The video team today, packed a lunch and went to Kasiisi School. They wanted to film the school through the children’s eyes. They selected children at random from the school and gave them a camera. The pupils really enjoyed the experience and they did a great job creating their own content about their everyday life at school. It is hoped that in the future, we can expand and offer them the opportunity to create their own conservation-based films.

The education and web team stayed at the camp site. The education team were preparing the content that is going on to the web site and were also preparing a presentation for the children and teachers at Kasiisi about the work that they have done during the last couple of weeks. The web team still have plenty of work to do, however the new design of the web page and the animations for the children is nearly done.

During the afternoon we all went to the school to show them the work that we have been doing during this expedition. We gathered at the church, set up the projector and invited the pupils and staff to join us. Elle gave a brief introduction about The Great Primate Handshake and explained what the education team had been doing. I also talked about the web team’s work during the expedition. To finish our presentation, Laurence showed all of the videos created for Kasiisi. The Kids loved it! They were all laughing at each when one of them appeared on the screen and others were whispering and pointing at their teachers or friends. The teachers and staff members were very grateful with the videos and education content that we are providing them with.

We are all very proud of the work that The Great Primate Handshake has created and we will never forget the smiles on their faces and the happiness that we have brought to their lives. We are very grateful to Kasissi school for giving us the opportunity to work with them and we hope to continue the relationship next year.

We were greeted outside by the priest and watched him as he very purposefully began to dress the alter in white cloths, then some of the seats, then the stands for the flowers; in fact it seemed as if he was going to dress every surface he could find. When he’d finally ran out of cloths, a crucifix went on top of the alter flanked by two wooden candlesticks, sporting between them one lone wonky candle.

By the time the mass started only about eight people (including the four of us) sat in the wooden pews. But gradually, over the next hour, in drips and drabs, the place slowly filled up until there were about 70 odd.  It was all spoken in what I guess was Luganda and the readings and sermon were decorated with lively, loudly sung songs with a lot of clapping and drumming to aid us along. It was great fun! And by the last one, some of the community’s elders were dancing and hollering to the beat.
We felt so welcome there, and right at the end were asked to stand up, introduce ourselves and what we were doing in Uganda.

Straight after mass they had what we believed to be the village meeting of some kind. They were trying to raise funds to renovate their church by donating vegetables and selling them off to the congregation. Only Ellie had any money left on her, and with it she bought a bag of beans, but the people were so so kind and started buying us fruit to take away. We felt so awkward sitting there accepting gift after gift, knowing that it would be rude to refuse…

It was burning hot by the time we left at 13:00, and a right sight we were on the dusty road back to camp, each with a different piece of produce and munching on the bananas we’d acquired.

When we got back we found out that Al had taken Lyndsey to the doctors with suspected Malaria. She’s been quite ill for a couple of days now. Luckily she returned without it, and hopefully she’ll feel a lot better when she sees the two pineapples we brought back for her. Nothing does more for a person than a decent pineapple.

James and Ben (with Emily on camera) spent the day as Steve Erwin wannabees and made a documentary in which every member of the Handshake was a different kind of animal. It was absolutely hilarious, and highlights all the little quirks that we’ve grown to know and love about our team.

Meanwhile the Education team had a more productive session, finishing off lesson plans, fact sheets and a PowerPoint that they’ll show to the kids at Kasiisi school tomorrow before the video team debut the videos they’ve been making. It’s sad how everything’s beginning to wrap up now. Only a few days left!

Charles, the JGI field manager, walked around the area with us and explained in detail the work done so far and noted how urgent the problem was – including a need to found a solution quickly. We visited a tree nursery first, escorted by the head of the community group. We were introduced to their constitution, plans and objectives. Their main objective is for them to one day be able to show to the government achievements made through their re-forestation scheme, and for them to preserve their land for communal interests. At the moment they are running the tree nursery project on state-owned property, and need to register their scheme to ensure its integrity in the future.

