JGI Teacher Training Workshops Uganda

Future Workshops

2008-08-23T23:00:00.000-04:00

Future Workshops

After a successful pilot project joining JGI Canada, JGI Uganda and we three independent school teachers, it is time to look forward to 2009. It is clear that there is a great need for environmental education training for Ugandan teachers and that the JGI teacher training workshops are an effective means of providing this.

The Ugandan teachers were really grateful for the opportunity to attend the workshop and receive the new teachers' manuals and posters. Although their huge class sizes and lack of resources will make it challenging to implement some of the ideas / strategies we shared, they are keen to try them out. In a country that has not previously had thematic curriculum, many teachers are now keen to try integrating environmental issues into subjects beyond science and social studies. An important step in building a culture of conservation in youth.

Some of the participants made great suggestions for future workshops. Most notably, they suggested visiting a "model school" during the workshop to witness best environmental practices. Other ideas included more involvement of school principals, longer sessions on facilitation skills so that teachers can train others back in their community, and adding discussion time for determining how to mobilize parents and villagers to join in environmental actions.

JGI Canada will soon be undertaking a selection process for choosing a new team of Canadian teachers to return to Uganda. The 2009 partnership will endeavour to hold workshops in two districts as well as provide support for the Roots and Shoots program. Fundraising will be ongoing throughout the upcoming year. It costs approximately $5000 to provide the transportation, accomodation, and training materials needed for each workshop of 30 teachers.

A sincere thank you to all who supported this pilot project through financial contributions and the donation of needed school supplies and books. The project would not be possible without this strong Canadian support. Thank you to JGI Canada, JGI Uganda, Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary, Wild Frontiers, Gately Inn and the communities of Royal St. George's School, Toronto, University of Toronto School, and Trinity College School, Port Hope.

Emma Roche, Meg O'Mahony, and Alison Elliott

Birds of Uganda

2008-08-01T15:38:00.001-04:00

Birds of Uganda

The day before we left for Africa, I almost put my binoculars back in the cupboard. They were heavy and we’d probably be too busy to use them anyhow I thought. So, when we ended up with the top birder in Uganda as our tour guide of Queen Elizabeth National Park, there was great relief that I had thrown them in at the last minute.

The "Big Five" were nothing compared to the diversity of avian species and the phenomenal plumages, songs, and behaviours that we witnessed. In only 3 days Johnnie Kamugisha, our guide, taught us over 150 species.

Emma loved watching the Black-headed Weavers darting in and out of their hanging nests, feeding their squawking young . She also found us our first Bronzy Sunbird, a member of this neat nectar-drinking family. Meg was the key spotter of the Scaly Francolin, a really funny chicken-like species that runs about the savanna with chicks in tow. It somehow managed to avoid numerous close calls with our Land Rover.

My mission was to see as many of the unusual storks and hawks as possible. The trip did not disappoint. In fact, it blew me away. My new favourite birds include Saddle-billed Stork (top), Spoonbill (centre), Hamarkop, Crowned Hornbill, Augur Buzzard, Long-crested Eagle, and the ultimate: the Black and White Tusked Hornbill. The first time one of those flew over us at dusk as we were walking up the hill from JGI to our hotel, I think we all ducked as it’s massive wing beats fanned us and it’s "tusk" disfigured it’s silhouette in the evening sky. This was followed by a breathless cry of "what the heck was that thing?"

One morning, Emma spotted some dark shapes perched on a termite mound a few hundred metres from the track. Nothing was more surprising than to discover a female Veureux's Eagle Owl (bottom). She quickly moved up into a Euphorbia tree. Surprise - she had two young up there. They were fascinating to observe. Even cooler was realizing that they have pink eyelids!!

Uganda is an amazing place, and we were lucky to learn so much more about its diverse array of species through this experience.

QENP-Game Drives

2008-07-30T16:46:00.049-04:00

our 4 days in Queen Elizabeth National Park were surreal…

Johnnie…our guide…the world’s most amazing guide, by the way…had so much to do with our sheer delight in every moment with Ugandan nature. Johnnie…we can’t thank you enough for the experience.

This man is also is an expert on birds; I think these 4 days were Alie’s (another birdwater) idea of heaven. Alie’s going to be writing more about this,

but…I gotta’ tell you,

I always figured that those folks spitting out a name when seeing a bird fly by were just pulling my leg. It would be easy; I recognize so few birds…and I’m so *$%*#@ gullible! But…apparently it is possible…which, quite frankly, is also a little freaky…but also way cool. Johnnie and Alie talked about the birds, what the key identifying characteristics were, what the differences were. They both answered my very beginner questions with patience and a genuine interest in teaching. By the end of the trip I actually could identify a dozen or so birds. Now I’m thinking I’m being scammed by paying $600 for my bifocal (but no lines!) glasses; it is not possible for me to see those little things that they talked about: the yellow under the chin, the red line in front of the crest or other stuff. Yes...they are real…they showed me in their pictures.

NOTE TO SELF: save up for some really good (second-hand) lenses for the Nikon.

A daily treat were the baboons who hung out on the road into QENP. They had the food all figured out. The main plan seemed to be to wait for the guys taking bananas to market then grab a few for themselves.

It was pretty obvious that some of the people going by were tossing some food out for them.

After the 4 days, we got pretty fa miliar with th is group...

Brent…I can see your fascination with the ungulates! I’ve got to admit that the Ugandan Cob

became my favourite of all of the animals. My pictures can’t compare to yours at www.ultimateungulate.com, but I gave it a good try (just wait ‘till I get those lenses).

The cobs are about the size of our white-tailed deer and are positively elegant…well, except for the snorts they used to indicate danger (such as lions). Their eyes are so large and soft and the
antlers are obviously modified unicorn horns!

The larger Waterbucks kept an eye on us as we drove down the park roads.

We didn’t see a lot of Water Buffalo the first day, but then the Park seemed to be positively littered with them! Then, we ended up stopping twice to allow herds to cross the road in front of us. Cool horns (but they look very heavy)!

Check out the cattle egrets hitching
free rides!

All of the ungulates had a nice relationship with the yellow-billed ox pecker (did I get that right Alie?) who picked the ticks out of their coats…a process which looked a bit ticklish at times!

The botanist in me loved many of the plants. There were several tree Euphorbia ‘s, which I’ve only read about. They were way taller than I had expected!

Cactus tree (MUCH larger than the Euphorbia growing in my kitchen!)
with a Vervet monkey snacking on the fruits.

