Friday August 7: Secondary School Visit

We visited the Nyamiyaga Secondary School. The school borders the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, which is the primary reason we chose to work with this school in particular along with the fact that one of the local CTPH staff was a student there. A secondary school was chosen in an attempt to see if we could start a project linking them with one of the High Tech High Schools. We asked the students to come up with some project ideas, which they did, and chose a boy and a girl leader from Senior 2 (Sophomore). One of the student teachers approached me and he will try to facilitate the projects. There are many stumbling blocks to defeat, but it is possible to overcome their lack of internet or computer (only 2 or 3 students had ever seen a computer), no electricity - poor lighting, etc. Francis, the book keeper, took David's (the CTPH staff member that attended Nayamyaga Secondary School) computer class at CTPH and will help David with the technological aspects of this project.

We then drove to a home visit in the Bujengwe Parish to find out if these families have proper facilities for the restroom, kitchen wear cleaning and drying, how they tend to their livestock and more.

Saw some cattle that were bought for the community livestock project and saw where they are housed. The cattle were healthy so Stephen talked about other community projects that will help with sustainability that will help the community such as refrigeration for the milk, making butter and cheese.

After dinner we asked Sam and Hillary to come and get a very huge spider out of our tent only to find another one in the shower above my head in the morning. Everywhere I look I see this kind of spider, we think it is a wolf spider.

Thursday August 6, 2009: Visit to the gorilla night nests

Today was an early morning for Beth, she went out with the HUGO members in the Advanced group to see gorilla night nests and take fecal samples.  Luckily the gorillas had slept less than a 10 minute walk from the UWA Office, so the scramble through the forest was not too difficult.  

We regrouped at the camp for closing discussions, lunch and a speech from the warden. Tours of the gorilla clinic/lab were given after the workshop had been closed for the HUGO members that were interested in seeing where the fecal samples they take were being analyzed.  

We are now posting the last three days from the nearby hospital back in Buhoma.  There has not been internet or cell phone network for the past few days and we are glad that we can communicate to those outside of Uganda again!

Wednesday August 5, 2009: HUGO Training Workshop # 2

Today we had another HUGO (Human Gorilla Conflict Resolution) Volunteer workshop with the Mukono, Bujengwe, Kwenda parishes.  We waited for the officials from UWA to arrive before we began.

Expectations of the meeting were listed and Dr. Gladys said what would be covered and delegated other tasks.

Beth's flip charts were used again for this workshop, so it was a mix of relaxation and boredom during the speeches.

New news:  A Lowland Gorilla in Congo was found to have HIV.  A person must have eaten a gorilla and got HIV.  They are trying to figure out if the gorilla has a dormant form of HIV which mutated when it went into the human.  How did the gorilla get it?  Dormant?  One good thing can come out of this, maybe people will not eat gorillas for fear of contracting HIV.

After the workshop we dropped off some of the UWA officials and looked at some property that Dr. Gladys was thinking of purchasing.  The land has beautiful views of the mountains and is on a slope.  Some concerns are the MTN antennae which will be built nearby and there is fear of radiation, the rainy seasons effect of the foundations, and we are still unsure of the acreage.

Tuesday August 4, 2009: Walk from Nkuringo to Buhoma

The view from Clouds Eco-Tour Hotel was amazing, just the feeling when you walk into the lobby was clean and modern.  Gary and his wife run this very high end establishment with running water and electricity using a generator.  They provide their own fresh vegetables and herbs from their gardens.  A fruit smoothy with ice was very luxurious for us after a week without seeing ice. Gary gave us a tour of the facility containing a cottage, spa and best of all the Lou with  View. 

We packed up our lunch and headed to the Nkuringo Ranger office where we bid fair well to Deus and began our walking journey from Nkuringo to Buhoma which took a total of 6 hours in dense rainforest.  A good portion of the trail ran beside a river, the scenery and sounds were brilliant!

When we got close to the Ranger Office in Buhoma we were diverted to the Waterfall Trail to by pass the road where the gorillas were passing.  We bumped into Godfrey, the minister of tourism when we reached the ranger office and Beth showed him the pictures of the Nkoringo gorillas she had taken the previous day. He was impressed that she could name which gorilla was in the picture, but she told him it was because Silver had pointed them out to her!

While having dinner with Dr. Gladys and Rachel, our hike leader, Dr. Gladys mentioned that Ndhego had malaria and that it was her anniversary. We always have a great time chatting after dinner and lose track of time.  What great company to share this experience with!

Monday August 3, 2009: GORILLA TRACKING!

The day we were waiting for has arrived, today we track the Nkuringo group of gorillas.  We walked to the UWA Ranger Office from our campsite, where the rest of the tourists were waiting to be briefed by Augustine.  Rules and refunds were explained to us before we left and also we were offered porters to help carry our bags.  Fred was our porter who I asked after the fact since we kept going down, down, down on very rough terrain.  Augustine radioed often to find out where the gorillas were and where Dr. Gladys and Silver were tracking the night nests earlier with the other HUGO group from Nkuringo.

There were 17 gorillas in one area crowded together.  We first noticed the twins and the mother, who were amazing and adorable.  The experience has been indescribable to see the entire group together.  Dr. Gladys was worried when the mother laid back on top of her twins but then they climbed up on her and were relaxed.