After viewing the tree nursery we walked to the river where the local people get their every day water. We were all stunned to see how contaminated it was, but what shocked me the most was to see the amount of children approaching the river. We spent 30 minutes there, filming and observing the dark muddy water. You could see abundant floating animal feaces float past the pots and bottles of children collecting the water to both drink and cook with. I was evident that we needed to support their project and do whatever we could do help re-forest the riverbank and provide them with clean water.

After the video team gathered footage and held interviews with the local people we went back to the truck to start our journey back. It was impossible to take out of my mind the faces of all the children collecting water to survive and probably not realizing that that water its killing them.

We arrived at 10am, and after a quick meeting with the teachers and organizers of the event to arrange last minute details, we joined the pupils in the playing field, where minutes after, the children started singing and marching. I was surprised about how meaningful their song was (it was about their concerns for the Ugandan habitat), and it actually touched me deeply when they started to pick up the garbage from the roads and from the small hamlet near the school. I felt so overwhelmed that I couldn’t help a few tears run down my cheeks.

Later on the pupils introduced themselves to villagers, explained their concerns about the environment, and asked them to please collaborate with their country and help to promote conservation of their environment.

After an hour of collecting rubbish from the streets we went back to the school with baskets full of paper, plastics and other items that were contaminating the area. When we arrived, the wildlife group was divided in three. The education team, who had previously been working on different projects and activities for the children had the chance to present to the students. The teachers from Kasiisi School were very pleased with our participation during the day and very grateful with the work that the team had done.

Well done education team!!!

We were joined by Ben and Natasha from the video team, so they could make a documentary of our day. Rehmat, Alex and Kiera from the web team came to take photos and help out. It wasn’t the quickest start to the day as it was my birthday party last night, so everyone is a little tired. We all soon forgot this when we arrived at the school, the children have so much energy.

The wildlife club is optional and over 60 children attend; it’s fantastic that so many children are interested in conservation. The first activity that the club does is a litter pick. They carry a banner with the school logo and sing songs on the way down to the village. We managed to collect 3 large baskets full of rubbish. The children talk to the local villagers trying to encourage them to recycle; the villagers appreciate the children getting involved but find it difficult to recycle everything used. Everything that was collected is taken back to the school; the paper is used for making rope, baskets and jewellery.

Once we got back to the school we split into groups, one group made ropes and footballs out of the materials collected, the second group did a tip-tap lesson and the other children were in a choir lesson. We watched the choir group and attempted to join in; this is the song that they were singing:

Uganda sees the environment is gone,
Trees cut down,
What shall we do?
The only solution is to plants more trees,
Plant more trees,
And let the environment shine.

Then it was the education teams turn to teach the lesson that we have been preparing. All the children sat in a circle while I read them a story about Colin the Colobus which we wrote as a team. We all sat amongst the children and discussed the issues covered in the story.

It was then time for a warm-up; we played a modified version of ‘stuck in the mud’ that we devised with humans chasing the monkeys!! This introduced the issue of deforestation to the children in a fun and interactive way which the children really enjoyed. They were all far too fast for us to catch them!

We then moved on to our main activity. I split the children into 4 groups; each member of the team was in charge of a different group. Jade took the machines group, the children had to act like a machine going into the forest to crop down the trees, and one of the children was at the front being a human driving the machine.

 
Abbie’s group were monkeys, swinging through the trees, eating food and making lots of monkey noises. Suzanne was in charge of the trees, teaching the children how to grow from a seed into a tall tree.

Eleanor took the conservationists group, getting them to march into the forest and educate people too conserve the forest. The idea of this activity was to get the children thinking about how their character would be feeling. They practiced their movements before we all joined together again.