The papyrus swamps brought back memories of Social Studies lessons in elementary school and how the Egyptians made paper from the it.

On the morning of our 2^nd day, we came across a female lion. We’d seen a fresh kill earlier…but no predators. (They were likely hiding in one of the many thickets nearby.)

A couple of days later (story to follow) we found out that her name was Alice. She was limping...and
pregnant… but otherwise seemed healthy and pretty mellow with the whole tourist group staring at you thing. It turns out that she is one of the older lions in the park. Johnnie explained that her daughters would take care of her and bring her food from the kill.

It was around then that Johnnie began apologizing to us for us not seeing more of “The Big 5” (lions, giraffes, elephants, rhinos, hippos). I don’t think it took us too long to convince him that we were here for the experience and that whatever we saw was perfect. I forget if it was Alie or Emma who pointed out to him that if we wanted guaranteed sightings of certain animals we’d go to a zoo…not to a National Park.

The warthogs (so ugly they were cute) were almost always a mom followed by 2 little ones. Even though we were in an area of the savannah where the grasses were short, we could never see the kids until they got up to follow mom. Emma coined “the warthog train” because they would follow each other in a line...mom running in the lead and following the path with the youngsters behind her…each the same distance from the other all with their skinny rope-like tails are held straight up. Chugga, chugga, chugga….

We were mesmerized at lunch one day watching this little guy getting his own lunch (you can see some of it not quite yet in his mouth). We never really saw him move when he caught an insect; we only saw where he ended up!

The elephants came out of nowhere.

There was savannah then savannah + 3 elephants when they walked into it from behind a couple of trees. Johnnie had warned us that this would happen, but who could believe him? Such big animals being so easily hidden? At the time, we politely thought to ourselves that was nuts…no longer. This also happened in Kyambura Gorge. After splashing across a stream, 2 elephants melted soundlessly in to the (not particularly dense) forest. Magnificent animals!

…and, by the way Johnnie, Alie and Emma, the small noise I may have made was when the older elephant was looking me directly in the eye. I KNEW she was thinking that our vehicle would be nothing to her! I may have made that wee noise to let her know that we understood this – or at least I did – and that she didn’t have to prove it!

Kyambura Gorge wasn’t visible until we were practically in it! It wasn’t even particularly obvious when we pulled in to the guides’ buildings. Another surreal moment. In the middle of the dry savannah was this 18 km gorge filled with green and a noisy river at the bottom. Alie and I spotted a Black and White Bonobo chilling out in a tree beside the river before we got back into the vehicle for our trip to the entry point.

Our guide, Tom (yup…we scored a brilliant guide yet again!) strongly encouraged us to wear long sleeves and pants and use our bug juice...same as Johnnie had. I started spraying it as soon as I heard “tsetse fly”. (Hey Doc Keystone…that insect repellent you suggested is awesome!) For those of you who have not yet had the opportunity to meet these annoying creatures, just imagine deer flies and you’re pretty well there (minus a potential protist or two). Tom guided us (literally) over a fallen log to cross the river, then along to bank to where 3 chimpanzees (a female and two of her offspring) were in a tree. They were pretty mellow at this point, having found and eaten food earlier. The older offspring munched on some fruits, tossing the leftovers and unripe fruits down into the river. Towards the end of the hike, we all heard this loud splashing and ran to a nearby bridge to watch 2 huge savannah elephants cross the river…then immediately disappear into the forest. Tom had mentioned that many of the savannah animals came down to the river for water. On the way back up the gorge (using one of the trails that these animals would use) I kind of wished that Tom had given us some specific instructions on what to do if we ran into one of them! Tom had worked with the Lion project in the park for the previous 6 years, so knew the lion we had seen – and her name. He had been with the chimps for a year and was probably going to stay for another year or so. In fact, he had rescued 2 of the chimps that are now living at Ngamba island! While we drove him to the village he was staying at, he was telling us of one of his walks home (~2 km as the crow flies). He and the other guy he was with ran into 3 (hungry) lions…who immediately got up and moved toward them. Tom was pretty mellow saying that they disappeared quickly after he fired a few shots into the air (note gun in picture above). Auuugh…talk about a hazardous workplace!

We saw Zebras in Lake MburoNational Park…about ½ way between Kampala and Bushenyi. Unfortunately, our first viewing also included a herd of cattle.

Late afternoons developed their own ritual. After Johnnie brought us back to the lodge we would buy a beer and sit on our balconies…and just stare at the view of the park until it was time to take a shower (hot water only from 7-11 pm) and go for dinner.

Facilitation

2008-07-29T08:23:00.008-04:00

Facilitation
All of the teachers in the Bushenyi workshop were selected by their head-teachers (principals) to attend, with the expectation that they would then share with their peers by in their schools.
Tracy, realizing that few (if any) had any training on facilitating professional development sessions included a very solid, practical resource in the teacher binder.

This 1 hour session was a brief overview of the “how to’s” of facilitation. We spent the hour addressing the roles of a facilitator, in context of sharing some of this training with their peer teachers.

While many of the processes are similar to teaching a class, there are some major differences in working with adults, especially your peers. There is a different style in working with adults; while some of the “discipline” issues are the same (and teachers are generally the most misbehaved participants), the strategies to address them are entirely different. Adults learn best by reflecting on the learning activities so (structured) time must provided.

We spent the first ½ of the session exploring the print resource with the Why? Who? What? Where? and How? aspects of hosting a peer training session. As a result, the teachers were introduced to their resource and the basics of how to set up and run a PD session.

Then, the teachers got into small groups to role-play various situations that can arise, and how to deal with them. There was only a short time to plan and only about 2 min of presentation time. Overall, the group did a great job. They also made some reflective comments about themselves, both as participants and as facilitators, when we debriefed the activity.

This reflection came through in one of our “boardroom” debriefing sessions Thursday afternoon. Many of the teachers had already identified the room they would like to use in their own schools. When it came to resources for the session, there was a lot of discussion about wanting and needing more. Tracy shifted the focus to working with what you have, and pointed out that we had made many of our resources for this session; the shift to problem solving this issue showed some brilliant creativity! Everyone addressed the need of the lead teacher (principal) to be “on board” with both the topic and pedagogy as well as supportive of the in-service expectations. Like good teachers everywhere, each of these teachers were concerned about missing time from their own classes in order to deliver these sessions. Some really great discussion ensued about creating resources, sharing resources with schools (e.g. those that did not have chart paper), convincing the lead teacher to be a participant in the first sessions (rather than having JGI run separate sessions for them), partnering up to deliver sessions to other schools…

In terms of resources…

It would be beyond brilliant if each of the teachers could go back to their schools with the PACE and other videos that we had for our session. But, there is not the money at JGI or the Ministry of Education to provide this. Any ideas?

