Uganda Wildlife Education Center - Volunteer gig #2

I asked to volunteer at UWEC because it is a wildlife sanctuary, botanic garden, and education center.  Right down my alley.  This may sound familiar with the place I fell in love with, called Munda Wanga Environmental Park in Zambia. They are the same thing, though UWEC is farther ahead than Munda Wanga, based on many circumstances that I will not get into here.

The staff decided to make me a keeper his week!  So I got to be a keeper again!  It was since November that I quit the Lincoln Park Zoo job and now I am back haulin’ hay and working with [white not black] rhinos, ostrich, lions, antelope, Egyptian geese, leopard, warthogs, giraffes, zebras, an added bonus: chimps, and even golden orb spiders that are wild and naturally all over the place!  I am in spider heaven and the spiders apparently are too (which at this point if you don’t know me well, this might scare you a bit, but I swear I’m not that weird).  The week was very fun, all the staff are wonderful and the morale of the place is very positive. The head keeper wants me to assist the keepers in training the giraffes, and helping to put fly-wipe on the rhinos ankles, and I helped with a lioness sedation too.  I worked six days this week, traveling back and forth from Kampala to Entebbe (read the previous blog for more details on transport), and managed to stay a few nights, and make friends with The Jane Goodall Institute which is right down the street from UWEC. I look forward to continuing my volunteer gig at the end of the month.

haulin' hay!

feeding off the back of the truck to a very impatient cow

first day of training, the giraffes are not buying it

fresh cut elephant grass for all the herbivores

Kabira and Cherino

feeding out waterbuck and Egyptian geese with Wako, the keeper I was shadowing

the one-eared buffalo, I love these guys

golden orb spider! can you see the gold colored web?

chimp island, yes they are only separated by a wet moat

non-captive vervet monkey with new baby, AKA the most annoying mammals on the planet, next to baboons

and you wonder why they are killed for their pelts...absolutely stunning.

I am excited that Dominic will be in town for some big meetings with RESPOND, so I will hang out in Kampala and work on my side projects, visit the women’s group who make the lovely paper beads, and wait for him to come home from really long days at work.  By Friday I will be back in Kibale National Park working for the Kasiisi Project, and then by end of June, back to UWEC for 3 weeks…if all goes as planned.  Once my full month at UWEC has ended, I hope to keep visiting them and continue to get to know the staff and projects/programs.  All if this is to gain experience in the field and get to know more organizations, as well as to network and grow a reputation for myself here in Uganda.  After which time, hopefully I will land some sort of non-permanent a job somewhere.

The Science of Matatus

Sorry about my urge to talk about public transport again (as in “The Frustrations of Travelling by bus in Kampala” at http://amydominafrica.blogspot.com). This week I spent six days at Uganda Wildlife Education Center (UWEC). I travel from Kampala to Entebbe, where the airport is, which can take anywhere from 2 hours to 4 hours total in a day depending on the attitude of the drivers of the public transport, i.e. matatus/mini-buses/taxis – all the same thing.  But it’s not a “bus”, here a bus is as big as a Greyhound and drives you far distances. Matatus or taxis or mini-buses hold 16 people in them; though they are small, they are efficient (and made by Toyota by the way).  This week was a steep learning curve for me (expected) – since there is no strict schedule of a bus system, like in the States, I had to learn as I went.   

There are three possible stages I can catch the Entebbe bus from. Two are in the city at the crazy taxi parks, the other one is closer to where I am sleeping. And since there is definitely a rush hour in Kampala, I once again have to schedule my life around the traffic, just like in Chicago.  You probably are thinking that taking the matatu from the stage nearest to my temporary home would be the best answer, but I learned that this matatu doesn’t leave Kampala until about 7:30am, much too late to get to my job on time at 8am. I even talked to the driver about the earliest he usually leaves, and I think he understood. He answered 7:30, which is wishful thinking, as all the drivers believe they are leaving earlier than when they actually pull out of the taxi park.  So I have to get to the inner city (called Nakasero, it’s like saying, The Loop) early to catch the first matatu to Entebbe, otherwise I wait another 30-45 min for the next one to fill up.  This brings me to 5:30 waking up, 6am boda (motorcycle) ride, 6:15 in taxi, 6:20-40 first bus leaves, or if I miss it, after 7 second bus leaves.  If I can catch the early bus, the drivers are efficient and usually get me to Entebbe in 45 minutes, which makes me early for work but less stressed. This is a time when carrying a book comes in handy.  If I get a bus that leaves between 7-7:20 than I should be safe, unless the style in which the driver drives is poor, or crazy, it could take up to 1.5 hours or more. 

