind-the-scenes tour to see how these chimps are fed and cared for by the staff and vets, and witnessed two feedings which brought about 35 chimps to the central area for all kinds of action. Next time, I hope to go for an overnight trip, which allows me to go on an early 6 a.m. forest walk where I can get up close with the chimps since they're not wild and very accustomed to people.

On Sunday, we went to the Uganda Wildlife Education Center (aka, the zoo) which I live very close to, for more fun animal-watching. Highlight: white rhinos. Lowlight: Ukranian tourists feeding chimps, holding monkeys by the tail and pretending not to understand me when I tried to tell them this was inappropriate.

There really isn't much else to report from the last month. It's been nice to have a steady routine, hot showers, wifi, etc. But I'm also looking forward to what's next: a three-week trip in Western Uganda where we'll be interviewing teachers as part of an evaluation of our Primary 5 curriculum, which has been in the schools for two years now. After the three weeks of interviews, I'm scheduled to take a short holiday to Rwanda to go see wild and endangered mountain gorillas, I can't wait!

L'shana Tova

Ps - colts just won, 22-20 over the titans; 2-0!

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Photos

Just Hanging Out
From Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary
All other pics from this stretch of time are on my photo page ... link is in the second paragraph

Comments

[Jennifer]

Great Update
What an amazing journey. I love the close-up of the rhino, the bird-through-binoculars shot, and the numerous chimpanzees. Enjoy your time there. Kudos for making a difference to those children. Best of luck for continued success.