Cooperative Learning Session

2008-07-29T07:04:00.008-04:00

Cooperative Learning Session
I had debated for a long time about whether to pack some of the CL resources that I use for my Canadian and US presentations (e.g. Spencer Kagan's overheads for his structure) but, in the end, decided to leave them at home.
I spent Monday evening and breakfast Tuesday morning making up chart paper posters for the structures I planed to use (thanks for all the coloured makers Tracy). Good choice.

The school visits with Tracy and Jacque last week make it very clear to me that simple, hand made materials would be far more appropriate for teachers who had very few resources to work with themselves.
In addition, I totally tossed some of the plans I had made to shift to simple strategies and structures that could be done easily and successfully in large, crowded classrooms!

The teachers had already learned and practiced a couple of structures in an earlier session I facilitated on the Environment: "Numbered Heads", "Round Robin" and "Think-Pair-Share" as well as a small group activity with group sharing using a "Gallery Walk".

At the beginning of this session, I became aware of the background of the teachers (thanks for raising this Allan). Many had received some training in the basics of CL by regional coordinators (Ministry of Education) and a few had already begun implementing the basics. Allan, for example, had already rearranged his classroom so the students were sitting in groups, allowing them to face each other (as well as see the blackboard).

The CL session reinforced these structures with practice as we examined the "5 Basic Elements of Cooperative Learning" (David and Roger Johnson's work). "Numbered Heads" was debriefed for its excellence in reinforcing both Individual and Group Accountability. Role cards (modeled on those that Spencer Kagan has) were made of mounting card/paper and were used by participants for several of the activities for both this and other sessions. We talked about different grouping strategies

teacher vs student choice
academically heterogeneous or homogeneous
based on different abilities/skills (with reference to the upcoming session on MI)

and when each would be appropriate.

We finished with a discussion on how CL can be used in large (50-90 students) classes. At this point, the teachers were generally aware of how hard we had tried to become familiar with what their teaching conditions were, so their comments focused more on which structures would/would not work with their class as well as how they could be modified rather than why they could not be used. There was a typical spread between those seeing potential for the use of CL and those who were uncomfortable with it...as there is with every teacher session I have ever facilitated.
Suggestions for the larger classes included:

working with another teacher to split the class
use volunteer helpers (students, parents)
using groups of 2 (pairs) which will not require much movement, but allow for more student-student interaction and problem-solving

Overall, the group was realistically positive and willing to try some things.
Good luck everyone!
Meg

Teachering Experiential Learning and Multiple Intelligences

2008-07-23T12:24:00.004-04:00

Teaching Experiential Learning and Multiple Intelligences

What a week it has been! Last Monday, we made the long and arduous trek west from Kampala to Bushenyi for our long-awaited teacher training workshop in environmental education. After our week in Entebbe visiting schools and preparing workshop supplies, we were really excited!

Bushenyi is a tiny village, but the Anglican Church runs a community centre there and we were able to gather the 22 teachers who attended (we expected 30) in relative comfort. Local women prepared our meals each day (Meg will tell you more about this) and our days went from 7:30 a.m. to about 8:30 p.m. if the electricity lasted that long. Then we would sleep across the road at the tiny Eureka Motel following "bucket showers" from a jerry can of warm water.

Tracy, the education coordinator for JGI Uganda, had prepared a thorough and comprehensive schedule that included us presenting general teaching strategies as well as environmental education strategies. During breaks (if the electricity was working) we would show DVD's such as Jane Goodall's Wild Chimpanzees, Planet Earth series, and PACE videos which highlight environmental success stories from across Africa.

The main components of the workshop that I was responsible for were:
- the rationale for environmental education
- experiential education techniques
- multiple intelligences theory and practice
- assiting with e.e. lesson plan development

As with any workshop or conference, people tend to spend the first day assessing each other, start getting to know each other on the second day, and begin bonding thereafter. It was like this with our workshop. The 18 men and 4 women were keen teachers and very welcoming to us.

For me, I felt they really started to come out of their shells once we started the experiential education techniques. I think everyone learns well by "doing" and this group opened right up with this style of teaching / learning. It is tricky for them to utilize experiential learning in their classes when they have 60 or more students, tiny rooms, and almost no resources. But, we hope we gave them a few techniques that they can implement to increase learning. Their favourite was the "Dress an Insect" activity to teach insect parts when you don't have access to supplies or living insects. Johnson, a grade 6/7 teacher, volunteered to be the insect and everyone got really into adding found materials to him to "turn him into" an insect with all the correct parts.

An experinetial ed. strategy that is fairly widely used in North America, but not used here at all is the Solo Sit or Solo Walk. This technique doesn't teach facts, but instead allows learners to build a connection between themselves and the environment, and begin forming environmental values. When we did a solo sit activity outside with the Ugandan teachers, it was interesting to see their different reactions. Some of them sat quietly and noticed things like bird nests in trees, sounds in the air, or beautiful flowers around them. Others couldn't stand the quiet and chatted, checked their cell phones (there are no land phone lines here) or squirmed until it was over.

Later in the day we introduced multiple intelligences theory. This was the first time that any of the teachers had heard of this concept. What it entails is the idea that a person's intelligence should not be measured as smart / not smart, but as how they are smart. There are 8 intelligences: naturalistic, logical/mathematical, visual/spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal, bodily/kinisthetic, musical/rhymthic, verbal/linguistic. Each person will have a different profile of intelligences, e.g. someone could strong musically, kinisthetically, and interpersonally. A person's M.I. profile influences the way in which they learn. Traditional teaching has focussed solely on verbal / linguistic and logical / mathematical. Typically lecturing, board notes, and textbook learning.

M.I. theory influences teaching and learning by encouraging teachers to teach in ways that suit the different intelligences and learning styles, and allow the students to show their learning in ways that work with their M.I. Initially, the Ugandan teachers found this a lot to digest and weren't sure what it meant in terms of their teaching and their very large classes. After each of them underwent their own M.I. survey and figured out their own profile, there was a lot more understanding and several teachers began to advocate for using this concept in their lesson planning. I think they went home with a message that using M.I. creates diversity in one's teaching methods and ensures that no learner is left behind.

