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Published: November 8th 2008
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Kyabigambire Parish
Village welcome at the church Orihota? - How are you?
Ndiho kurungi - I am fine
Ibara ryange ndi Hannah - My name is Hannah
Nkuruga Bungereza - I come from England
The day after I last wrote, we (Paul and I) went to church in the village parish which is next to one of the schools that we teach in. We thought it would be nice to show our support and that we wanted to be part of the community. They seemed to really appreciate the effort and were very excited to have visitors. We were even asked to address the parish and tell everyone who we were, why we were there etc. They were very welcoming and after the service we were invited to the reverends house to join them for lunch.
Back to work the next day we were due to meet the local women’s group to run an Income Generating Activity (IGA) meeting. However when we arrived (at the education centre) we heard that in one of the forests nearby they were cutting trees using a chain saw. This is both illegal (to use a chain saw) and very bad for our conservation efforts in the area. We decided to cut
View from the office
The childen in this picture are catching and eating flying ants!! our meeting short and went to visit the people who own the forest (private land) where the cutting was happening. When we arrived they claimed the owner was not at home so we left a letter and then went to a local community meeting to inform the local government officials.
The majority of the rest of my week was spent compiling a report from the teacher training workshop which can be distributed throughout the schools. This will act as a reminder of everything that we covered, a guide to implement some of the things we talked about and also contains examples of activities they can run in their schools. I also spent time going through the education program and planning a specific outreach program as next week we will begin moving in the schools. Part of this involved learning how to run a series of interactive activities that teach important environmental issues such as; food chains, seed dispersal, roles of animals, forest destruction etc. which the kids really enjoy.
The research team in Rubongo had by now finished their work so we had to arrange for them to be picked up and their stuff to be collected. This
Kitara Secondary School
Educational outreach with 100+ students aged 14-20 meant that I had a non-Ugandan friend as a guest for the night which made a nice change. The Australian called Heather who I mentioned I met in my first week on the island was working with the research team so after finishing the work she came to stay in Hoima for a night and we went out for drinks and had interesting chats.
The following weekend we eventually had gas back at our house (we leant our gas cooker to the research team) so we were finally able to cook which was very exciting. On the Sunday I made pancakes, which was fun as my Ugandan friends that I made them for had never had them before.
With the outreach program we have a TV and DVD player we can take around the schools to show them footage of the great apes. We have a variety of DVDs so I spent some time watching them to pick out the most educational clips. I also spent some time going through the school program with the local volunteer Deliciah as she will be helping me and translating where necessary. Following this we had to write and hand-deliver the letters
Teacher and students
After the first day of teaching they all wanted a picture with the muzungu to the schools asking permission to visit them and to arrange our timetable.
The following day we were at the education centre (approx 20 minutes from Hoima) as we had a meeting with the private forest owners of the local area. These are the people who own the forests we have been doing our surveys in and where the wild chimps live. The hope is that we can work with the landowners to help them to establish other income generating activities so they don’t have to cut and sell their trees and they still have income if animals raid their crops. it was a positive meeting and they are keen to set up projects as they know they will get funding to support them if they do. I also spent some time in the forest area around the centre taking pictures to be used in the fact sheets we’re creating. At one point a black and white Colobus monkey came and sat in the tree directly above my head! I think it didn’t fear as I was very quiet and on my own.
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of this week have been spent doing educational outreach in the
Power cut
Power cuts have become VERY frequent in Hoima. This is my bedroom lit by candle light local schools in Hoima town. We have no vehicle at the moment so are working locally and getting a taxi to carry our equipment. We have done other outreach before but last time we were working with Wildlife Clubs of Uganda (WCU) who have the GRASP - great ape - kit and Helena was in charge. This time we were using our own resources, it was only CSWCT, I had planned the session and I was in charge of making sure everything worked well so I was a little nervous before the first session. Thankfully everything went well, I really enjoyed the teaching, the children really enjoyed the teaching and they all seemed to learn something!
These schools in town were unable to give us a full day of teaching so we made a jam packed schedule which covered forests, great apes and the DVD in a couple of hours. We managed to fit it into the time as these schools are much better at English so we needed very little translation and they were able to answer my questions and to understand successfully. I think the session works well as it is interactive which is fun and keeps their attention. It is good to be able to motivate a class and see the students interested to learn about new things. Each group was 100+ students (often combination of year groups) so at times they could be very noisy. At the beginning of the session we split them into four groups and named them; Chimpanzee, Gorilla, Bonobo and Orangutan - by the end they remember all the names and even use them to call each other! The schools that we visited were; Kitara Secondary School - children aged 14-20, Mandera Secondary School - children aged 15-19, and St. Francisco Primary School - children ages 9-13. this covers a wide range of ages and it was interesting to note that the primary students were more willing to answer and often gave clearer answers that the secondary who to begin with were not brave enough.
When I’ve not been in schools I have been trying to keep busy, going over evaluations and drawing large maps to show the distributions. I am enjoying all of the work but if I have nothing to do them I think of home and what I’m missing - so being busy is good.
We were hoping to get our car back this weekend and to continue with this program in Hoima. However as is normal over here plans are always changing and they are now saying we may not get the vehicle back which will make are program much more difficult to complete. Next week I have to go back to Ngamba Island for a couple of days as there is a staff training session. Hopefully while I’m back I can persuade them we need the car. (I am very glad that I am field based in Hoima and not office based at head office in Entebbe as I am sure I would be bored in the office all the time!)
This weekend we will be completing some more surveys of the private forest areas to asses their condition and at the beginning of next week we are meeting with the owners again to see how their project plans are going.
Until next time…..
I look forward to hearing from you soon!
Pant hoots! (chimpanzee call when they are happy/excited)
Love Hannah / Chiz / Mini / Han Han
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Mike
non-member comment
Hey thanks for the postcard, it arrived today.