I then read out a little story so the children could act out their movements along to the story. The trees started as seeds and then grew tall so the monkeys could swing through them. The humans then drove the machines into the forest and cut down the trees. The trees fell to the floor and the monkeys left the forest very sad. The conservationists then entered the forest to educate the humans about why they should conserve their forest.
A spokesperson from the conservation group explained why the forest is worth saving; it was fantastic to hear the children talk about conservation so passionately. More ‘seeds’ were then planted so the forest could grow tall again; the monkeys could then swing through the trees.

Our story had a happy ending, but the lesson showed that this is not always the case. With a positive attitude a difference can be made and a brighter future can be achieved.

The session concluded with a discussion on how the children felt during the story to reinforce the issues covered.

One of the girls, Beatrice stood in the middle of the circle once we had finished and thanked us. She said she had learnt a lot and was looking forward to teaching her friends. We were all really overwhelmed and touched by what she said, as we felt we had made a real difference.

After the lesson Tom who leads the wildlife club gave me some really positive feedback, he was really pleased with everything the children had learnt and would love us to go back to the school to teach again.

All the planning and preparation was worth it. It was a fantastic experience to teach a wildlife lesson in a Ugandan School.

Good job education team!!!!

Ellie Sowerby
Eduation Team, Handshake Volunteer Uganda 2010

We had lunch early at about 11:15, and then headed off to an education centre nearby that had been set up by the CSWCT and the Kanywabarogo Riviera Forest and Land Users Association. They have some brilliant projects running there at the moment, run by the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) to help re-generate the overexploited forest and to assist the local community.

After a brief introduction to everything they’re involved with at the centre, we were taken down to the tree nursery where seedlings are nurtured for both forest regrowth and to hand out to locals. The former trees are not only to counteract deforestation, but also form part of a huge project concerning much of western Uganda in creating habitat corridors between forests for the Chimpanzees to travel down.

The corridors are important to stop inter-breeding between small groups of isolated chimpanzees and also give them the opportunity to live lives with plentiful food that they can access away from humans. The trees for the latter were mostly fruit – jackfruit and mango being the most popular; as well as trees for timber (building and firewood). It was really clever how they had cheated the trees out of about a year’s worth of growth before they fruit by grafting the root stalk of the seed they grew, with the cutting of a fully grown tree. With a bit of a bandage, love and attention, the two different trees would quickly join to become one!

After looking at all the seedlings we were taken up the road to meet a local farmer who benefits from this tree project.

The project is vital for farmers since fruit is a good source of income, and takes up far less room than the worthless maize, which is worth about 1000 shillings per Kilo – that’s £0.36. So you can imagine how much maize a farmer would need to grow in order to get anything worthwhile out of it, and how much forest must be surrendered for crop planting. Mangos on the other hand sell for about 3000 shillings per kilo (£1.00), a much more satisfactory price and all for a couple of mangos from a single tree.

The JGI also give out animals to the community, and pig farming has really taken off in the Hoima district. They’re a great investment and in return, every time the pig gives birth a couple of piglets’ll go back to the JGI to be given out to even more farmers.

The farmer we visited and his family were so so poor. I’d hate to think that if these people are benefiting from these projects, that other people in Uganda can in the future do so too.

We then walked for a further half an hour up the road to see the café they were building in the village of Bulindi to help the community there. It’s situated in a brilliant location in between the national parks of Kibale and Murchison Falls and backs on to a forest full of primates including Chimpanzees.

In 6 months time, if any of you guys reading my post happen to be passing that way, please stop off – it’ll really help and it may be the last place to have a cool drink for many miles. There, that’s my bit of advertising for the day, and your bit of conservation work if you ever go to Uganda.

And there you have it, the main part of the day, and I guess the only part that I should really be writing about, but I need to put a big shout out (being a food lover) to Abbie and Emily, who in the evening made the BEST mash ever! And enough to fill every single one of us to the brim. Ahh, somedays it’s great to be a Handshaker. And some of us really needed that mash later on in the evening to line stomachs with for a game of ‘Ring of Fire’… Ask no more. I went to bed.