It was really cool to see one of the groups create a song as part of their e.e. lesson plan the next day and another group created an experiential lesson using real flowers collected from the wild. What I loved most about this teaching was seeing teachers get excited about the new ideas. It was very humbling though to be reminded through their questions and anecdotes that teaching in Ugandan schools is very challenging. These teachers pursue this career for the love of it.

More stories later.

Alie

We arrived in Bushenyi Teacher Training Workshop

2008-07-23T07:34:00.007-04:00

We arrived in Bushenyi for the Teacher Training Workshop!

After a 7 hour drive from Entebbe, we arrived at a community centre in Bushenyi District to set up the hall for the arrival and welcome of the teachers. Each day was packed full of information, videos, sharing opportunities and much, much more!

This is the group of 22 teachers who travelled from 5 minutes away to up to two hours away to attend the Jane Goodall Environmental Education Teacher Training Workshop. All of the teachers taught between Primary 5 to Primary 7 (equivalent to our grade 5 to 7), however, there subject of expertise varied. There were teachers who taught English, Agriculture, Social Studies, Mathematics, and Science. By the end of the workshop, the goal was to share resources with the teachers and to work together to develop lesson plans where Environmental Education could be integrated in to any of their subject areas. In doing so, we also led sessions on teaching strategies that would be useful in teaching Environmental Education as well as their specific subject areas.

Each teacher received a teachers guide and set of teaching posters filled with "ready-to-use" lesson plans to integrate Environmental Education in to each of their subject areas. This teacher guide was developed by the Jane Goodall Institute in Uganda - to match the expectations set out by the Ugandan Ministry of Education.

Tracy, from the JGI office in Uganda led all of the sessions about how the books were developed and the connection to the curriculum set by the Ministry of Education in Uganda.

Over the 4 day workshop, Alie led session on the importance of Environmental Education. Alie and Emma led a discussion on the use of Multiple Intelligence theory as a teaching strategy and how it can be used to reach all types of learners. Meg led a session on cooperative learning as well as how to facilitate a teacher training workshop to share what they have learn with their peers when they return to their schools. Alie led a session on experiential education and demonstrated through a hands on activity - "How to dress a bug?". Emma facilitated a session where the teachers took everything they had learned throughout the workshop and designed a lesson plan in their specific teaching areas - the goal was two-fold - to use a variety of teaching methods and to integrate environmental education. There will be a more in depth blog on each of these sessions.

On the third day, we all loaded in to matatus and travelled to the Kalinzu Forest Centre for a forest walk and overview of their education program for students. The forest centre staff have been trained by the Disney Foundation, in partnership with the JGI Institute to help deliver conservation education to their visitors.

Mmmmm....food!

2008-07-23T06:37:00.019-04:00

Mmmmm...food!

Alie, Emma and I have all been talking about how good we feel eating the food here. We've been promising each other that we're going to eat better and healthier when we get home...and stop getting too busy to eat properly.

Fresh food...preservative free.

The food that was prepared for all of us at Bushenyi was amazing! It was fresh, harvested very recently and cooked fresh.

Breakfast was coffee or tea, a hard boiled egg (I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed them), bread and fresh fruit...usually pineapple and a banana.

Matoki and kalo were staples at both lunch and dinner. Then there was a mix of cooked or steamed root vegetables, rice and a meat dish. Usually there was a choice: chicken or goat. Sometimes fish was also available. These were always cooked in an amazing sauce...which was called "soup". The sauce over the rice or veggies....mmmm! Usually we also had a bean dish as well as a ground nut sauce at one of the two meals; this was made from freshly ground peanuts (which are one of the crops in the region) and mixed with water. This, on rice or the veggies, is to die for.

All over Uganda, you see these large clusters of green bananas. It took me a while, but I've realized that there are WAY more than 1 kind of banana. In addition to the yellow bananas that we are familiar with in Canada (which we import from Central and South America), there are these tiny ones that have the faint tart apple taste, the ones used for making banana wine, the plantains that can be found in a number of markets. I'm sure there are more.

Matoki is made from the plantains and is a staple of most meals. The plantains are peeled, maybe mashed a little, wrapped in the large banana leaves then steamed for several hours over embers. OK...I have to admit matoki is not my favourite dish. However, it's not so bad with the ground nut sauce!

What I do like are the chapatis and kalo! Several of the teachers attending the workshop gave Emma and I instructions on how to make these. Then, I got the opportunity to pop into the kitchen to observe kalo being made.

Kalo is at ~11 o'clock on the plate.
http://pernille.typepad.com/uganda/2007/01/index.html

Now...there are some things you need to know first.

For starters..."kitchens" in rural Uganda are not the "kitchens" we have in Canada.

You'll notice the large kitchen in the picture to the right has no electronic appliances. It is a separate building...this one was made of the local clay bricks (another story...later). The windows were open, to allow the wood smoke to escape. Food is cooked over an open fire. All of our meals as well as those for another group using this site in Bushenyi were cooked over 1 fire! You'll notice the dried beans, nicely removed from their pods, are waiting to be cooked for the evening meal...in another 9 hours or so. Just above the first (woven) bowl of beans, you can see a log sticking out of a depression in the "counter". This is the "warming overn" where embers and "glowing" logs(analagous to glowing splints you science teachers) are used to slowly steam the matoki and some of the other foods.

I got to watch kalo being made for our last dinner in Bushenyi. First of all, millet was ground down to a flour (I missed this part) and mixed with equal parts of cassava flour. This was all ready in one of the woven bowls. The "cook" was the aunt of one of the young men who helped in the kitchen and in serving food. She boiled water in a large metal pot balanced on the classic 3-stone fireplace.

timinkenya.blogspot.com/.../kenyan-cuisine.html

When the water came to a boil, all of the millet/cassava flour was added at once and mixed with a wooden paddle...which looks like a meter long wooden spoon. For the first minute or so, it didn't look too tough...but THEN...the last 3 minutes or so were serious work! Once the flour mixed in, it formed a fairly stiff dough; the mixing itself started bouncing the pan around. Another of the women used a banana leaf as a potholder to keep the pot on the fire. The heat was reduced by removing one of the larger burning logs. When the kalo was fully mixed and pulled into itself (you bread and biscuit makers out there know what I mean by this) it was pulled out into two of the baskets. An identical basket was used to cover it and keep it warm. This soft, dark-coloured bread was wonderful.

The cook is the woman 2nd from the left. The man to her left is her nephew who introduced me to his aunt and help explain the details of making the kalo.

