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…