It’s all about the drivers.  They all have different techniques.  You see, when a bus goes to Entebbe, some people get off the bus before Entebbe, which means the driver must find new people on the road asap to fill those seats so that they can maximize their income.  Sometimes these drivers stop at every km searching for someone on the road who is going in their direction.  Add 35km to 45 minutes and that gets you almost to 1.5 hours, easily. So I gave up on the stage nearest to my temporary home, and went for the two taxi parks in town, which doubled the price of my boda ride (twice, for the ride home).  The New Park, I found, is slower to leave than the Old Park.  So the Old Park is my answer, and I must get there by 6:20 if I want to be less stressed to start my morning. In all, if I take 2 boda rides and 2 matatu rides in a day, that costs 15,000 UShilling, which is about $7.  If I take 4 boda rides and 2 matatus, add another buck. But usually the last 2 boda rides are only if I am late, or lazy, as the walk from the matatu drop-off to UWEC is a 10 minute walk.

But in some ways I am enjoying having to deal with the public transport scenarios because I can practice patience, positive thinking, and learn more about the culture of Ugandans.  Now if I really had serious responsibilities, and when the time comes when I am too busy to have time to waste, then things may be different, or maybe not. I will keep practicing Zen-like thinking…as if I am back in the150ft tree that I climbed in a forest that I cannot say, with people who's names I cannot share (due to forest rules).

Wildlife Club Videos

The Kasiisi Project is a community organization that assists primary schools located on the edge of Kibale National Park.  In January, I was invited to strengthen the Wildlife Clubs in each of the five core schools under the Project, which are already established in these schools because the Ugandan Government mandates them. The five rural schools that I am working with are called Kiko, Kigarama, Kanyawara, Rweteera and Kasiisi. They speak Rutooro, which is one of 33 languages in Uganda, but it is similar to Luganda, the National language that I have become familiar with, so i didn’t feel like I was starting from scratch. 

Richard from Kasiisi with his students

Robert at Kigarama teaching History

WLC members about to plant 200 tree seedlings at Rweteera

During my first week “on the job”, I met with 5 of the teachers that lead the WLCs to discuss the future of their WLCs, including organizing Objectives and Activities for their members/students.  During my second week I decided to visit each of the teachers and sit in their classes (in the back of the classroom trying not to be a distraction) to see how they teach and to get to know them better, as well as schedule for a WLC meeting with their members during the third week.

When I told Mubarak at Rweteera that I was visiting him to say hello, he organized his students to plant 200 trees in one afternoon!  I guess he wanted to impress the mazungu WLC organizer. Well it was quite impressive.  The headmaster was very happy about it.  All 200 trees are the same species with medicinal bark that will be sustainably harvested. The common Rutooro name is “engote”, but they didn’t have the scientific name handy, Africana something.  Rweteera has enough rural land to grow these trees on the property, 6 meters apart.  The income from the harvest will go back to the school and to the WLCs to plant more crops in the future.

Matt, another volunteer whose wife is doing chimp research in Kibale for her PhD, and I went back to Rweteera on the third week to show educational conservation videos made in collaboration with Nature For Kids, a Dutch organization.  These videos are spectacular. Not only are they professional, but they are translated to five East African languages including Rutooro, have strong conservation messages, and made for kids in an East African setting.  The narrator is a knowledgeable warthog grandpa puppet with wire glasses.  And the main character in each story is a primary school age kid who is fighting for conservation.  The four videos are: Water Resource Management, Overgrazing, Deforestation, and Waste Management.  We chose Water and Deforestation videos to show the students to kick off the Wildlife Clubs for this term.

Unfortunately, to set up these videos it takes at least two people and tons of equipment.  The classrooms at these schools are large and students compete to get a seat or wall to lean against to watch. As you can imagine, watching videos are rare for rural communities. Over 100 students are trying to fit in the class and see the screen, and sometimes we end up having technical difficulties.  First, we have to bring a generator, and this must have enough gasoline to last an hour of power per school.  Then we bring a laptop and projector to show the video on a screen – which is a [clean] white projector cloth.  We need duct tape to post the cloth, and a speaker system to reach a large room. Then electrical extension cords, a voltage meter thing, and a couple other odds and ends.  These items take up the back of the Suzuki Escudo, which we are very grateful we can use, as it is the project’s car and they bought it only recently and the Director has dibs. We are driving minimal of 7km (~4.5mi) on potholes dirt roads to reach the schools.