The chapatis...mmmmm. These are (at a minimum) a mix of wheat flour with some baking soda, and just enough water to make a biscuit dough. This needs to be needed a few times. A small piece is pulled off, then rolled into a circle. This is then cooked in a metal pan with a bit of hot oil. It is spun in the pan (using a finger or two) so it doesn't stick. When done, it is flipped to cook the other side. We usually had chapatis for a morning or afternoon snack. Think about this...we were 26 people and the other group was about the same size. There were enough chapatis for each person ... and some extra....and these are cooked one at a time, over the wood fire. Other things can be added to the chapits...including oil, eggs, milk (instead of water), onions....

There is a whole story about why most women spend their lives in the kitchens cooking the meals as well as taking care of the children. There is a new stove (upesi) that has been invented, here that uses less wood yet burns hotter. This could help women out a lot.

Will try to catch some computer stations at the airports as I travel home. SO much more to share with you!

Meg

We're Back from Up-country

2008-07-22T11:19:00.002-04:00

We're Back from Up-country!

The Jane Goodall Environmental Education Teacher Training Workshops last week in Bushenyi were a great success. The Canadian and Ugandan teachers all learned a lot from each other. There is definitely a need for this partnership to continue.

We've also just had an incredible 3 days in Queen Elizabeth National Park with our guide, Johnnie, from Wild Frontiers. We'll be posting many stories about our teaching and exploring in the days to come.

Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading this blog and for your messages.

Alie is off on Wednesday the 23rd for Tanzania. Emma and Meg return to Canada, leaving on Thursday the 24th.

Ngamba Island - Forest Walk with the Chimpanzees

2008-07-13T07:16:00.017-04:00

Ngamba Island – Forest Walk with the Chimpanzees

Our first “wake up” on the island…right about 6:15 am. Thank you, again, Patrick for the coffee and tea delivery at 6:30!
Over at the holding facility, we put on the green coveralls that the keepers wear when they are working with the chimps. All watches, earrings, necklaces and other dangling things had already been removed. The cameras did not come with us on this walk since we didn’t feel like donating them to the chimps as new “enrichment” playthings!

We met 8 of the female adolescents in the feeding area. We were all (chimps and human guests) a little restrained at first, but Stany and Gerald had us interacting within minutes. Nakuu was one of the first to come and meet us followed quickly by Ikuru…who immediately began to “groom” Emma. Bili was the last chimp to emerge from the walkway and immediately started to scream and assert her dominance over the rest of the group. At the first scream, Nakuu wasted no time in making a 2 m leap onto Alie, clutching her for protection. Ikuru ran around us, then between my legs figuring out that Bili was a little too large to follow her through. Fortunately for me, Bili didn't even try. After Bili left to chase one of the other girls, Ikuru clung on to my leg until she calmed down and went back to Emma to finish her grooming.

Stany called Bili over to him and started scratching and "grooming" her. As soon as she calmed down, all the other chimps resumed their inspection of their new visitors.

Then we were off. To my surprise (and delight), Bili ran over to me, and crawled up onto my back. She was a big girl to carry piggyback, but we made a great team! Stany led our hike…very creatively, I might add…some of the walk was definitely not on trail! A couple of jogs across the fire ant pathways were followed by stops to clean off any of the hanger-on ants. Fortunately, Alie and I were right behind Stany…well, fortunately for us…not so fortunately for Emma. She was carrying Pasa (who stuck close to her the whole day). By the time Emma got to the ants, they were seriously grumpy and annoyed. Needless to say Alie and I helped Stany and Gerald (the keeper who was the sweep…a hiking term for being at the back of the group) flick the angry ants from Emma’s pants and socks. Pasa watched (supervised?) while still clinging to Emma.
After a short while we stopped in a clearing for a rest. Bili, using my left calf as a step, climbed off and went for her own little walk.

While we watched the girls climb trees, chill out, play with part of a jacket (apparently they grab some of the stuff that washes up on the shore) the five of the humans had a great conversation about chimp behaviour, Uganada, Canada and life in general. We all laughed along with Bili when Stany started tickling her! She was most ticklish on her neck and just below her belly. While Bili tried to squirm away from Stany, it was SO obvious she loved every minute of the attention!

As soon as we stood up, Bili grabbed my arm so I couldn’t get away. When I stopped moving, she climbed on to my back, ready for the rest of the trip. Pasa and Nakuu were kind enough to walk back on their own, but Bili needs a lot of attention and human contact when she is out on walks. She was really sweet. I was trying to convince her that her (longer) arms would be better to move the tree branches and vines out of our way, but she seemed to think that holding one arm across my upper chest and holding my shoulder with the other arm…and ducking her head into my back…was more preferable for her.

I think I can also speak for Alie and Emma when I say that this was one of the best experiences of my life!

Thanks for the great workout Bili (this was worth 2 hours in the gym).

It's a Small World!

2008-07-13T07:06:00.005-04:00

It’s a Small World!
A very tiny island, half way around the world and Samantha Quackenbush and I meet up after 3 years! Way cool. She and Julie Hendren are traveling in Uganda for a holiday this month and we are both on Ngamba Island at the same time! We were ALL blown away by this experience!
Check out next blogs for some of the details!

See you back in Canada Sam and Julie!

A Tour of Ngamba Island

2008-07-13T07:03:00.008-04:00

A tour of Ngamba Island

When you arrive at the dock, we were welcomed by a very friendly staff. Bruce took us to an education room where he explained to us about the threats facing chimpanzees. He talked about habitat destruction due to expanding urban areas and the cutting of trees for making charcoal, poaching and the bushmeat trade, the capture of baby chimpanzees for pets or zoos, regional conflicts in areas where chimpanzees are living, and chimpanzees getting caught in snares and traps set for other game. He talked about how, through education, the situation in Uganda is improving - but it has not been erased - there is still more to be done.

We then went to the A frame to meet Patrick, our guide from Wild Frontiers. We sat and enjoyed a cup of tea or coffee while Patrick introduced us to the island. This is where we ate breakfast, lunch and dinner. We then went to see the 2:30pm feeding - I will tell you more about this later.

Patrick then showed us to our tents where we were able to unpack and get ready for the feeding. We met Fred, the veteranarian on Ngamba Island, and he talked to us about how we felt about meeting the chimpanzees, our thoughts about our stay in Uganda as well as our thoughts about conservation.

