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Published: October 7th 2008
Journey over Lake Victoria
We were lucky and had a very smooth journey over with beautiful viewsGreetings from Africa!
I am alive and safe and enjoying Uganda! It has been a busy couple of weeks and I am now beginning to settle in and get used to life out here.
The day that I arrived I was met by a guy called Isaac who is the education officer for CSWCT (Chimpanzee Sanctuary and Wildlife Conservation Trust - the NGO I’m working for) who was very friendly and introduced me to Africa. We drove in his battered old pick up down the red dusty streets to where I was to stay for the evening. The next day I went to CSWCT head office to talk through what I would be doing and to make arrangements for traveling to Ngamba Island - the chimp sanctuary owned by CSWCT. At the office I met all the staff and also another volunteer called Rebekka. She had been her for 6 weeks (she’s staying 10 total) and was going to travel to the island with me. It was Rebekka’s 3rd time traveling to the island so it was interesting to hear her views and stories. Rebekka is studying graphic design and is here doing a project for university (she’s 26 though)
Arriving at Ngamba Island
100 acre island sanctuary for 45 orphaned chimpanzees and also creating designs to be used by CSWCT. She’s been doing lots of drawing, painting and picture taking which was interesting to see. As her final project she wants to create an illustrated book emphasizing the similarities between chimpanzees and humans and encouraging sustainable living and raising awareness.
The boat journey takes about 45 minutes you pass over the equator while traveling. When you arrive the island is like a mini paradise in the middle of Lake Victoria. As volunteers we take the boats whenever they’re going so we happened to travel across with an English couple who had just got married and were spending a night on the island.
On arrival we were met by Fred the island manager and vet. Rebekka gave me a tour and showed me where we’d be staying and introduced me to everyone. The staff on the island are all Ugandan and very friendly and welcoming, it comes to feel like a small family community as they spend so much time together. I stayed on the island from Tuesday through till Sunday and got into the daily routine of helping to look after the chimps and also reading up on all
Hanging around
One of the younger chimps enjoying tree climbing during the morning feeding session the info so I would know about the project.
The morning after we arrived I was able to go on a ‘forest walk’ as it had been arranged for the English couple who were staying. Tourists pay rather a lot and have to have loads of immunizations but it is an amazing experience. About 10 of the juvenile chimps (aged 8-12 ish) go on the walk with a max of four guests and two guides. All of the chimps on the island were orphaned so most of them missed out on all motherly attention and had some kind of traumatic experience. This means they missed out on being carried so they love to get this opportunity on the forest walks - if they want to be carried they will come to you and reach up and they are carried piggy back style. Along the walk we also took breaks to sit in the forest and the chimps take this opportunity to groom each other, the guests and to play. I was sat with two chimps, one called Ikuru and the other Pasa (named after the Pan African Sanctuary Alliance). When we stood up to walk again Pasa climbed up
Island Views
This is one of the views looking back over the island from the feeding platform for a piggy back, they are not small so she was heavy but I didn’t care. It was an amazing opportunity to get so close to our ape relative, to groom them and to hold their hands which are very human like!!
The basic routine on the island is to wake up just after 6o’clock, have a day briefing, set up and clean the shop and talk area, let the chimps out (they spend the evenings in an open hold area - but by choice, they are not made to come in and will sometimes stay in the forest), go and throw them breakfast from the viewing platform and then clean out the hold area. 9o’clock is breakfast time which is tea and bread/chapatti. 11o’clock is morning feeding so all the fruit/vedge is weighed, washed and chopped (there is not enough food in the forest so they chimps eat very well at the feeding times). 1o’clock is lunch which is the same every day - posho, beans and cabbage. 2.30 is afternoon feeding and then at 6o’clock the chimps are let in and have bowls of porridge. Each evening on the way in we count how many come into
Mika and Natasha
Mika on the left is the alpha male of the group, Natasha is one of his lady friends and they are enjoying a chat over lunch the hold so we can see who slept in the forest. Finally at around 7.30 we get dinner and do what we want for the evening.
You can probably guess that these chimps wouldn’t survive well out in the wild, but in truth there is no where safe for them to go at the moment. CSWCT run lots of educational trips for the local community to the island and also work in areas where wild chimps are to try and save those populations.
While on Lake Victoria I also visited one of the local fishing islands called Kiimi when the guys went to buy supplies. Kiimi is very highly populated with everyone in one small area, in make shift houses, poor sanitation and lots of litter. All the children followed Rebekka and I around calling ‘muzungu’ - white person. They do have a school on the island though which we visited and they were doing craft activities such as planting trees and recycling rubbish.
