Wednesday 15th, evening Showcase:
This was a special evening for us volunteers, and also for the Primate Handshake staff. All 21 members have freely given a month of their lives for one purpose – to pursue, through physical presence in three locations in Kenya, our skills knowledge experience and sheer dedication to tasks to help the cause of primate conservation using digital media. Oh and we have had lots of fun too.
The evening was an opportunity for every team to show their story and their achievements, some of these being aired for the first time.
So lets recap on these amazing teams and their members:
The Video Team:
Laurence Hall a GPH director, and his team: Rosie Smith, Mike McKirgan, Laura Kearsley, Emily Turvey, Victoria Matthews, Harriet Critchley.
The Web Team:
Alasdair Davies a GPH director and his “Geek team”: Jonathan Walsh (also staff), Luke Coldman, Lucie (Bedford) Wilson.
The Education Team:
Kirsty McQueen (GPH Education Officer) and her team: Ashley Williams and Jenny Woodfine.
The Anthropology Team:
Jocelyn Murgatroyd and her team: David Rosberg, Lisa Davies and Jamie Yarger.
The Communications Team:
Gaynor Tribe (GPH Projects Co-Ordinator) and her team: me – George Petry.
The Survival Operations Team:
Steve Lloyd: driver mechanic, provisioner, fire-starter and Aussie raconteur, without whom the team would have got nowhere, and not had as much fun as they did.
Projected on to a big screen to our rapt audience, with team members giving their accounts with voice-overs and music…yup including a Meat Loaf intro, were all film clips and photos of the teams’ work. These are now finished, and being given to the various conservation organisations we have had the privilege to work with.
Certificates were given out by the GPH staff to all volunteers, as a thank you and formal acknowledgement of our membership of and contribution to this expedition.
Rosie had made up a thank you booklet, illustrated by her, signed with personal greetings from each of us, as our way of saying thank you to Gaynor, Kirsty, Alasdair and Laurence for creating this fantastic opportunity for us all.
A birthday cake with one candle for every five years was given to an embarrassed Jocelyn.
Sorry, but deliberately I am not going to write about all the wonderful things that were said by who to whom, when and why, nor their sometimes tearful reactions. Those moments of appreciation, achievement and radiance are personal to each one of us, a memory to keep and treasure. We have our photographs to look back on, the GPH website and Facebook pages to remind us of our primate conservation achievements.
We also all leave having learned a huge amount. As the oldest member of the expedition (and I know the next oldest Steve, will agree with me) I can say that I have watched you all grow in confidence, knowledge and skill. You have blossomed wonderfully, and it has been a pleasure working with you all.
Thursday 16th:
Everyone up after a lie-in…with no work to do. It’s over.
There was a gentle pleasant tension in the air as volunteers exchanged email addresses and contact details, swapped photos and just hung about. Steve got Nox totally ready for the big drive across to Uganda this afternoon. Volunteers packed and prepared to move to another part of Nairobi for a night or more, perhaps some sight-seeing etc before flying home.
David and Lisa are joining Laurence, Alasdair, Gaynor, Kirsty, Jonathan and Steve for the next stage in Uganda. Good luck and have fun David.
“That’s All Folks”, as my friend Bugs Bunny used to say, from me the journalist on this first of three stages of the 2009 Great Primate Handshake expeditions. I hand over to Kate Smith for the the second – Uganda stage.
Kate, this is without doubt the best way to keep everyone – family, friends and the curious back home and around the world, up to date with all the great things we are doing. Good luck and have fun.
George Petry
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