Fred invited us up to see how the evening feeding differed from the morning and afternoon feedings. We helped to mix the porridge (for the older chimpanzees and the milk for the baby chimpanzees). The older chimpanzees are fed from a metal bowl and the babies (Mac and Afrika) were fed from a cup. The older ones would take the bowl and feed themselves while the younger ones would need you to hold the cup for them - however, sometimes, they gave you a hand - reaching through and tipping the cup up. When I was feeding Mac, he reached through and rubbed my chin - I think I must have had some dirt there. In this picture, you can see Fred tickling Afrika. The chimpanzees like to be tickled and are especially ticklish around their neck.

Ngamba Island Caretaker for a Day Program

2008-07-13T06:57:00.006-04:00

Ngamba Island Caretaker for a Day Program

Our journey to Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary has been a once-in-a-lifetime experience! The kindness shown to us by the chimpanzee caregivers and vet, the hospitality of the Wild Frontiers staff at our luxury tent camp, and the interactions we had with the chimpanzees have all made for a thrilling weekend.

Ngamba Island C. S. is a rescue centre for orphaned chimpanzees and others who have been confiscated from poachers or illegal markets / homes. Because chimpanzees are a complex species with intricate social systems, it is vital that they live in social communities and feed on their natural diet. N.I.C.S. is doing a wonderful job of rehabilitating these animals and providing them with as close to a natural life as possible. None of the animals will be able to be released into the wild due to their familiarity with humans and their enormous strength as adults. Chimpanzees have a 50 year lifespan. The oldest chimp on Ngamba Island is 24 years old.

One of the most informative and exhilarating experiences while we were there was taking part in the Caretaker for a Day program. Emma and I joined this program to learn as much as we could about chimpanzee conservation and biology and to interact closely with the staff.

We were thrown into the thick of things the first evening by helping prepare the evening meal of millet porridge. The chimps spend the day roaming, feeding, and playing in the forest and then around 6 to 6:30 p.m. return to the holding area where they are fed and monitored. The adult chimps all put their arms out the bars of the holding area to receive a bowl or two of the porridge, which they happily drink up. On certain evenings they also receive a cob or corn, an egg, or green beans. Even more thrilling then feeding the adults, was preparing and feeding milk for the two babies, Afrika and Mac. They are kept in a separate area and do not go out into the forest or mingle with the adult community yet. With big eyes they reached through the bars to us and held our hands or touched our faces while we held cups of milk for them to drink.

On Saturday, after our forest walk, Emma and I were given brooms and spent an hour helping to clean out the holding facility now that the chimps had left for the forest for the day. Working with the men was fun and they enjoyed telling us stories about the chimps and about their time on the island.

After breakfast, we went to help prepare the food for the 11 a.m. feeding. We weighed and chopped 8 kg of bananas, 8 kg or cassava, 10 kg of papaya and 10 kg of jackfruit. The jackfruit here are ENORMOUS, e.g. 20 kg each, and are the hardest things in the world to chop. And disgustingly gucky! However, this is one of the prized foods of the captive chimpanzee (Ficus species are the natural preference) as we saw when we went to feed them. The animals come to the fence at the forest edge when it is snack time. The food is thrown down to them from the observation platforms. This time is a good time to see many of the interesting social dynamics within the population. Often, Mika, the alpha male would reassert his dominance with the other males if they came near his preferred females or took food that he wanted.

During the afternoon, we prepared food for the 2:30 p.m. feeding, this time mostly vegetables: 5 kg carrots, 5 kg tomatoes, 8 kg eggplant, 8 kg pineapple. It was really cute to watch them eat the carrots. Many of them, already full on the other vegetables, would lie down on their backs, gather as many carrots onto their laps as possible, and then carefully nibble away at them. Others would stuff a carrot in between each toe and walk back into the forest to savour them later.

The last duty we did as caretakers was to entry daily observation records into the computer. A journal is kept for each chimpanzee (they are all named) and when there is time or extra people around, the logs are entered. We chose to enter the journal for Billi, an eight or ten year old female who came with us on the morning forest walk. We recorded the records from January 1st, 2008 to present and it was fascinating to learn more about chimpanzee behaviour.

We will have many more details of our time on Ngamba Island when we return home. We were pleased to be able to help out in a small way, and in doing so to learn so much.

Alie

Photos of Entebbe Tuesday Market

2008-07-11T03:56:00.008-04:00

Photos of Entebbe Tuesday Market

Tuesday evenings in Entebbe, is the Market!

As Alie mentioned in an earlier blog, Carol took us to explore the market this past Tues.

Here are some of the photos of our experiences....

Our first glimpse of the market

Just about anything you want!

and more!

fresh fruit is offered in many, many stalls

the market at night

Pictures from our visit to St. Theresa's Primary School in Entebbe

2008-07-11T03:43:00.006-04:00

Our Visit to St. Theresa's Primary School

The follow pictures are from our meeting with the staff. We talked about the similarities and differences between schools in Uganda and schools in Canada. The children are reciting a poem that they performed for Dr. Jane Goodall when she was here last week.

The following pictures are of the students who wrote the messages that we posted earlier in the blog. They were very excited to send messages back to Canada.

Roots & Shoots...and partnerships in Kampala

2008-07-10T10:01:00.012-04:00

Roots & Shoots...and Partnerships in Kampala

Another day in the big city!

OK...driving on the roads of Uganada is NOT the same as driving in Ontario. The main roads are set up to have 2 lanes (remember, people drive on the opposite side than in Canada). However, it is not particularly unusual to see the cars, trucks, vans, matatus (~12 passenger van buses) arranged in 4 lanes and have the boda-boda's (small motorized bikes that transport 1 passenger at a time) weaving in and around the others. When in Kampala...you add on the pedestrians...who have no fear of of the traffic...yet don't seem to get hit! I've decided that it's all one big game of "road chicken"; the car or van that does NOT stop is the one that gets to make the turn or continue on the road. We were very happy to have Ismael driving!

JGI Uganda has received a small amount of money to run a program for girls. They are planning to collaborate with the Ugandan Youth & AIDS Alliance to develop a workshop to train (female) student councillors/mentors for 50 schools. The focus is on girls, HIV-AIDS and preventing girls from dropping out of school (even by providing sanitary materials since many washrooms are open). The UYAA has the experience with this type of youth training.
Good luck Jacque and Rachel!