The projector decided to suddenly not cooperate

Having class outside

At 2 of 5 of the schools we had serious technical difficulties.  At Kiko, the projector decided it didn’t want to work, it could have been overheated, but more than likely the voltage meter was acting up.  We ended up having 100 kids squished together watching a small laptop screen, but they enjoyed it, and at least the speakers worked!

At Rweteera the voltage meter completely broke – we think the bumpy roads caused the pieces inside to fall apart.  Since the voltage meter plugged into and gave power to the strip, where the speakers were plugged into, the speakers had no power, so it was a silent film!  This reminded me of the old black and white films with Charlie Chapman. The laptop had enough power on its own to show the video, and the projector, with an American plug it fit into a separate strip, but the speakers had a European plug and didn’t fit without an adapter, which we didn’t have with us.  I felt so bad for the school, but the students still paid attention and seemed to enjoy the videos.  They are in Rutooro anyway, and the first time I saw the film, I didn’t understand a word, so I had to understand the story, essentially without words too.

               Luckily, Kanyawara, Kasiisi and Kigarama went smoothly, phew!

               Kigarama also planted 6 fruit trees on their property – avocado, jack fruit (yummy, but we don’t get it in the States), and papaya (they call “popo”).  The taste of papaya is growing on me. For most people’s first experience they say it smells and/or tastes like smelly feet…

               So three weeks of sleeping to the sounds of Kibale forest, and hanging with rural primary schools kids, and chimp researchers, and other really cool mazungus in the research camp was a blast.  In three more weeks I go back to continue my work.  But next, I will be on to a second volunteer gig at Uganda Wildlife Education Center (UWEC), AKA Entebbe Zoo, an hour south of Kampala.  TO be continued…

Wealthy Ugandan Wedding

My "go-to" outfit when I am not prepared to be invited to anything fancy, a sarong tied into a dress.

I was invited to a Ugandan wedding by a friend of a friend. Culturally, even if you are not directly invited, you are welcome to come to a wedding, especially if you are “mazungu”.  This wedding happened to be the most extravagant one that most Ugandans had ever heard of or seen.  It was extravagant to our Western standards as well.  It took place in a rural area outside of Kibale NP where people are living minimally. We did not go to the 3 hour service, but the reception party was 10 hours long and went long into the night, so we heard, we stayed for 4 hours.  The celebration was filled with guest speakers, women’s dance troops in traditional costumes, a brass band, a $400 5-tiered cake, with 6 cakes on the side topped with whole mangos.  The bride changed 4 times, one dress fancier than the next and a different color.  Her 7 bridesmaids were chosen by same height, build, and complexion.  There was a lot of parading around the field that was surrounded by 4 large tents which held over 500 people. 

Cake ceremony

The bride and groom

traditional food

Now that I look closely, I wonder of mama goat was painted tan? The gift line begins.

This shows only half of the set-up; there were 4 large tents

They provided at least 4 buffet lines to serve traditional food, including matoke (a plantain in mashed potato-like form), rice, ground nut sauce (my ultimate favorite), some animal’s foot- cooked, peas in curry, potato casserole and other veggies and meat.  Everyone’s plates were piled high.  At one point, when the cake was ready to be cut, fancy strings of lights and sparklers were lit. A British lodge owner and friend popped champagne in front of the crowd, and even a bubble maker was turned on. It felt like 4^th of July!  Then the gift line began and people came out of the “woodwork” to give presants and money.  The first gift was a family of healthy color-coded goats – a mother who was black and tan and her two offspring, one black, one tan. I imagine these goats were bred specifically for this moment.

Me, Caroline and Ronan dressed up for the occasion. Since I was not expecting to be going to a wedding while I was volunteering in Kibale NP, I made a sarong into a dress.  Ronan bought a really nice shirt from a Ugandan friend, and Caroline bought material at the market and found a talented seamstress to make her a wonderful dress, who charged her $12.  It was a fun, cultural experience, and funny at times!