My day started with a treat of pancakes for breakfast! They were lovely; I was allowed to jump the queue for seconds. I opened my cards while we all sat on our little stools outside the truck, all the volunteers had got me a card that they had all signed, its definitely a keeper!

We started our work for the day; Greg the education leader was nice and let us all have a lazy morning. We finished off some our work and then planned our lesson that we’ll be teaching at Kasiisi School tomorrow.

Steph made me poached eggs on toast for lunch (my favourite!!) unfortunately there weren’t enough eggs for everyone, so the others still had to ha salad sandwiches, sorry guys!

After lunch we had some fun practicing our lesson on all the volunteers. We had some great monkey noises and got some really constructive feedback from everyone. I’m looking forward to going to the school tomorrow and teaching my first lesson in Uganda!

After all the running around we lost our motivation for work. So Abbie, Jade and I decided to decorate camp! My Mum had sent me a ‘party in a bag!’ So we blew up some balloons, covered the tables in confetti, made some paper chains, a big birthday banner and stuck my cards up!! Very exciting!

We then had a girly get ready with a difference…..on a truck! There were about 10 of us girls with 3 mirrors, very little make-up and a scramble for all the nice clothes! It was lots of fun, we had some tunes blasting out and everyone looked amazing!

It was then dinner time. MASH POTATO!! Thanks cook team, an amazing day of birthday food!

Some of the volunteers from Kasiisi school, Chris, Nicholas and Matt arrived and the party got into full swing!! I was so shocked when Laurence and Greg appeared with a Birthday cake!!! I didn’t expect a cake! It was Steph’s birthday last week so she had a cake too! Everyone sang happy birthday to us. I made a wish as I cut the cake, then everyone dived in, it was seriously yummy! Everyone got me a unique handshake t-shirt which was really nice. I’m going to take that round the world with me on my travels!

I share my birthday with my brother Ed, so I rang home to wish him a happy birthday and tell everyone about my day!

Then the drinks started flowing and the party went on into the night! I think that’s enough said……what happens in Uganda stays in Uganda!!

Thanks for an amazing Birthday!!

Ellie Sowerby

We woke up at 5am and went to Murchison National Park for a Safari. For many of us it was our first Safari, full of excitement. After sighting antelopes and warthogs, we stopped near the river for breakfast – expectation and excitement sweating from our pores as we gazed out at the river at hippos (well just the eyes) wallowing in front of us. Suddenly, we were surrounded by Baboons trying to steal our food! Steve had to make a dramatic entrance Indiana Jones style with his whip.

After getting back our sugar from the baboons, we carried on the safari and finally had the opportunity to see some of the great five. The park was full of buffalos, giraffes and elephants. Unfortunately we didn’t see any felines (lions) but we still had a great time admiring the Ugandan wildlife.

After the safari we started our journey back from the north to the west of the country, again on bumpy red sand roads – our destination, Hoima. Unfortunately, our journey was interrupted due to a blown tyre on our truck, so we had to stop to change it. We arrived at Hoima exhausted and hungry. Luckily, once at the hotel we had a nice buffet to celebrate Steph’s birthday and the food was delicious.

Late in the afternoon, a bus in front of us broke down and blocked the road. The bus driver was changing a tyre in the middle of the road and because of the size of the truck and the narrow road it was impossible to pass through. From a distance, I saw a couple of girls dancing and decided to approach them and ask if they could teach me some Ugandan moves. The girls were very friendly and even though I surprised them, they kindly started to show me how I should move my head, hips and arms in a Ugandan way.

Minutes after, most of the volunteers were interacting with the children. They wanted all of us to teach them to dance too. They were refusing to dance until we performed for them. Luckily we all ended up dancing ‘Macarena’ and had a fantastic time.

We arrived late at the camp site and were very tired. We had dinner and went straight to bed. Steph, Eleanor, Greg, Alasdair and Lyndsey decided to sleep outside to look at the stars beside the fire.