Jacque explained the origins of Kampala to us as we drove to our first school. Originally it was settled on 7 hills (the place is ALL hills and valleys!) with unique buildings/sites on each hill. For example, one hill held all the government offices, one the Catholic Church, one the Mosque, etc. Now, however, it is a city of many hills as it is experiencing the urban sprawl that many of our Canadian cities (Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver). It is now a city of 77 hills!

The Kasubi Primary School was established in 1936. It is located right by the historical Kasubi Tombs where the Buganda kings are buried. This school joined up with Roots and Shoots in May and already they have completed projects and reported back to Jacque! They have cleaned up an area and planted a beautiful garden which they continue to keep clean. In addition, they spend time keeping the area around the Kasubi tombs clean. The Roots & Shoots club, made of Primary (P) 5, P6 and P7 students (equivalent to grades 5-7) hosted us in an outdoor classroom. Jacque talked about the Roots & Shoots program and told the students how amazing they were to have accomplished so much so quickly. She made a nice link between how they care for their pets and domestic animals to the whole concept of a caring community. The teacher shared pictures she had taken of the students cleaning their school area; the students worked hard without fancy equipment to clean the area, plant the trees and other plants. Several of the P7 students shared a poem with us that they had written called “The House Fly”. The 7 students spoke the poem in unison with actions. We chuckled when they said the House Fly was fair with everyone in sharing the germs it had picked up from the latrines!

Our second school was Kalinaabiri Secondary School where we met with their Roots & Shoots club and their teacher advisor Mr. Opolot. The students wore two different colours of uniforms: students in S1-S4 (about grades 8-10-11) wore blue, while the S5 and S6 students wore green.

This school and UTS (Meg’s school) in Toronto are piloting the first “Partnership in Understanding” where students will communicate with each other over the internet and possibly by snailmail as well. Meg chatted for a bit about the idea of sharing the cultures of the two schools. She described the diversity of the student body of UTS (and Toronto). Mr. Opolot and Ms O will e-mail each other and set up some of the parameters of the conversations, and will probably also provide some suggestions for topics to write about. The Ugandan students were interested in finding out about :The art class was preparing for an art show this weekend.Following an oral report from the club to Jacque…and a stern reminder from Jacque to put it in writing and send it to her…we left.

Kinds of plants and crops grown in Canada and could they grow in Uganda
How to use the internet in Education
How supportive the school (UTS) is to the Roots & Shoots club
What our dress code is
What our students eat and how we prepare our food
Whether we teach about Uganda (did you know that Ugandan students study Canada both in S2 and S5?)
Environmental issues

The art class was preparing for a show this coming weekend:

We dropped in at the Kalinaabiri Primary School right next door for a moment to leave some materials and for Jacque to speak with the Roots & Shoots teacher.

As we left the school area, we passed through about 500m of a very poor area of 1 room shacks, with just curtains for doors. This kind of juxtaposition was common in the city. We would see nice buildings on the hills then very poor areas in the (damp) valleys between the hills.

After a lunch break, we visited Nsambya primary school. This school is both a day and a boarding school. The teacher had assembled his Roots & Shoots club of P3, P4 and P5 students for one of Jacque’s Mobile Education sessions. Jacque has a great touch with students…she is very positive towards all of their answers and gets them very interested in answering her questions and prompts. The students were attentive, interested and paid attention…note this, Canadian kids! She talked with the students moving from very concrete questions about their school compound (e.g. what they did to make it look nice, how to be supportive of each other, how to act when you see someone bullying someone else…) to develop the concept of community and how everyone is involved in a good, positive community. Then she got the students to think of problems with urban communities, quickly moving them to the nasty smells of garbage and poorly maintained outdoor latrines. Then we all watched a video segment “Urban Living-Recycling Rubbish”. This video was made about Nairobi, a city of more than 2 million people which has only 1 official dumpsite. What we all liked was the positive message the video gave. Instead of going through all of the problems, it focussed on a man, Andrew, who set up a group to recycle urban wastes into something that could be sold. The organic wastes were made into compost and food for livestock while the inorganic wastes were ingeniously converted into mattresses, furniture and charcoal briquettes (using charcoal dust, liquid and some glue).
After a great question and answer session Jacque continued with other videos that addressed Urban Greening (which she pointed out to the students how well they had done this with their own compound area), Recycling Plastic (focussing on a women’s group in South Africa which makes mats, bags and hats from plastic bags), Ecosan Toilets (a really innovative idea stared in Dar es Salaam, which recycles the separated urine and feces into fertilizer. The toilet doesn’t smell and it can be brought inside the houses rather than using pit latrines) and Recycling Paper (showing a school that makes paper maché toys, boxes and furniture). The teacher at this school had come up with the idea of how to make bulletin boards from old paper – a cool idea all 3 of us are going to do back in Canada.

The Nsambya primary Roots & Shoots Club
Asked to start a partnership with another (Alison’s) school which can be a 2nd “Partnerships in Understanding” pilot school
Wanted to say to Canadian students

"Greetings”
“Good luck”
“Help the environment”

We shared school stuff, T-shirts and a Frisbee (with the secondary school) with the schools we visited and took lots and lots of pictures! Several of the secondary boys jumped at the opportunity to use Alie’s camera and came up with some pretty awesome photos.
Back to Entebbe, to JGI, stuffing envelopes, setting up binders for our workshop next week…and writing blogs!
Friday? Ngamba Island and chimpanzees!

Bye for now

Meg, Emma, Alie

A few pictures from our adventures!

2008-07-10T09:50:00.006-04:00

From our visit to the Uganda Wildlife Education Centre

Crested Crane (The National Bird of Uganda), The Shoebill Stork, Chimpanzees

Vervet Monkeys

Scents of Uganda and Other Sensations

2008-07-09T09:57:00.006-04:00

Scents of Uganda and Other Sensations

Africa bombards ones senses and stimulates the mind. Tuesday night, Carol took us to the night market in the Katoro neighbourhood of Entebbe. Then, on Wednesday and Thursday we made the trek into Kampala. Wednesday, we went with Tracy to pick up supplies for our workshops and shop at the craft markets. Thursday, we visited the Uganda Youth AIDS Alliance and four schools. Wow! Now we're back at JGI tired but happy.