The rest of my time was spent sat talking and getting to know people, trying to learn who’s who for the chimps and looking around the island. One of the guys I go
View from Ngamba to Kiimi
The weather was beautifully hot and sunny and the views amazing on best with was called Byron - also a volunteer but from Uganda. He enjoys having different company around as life on the island can be very slow with no-one to talk to. Discussions with the Ugandans were interesting as they view many things very differently and have many preconceptions about white people. For example; all African women only want men for their money, they would never marry a woman who was better educated or earns more than them, all white people are rich and transport must be free as they never pay for it in the movies - so we taught one another a few things.
An Australian called Heather also came to stay on the island while I was there - she had worked for CSWCT for 9 months 8 years ago so it was interesting to see what had changed and what she thought.
On the Thursday we had a little excitement in the form of a chimp escape, meaning that one of the chimps had got round/over the fence into the camp area. We had to go and wait by the water (chimps can’t swim) while it was sorted. It turned out not to
Baby Chimps
Mac, Leo and Afrika getting their evening porridge from Byron one of the caregivers be a big male so it wasn’t that scary, it was in fact Pasa! There are three baby chimps that remain in the hold during the day as they’re not yet integrated with the group and Pasa decided she didn’t want to be in the forest, she wanted to play with the baby chimps.
On the island the showers are outside and the toilets are compost pits. I also had a chance to learn a little Lugandan, but people speak English most of the time as there are so many languages in Uganda no-one knows them all.
On Sunday Rebekka and I traveled back to Entebbe together and stayed the night in a room shes’s renting next to the office. On Monday we went to the office and went through with Isaac the education program we would be setting up in Hoima - nothing is really established yet as it’s a new project. Isaac is now away until late October so not around to come to Hoima to help for a while. I then spent the rest of the day traveling to Hoima with some other CSWCT staff. It took ages to get through Kampala as traffic was
Rebekka
Boat journey over to Kiimi Island terrible. The road between Kampala and Hoima is tarmac but in Hoima the roads are very rough and bumpy. In Hoima I am staying in the office building with the conservation officer Paul in the building next door. He is very friendly and fun and looks a little like Eddy Murphey.
The next day CSWCT hosted a stake holders meeting in Hoima. Everyone who was important/influential/involved in conservation in the area came along to hear what CSWCT had been up to and to plan strategies and recommendations for future conservation work in the area. The ideas were all recorded and I now have to write a report so the ideas can be implemented by the local people. In the afternoon we took the stakeholders to see the education centre CSWCT have built in the area with collaboration from other local partners. The centre will be used for school group visits, teacher training workshops and also training local women to make and sell sustainable products. The centre is next to a large area of forest in which wild chimpanzees live and the centre has also established a tree nursery for reforestation projects.
Wednesday through to Saturday were then spent
Homestead on Kiimi Island
young children staring the the 'muzungu' going round school in the local area with a GRASP kit (Great Ape Survival Project) with Paul, Helena (works for Wildlife Clubs of Uganda), Innocent (CSWCT), and Deliciah (local volunteer). We were teaching both primary and secondary, often with large numbers in small halls as everyone wanted to learn but we had limited time to show everyone. The kit is brilliant, it was bought and sponsored by a French company and contains loads of resources for teaching about great apes. We spent full days at the schools from 8.30 till 5 teaching and doing various activities. We talked about what a forest is, the importance of the forest, the different great apes, their distribution, similarities and differences, threats etc. All the children were very attentive and interested and learnt a lot. They began not knowing the difference between a chimp and a monkey or where Uganda was on the map!
After a day or so of listening I was able to help with the teaching which was good fun. The children mostly had reasonable/good English but some of the younger ones didn’t get everything so Deliciah who knows the local language translated the complicated bits. I got on really
View from Kiimi
Shoreline view with pig and fish being cooked over charcoal well with the group in Hoima and was sharing a room with Helena at the office. The schools are too far from town to head back for lunch so we had to just take a few snacks with us for the day and had a proper meal in the evening.
On the Saturday evening we all drove back to Entebbe together and I’m now staying in one of the rooms next to head office. There is a garden and a ‘guard dog’ called Jeep who likes me and is nice to have around.
I am now in the office finishing off the report for the stakeholders meeting. Later this week I’ll spend some time in Kampala, helping with a trade show which CSWCT have a stall at, raising awareness and educating about great apes. Then this weekend it’s the 10th anniversary since Ngamba Island was founded so there will be some celebrations. After the weekend I will then be heading back to Hoima to work on my education program.
I hope you’re all OK back in England and not getting too cold and wet! Please email and keep in touch as it’s nice to hear news from
Chimp lookout
Young chimp watching over the feeding time looking for the good food England! Also my Ugandan number is +256 779 525 521 if you want to text.
Lots of love and chimp hugs
xxx
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Mike
non-member comment
Hey, you got any photos of you giving chimps piggybacks that sounds really special