When the other tourists left, Posho came down from the tree he was in to say hello to Silver.  When he came close to Silver, he went down on his front elbows almost like a bow.  Silver has been following the Nkuringo group of gorillas for 12 years and can identify all of them by their nose print.  He keeps record of all the births and worked with Beth to identify the photos that were taken.

As we were leaving we saw Mama Christmas and Rafiki, a Silverback, which made 18 in all.  We were told that we were very lucky to see all of the group at once.

Dr. Gladys mentioned that there were many insects flying around the group, which she thought was unusual.

As we returned to the Ranger Station for lunch we were totally surrounded by the mountains, which was only 5 - 10 minutes away from the gorilla group we saw, but it took us 1 1/2 hours to locate.

We had a graduation ceremony to receive our certificates, which was an accomplishment.

We then went back to the community hall that held the workshop yesterday in order to have a final discussion with the HUGO members.  The HUGO members were trained on how to find night nests, how to take fecal samples, and how to determine what type of gorilla the droppings belonged to (i.e. silver back, black back, adult female, sub-adult, juvenile, infant).  

Overall it was a long, but absolutely amazing day!

Sunday August 2, 2009: HUGO Training Workshop

We woke up at 7am in Nkuringo Safari Campsite and Jerri-Ann was invited to go pick up HUGO (Human Gorilla Conflict Resolution) volunteers from Rushaga.  Transportation is a problem in this area of Bwindi.  Kakandi, the driver, had to fix a flat tire and later, while we were at the workshop, drove to Kisoro to get a new tube.

We then picked up the rest of the CTPH team to return to the Workshop area where Deus, a Community Conservation Ranger from UWA, was waiting with the group.  HUGO is a group of community members that are trained to collect fecal samples from gorillas and are called to move the gorillas back into the park if they decide to leave the park and come in too close contact with people.  During the workshop they learn about diseases that can be transfered between humans and gorillas and the different ways to prevent zoonotics such as TB, scabies, dysentery, worms, polio, measles, respiratory diseases, ringworm, ebola, HIV, and coughing. 

Since there was no running water or electricity, we had to convert two power point presentations into a hand written flip chart.  Since we were running low on battery and there was no place to charge it at the community hall we were using, Beth and Hillary went to the nearby hospital to charge the electronics.  We had a lovely lunch prepared by a local cafe/ lodge in progress.  

After the workshop finished, we decided to interact with some of the local children. We were taking pictures of them and with them and then showing them on the camera screen.  Soon after they started to beg for money, of course we did not give them money, but we had Hillary come explain to them why begging is bad and if they want Muzungi's (whites) to give them money they should start community drummer or dance groups that will benefit the entire community.  They started to dance for us, but they seemed to be ashamed of their behavior.  

We decided to go visit Clouds, another lodge nearby, which is in partnership with the community and a private sector and is eco-friendly to the community.  We walked into the lobby, which was very luxurious and warm, out of the rain.  Gary is one of the owners and manager was visiting with other patrons so he invited us for breakfast on Tuesday morning.  

Saturday August 1, 2009: Walk from Buhoma to Nkuringo

We enjoyed our morning tea wake up call right outside our tent.  This morning we had breakfast in the Pavilion then we prepared our luggage to be transported by vehicle from Buhoma where we have been to Nkuringo, which is on the other side of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.  It takes 5 1/2 hours by vehicle on the road, only parts of which were tarmac, because there is no road for cars through the park therefore they had to drive all the way around the park boundaries. Hillary, Sam, Stephen, and the two of us decided to walk through the park instead.

First we all went to the UWA Main Bwindi Park Ranger Office and met the Chief Ranger, Minister of Tourism: Godfrey, Minister of Conservation and the accountant.  We had a great discussion ranging from sizes of gorilla groups to discussing recent wildfires to comparing tourism tactics of different African countries. 

In the forest road there is a split, one way goes to Nteko and the other straight to Nkuringo.  We decided that we were going to walk to Nteko and then take a car to Nkuringo because it takes half the time and does not climb a steep mountain.  

It took us three and a half hours to walk from Buhoma to Nteko, but it was beautiful! We walked through the lush green rainforest and were accompanied by the sounds of happily chirping birds.  There was a large river that we had to cross using a bridge made of three large logs, the river is the park boundary, so once we crossed the bridge we were on community land.  While climbing up a fairly steep section, the weather shifted and we got a true rainforest downpour.  Finally we made it to the camp site, but since we were at such a high elevation, the temperature was much lower than we had been used to.  We sat around the fire they used to boil water in order to heat ourselves and dry our shoes.  

We had a nice dinner and met the other guests staying at the camp.  After dinner we all shifted back to the fire because some of the guests were roasting a chicken they had gotten in town. There was a girl from the Peace Corp, a girl from England, a man from Scotland on a British version of Peace corp, a tourist from India and a Primatologist named Michelle Goldsmith.  We talked with all of them, but it was very exciting to meet Michelle because she knew Dr. Gladys and Dr. Vavra.

It was a late night sitting around the fire enjoying ourselves, but we truly enjoyed ourselves!