Scents of Uganda
- charcoal smoke lightly scents the Entebbe air from cook stoves in many homes
- thousands of cars in Kampala belch black fuel into the heavy air
- fresh coffee aromas float across the open air dining room at Gately Inn
- clouds of floral perfume waft towards us as we walk along each street

Sights of Uganda
- lantern lights flicker among the goods at the night market, wavering as people pass
- orange, fuschia, red, and yellow flowers explode from the hedge rows
- Marabou storks as tall as children stand on tree tops or soar overhead
- red clay roof-tops cover each hill making a mosaic of patterns between the acacia trees

Sounds of Uganda
- a muezzin sings the Islamic call to prayer at 5:30 his voice ringing out over the city
- the pied kingfishher's call reaches our ears sounding like a kazoo or squeeling firecracker
- calls of "mzungu, mzungu" (white person, white person) follow us wherever we go
- dogs "talk" to each other throughout the night while cricket songs fill the air

Tastes of Uganda
- we savour a "rolex" (rolled cassava flour crepe cooked with egg on top) at the night market
- a local women makes curried rice, pumpkin, sweet potato, ground nut paste and spicy cabbage and bean salad for all of us at JGI each day at lunch
- fresh mango or passionfruit juice greets us each morning
- fried bananas with ice cream is a dessert we are dying to try but have not yet been able to have

Touches of Uganda
- moist air reaches our faces as we walk down the hill to JGI each morning
- our cozy beds envelope us as snuggle down each night under our mosquito nets
- we shake hands with teachers in the traditional three part hand-shake

Our senses delight!

Alie

Interesting Conversations with Teachers

2008-07-08T09:54:00.002-04:00

Interesting Conversations with Teachers

Today during our visit at St. Theresa Primary School, I was talking with a Primary 7 class about environmental issues in Uganda when a nearby teacher asked my opinion about using food for fuel. I was very amazed with the question as most people with whom we have talked believe forestry and water issues are the biggest concerns. Together we talked to the students about the idea of turning corn or other crops into ethanol for the purposes of generating energy.

The teacher had heard on BBC Radio about the controversy surrounding this and he is very concerned about the impact this could have on world food supplies, and particulary on exports of grains to needy African countries. We talked about ways of producing more sustainable energy that don't involve converting vast areas of land to fuel production instead of food production. I also added that we "greedy" North Americans need to reduce our extraordinary energy consumption and stop using so much much energy-guzzling stuff!

A neat outcome of the conversation was that the students learned about wind energy for the first time. I was listing a few ways of making renewable energy when a boy put up his hand to ask how we can get electricity from the wind. I described the turbines and used a nearby tree as a scale to demonstrate how tall they can be. The students exclaimed with eyes huge with amazement and there were many thrilled voices chattering about the idea. A wonderful teaching moment!

Looking foward to more neat conversations in the coming days...

Alie

Primary School Visit in Entebbe

2008-07-08T09:07:00.003-04:00

Primary School Visit in Entebbe

Today, Tracy took us to visit St. Theresa's Primary School to meet the teachers and to sit in on some classes. Meg visited a P5 History Class, Ali visited a P6 Math class and a P7 Science class and Emma visited a P6 Science class and a P4 Social Studies class. In each case, we noticed a number of similarities in the curriculum as well as a similar structure to the school day. The Ugandan government is in the process of introducing a new thematic approach to education and the new curriulum has already be released from P1 to P3. One of the main differences was the number of students in each class. The government of Uganda has set a ratio of 1 teacher for every 55 students which is a significant reduction from the previous situations where classes could have a ratio of up to 1 teacher to every 200 students.

After we visited the classes, we returned to the staffroom where we met with the teachers to answer questions about our classrooms in Canada. The Wildlife Club came in to present a poem, written by the teachers at the school, about protecting Chimpanzees. The students had performed in front of Jane Goodall last week at a special environmental youth day celebrating the 10th anniversary of Ngamba Chimpanzee Sanctuary. We are hoping to post a copy in the coming days.

As we were leaving, many students from P6 and P7 (similar to grade 6 and grade7) brought us messages they had written for us to give to our Canadian students. We have selected a few and included them (as they were written) below:

My name is Mwebaze Junior Daniel. I am 14 years old. I am in standard seven in the school called St. Theresa's Primary School. My message I send to you people in Canada. I would like you to conserve the environment by planting trees, flowers which will control soil erosion. In Uganda I am also doing the same to conserve the environment. When I do this, I get many things like rainfall, shade, fruits and also I am a member of Wildlife in Uganda. I conserve the environment because I like animals which live in the forest like chimps, monkeys, baboons, etc.

My name is Nsamba Stephen. I am 14 years old. I am in standard seven. My message to you people in Canada from me is to practice sanitation and join the Red Cross Society to save people's lives.

Hello. My name is Omara Allan. I am 13 years old. I am in standard seven and my school's name is St. Theresa's Primary School. In our school we play different games like football, volleyball, netball and many others. My favourite game is football and I enjoy playing with my puppies.

My name is Angella Alowo. I am 12 years old. I am in standard seven. I love caring for plants that bear flowers mainly because I really love flowers. I also like reading interesting story books and taking care of babies.

My name is Ssekandi Edrine. I am 14 years old. I am in standard 7. I'm interested in playing football and planting trees in our compound because they provide us with shade and they make the compound to look nice with fresh air.

My name is Matovu Michael. I am in primary seven. I am 12 years old. Please I would like to know more about your climate in Canada. My best diet is meat and rice. My best colour is green. I live in Kampala City. Is your climate as cool as ours in Africa? I would be grateful if you reply my request. I remain yours Matovu Michael

My name is Waiswa N Daniel Trevor. I am 12 years old and I am also in standard seven. I go to St. Theresa's Primary School. It is located in Uganda near the airport and the zoo (UWEC). I like conserving the environment. I have endeavoured to do so by joining the wildlife club of our school. We have gone to many wildlife conservation places in Uganda. I encourage you to also conserve your wildlife.

And this last one, we felt we had to include. We had finished our visit at the and were on our way back to the Jane Goodall Institute (quite a distance from the school) when we heard someone running up behind us. Patience, a little girl from primary 6, had not been able to hand her letter in before we left and did not want to miss the opportunity to share her message.

Dear My Friend,
Hello. How are you in your country? I'm glad to write this letter. Thank you very much for whatever you have done. May God bless you so much.
Your faithful, Mutesi Patience.

It was a good day!

Emma, Ali and Meg

Monday...so far

2008-07-07T08:00:00.008-04:00

This morning Alie, Emma and I were brought up to date on the educational program of the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) here in Uganda and the Roots & Shoots program that is facilitated by Jacque. These two are miracle workers...never again am I going to complain about how much work I have! (Michaele...you didn't read this part).

The JGI education program is divided into formal and informal sections.

The Formal Education involves:

development of materials (such as the Teacher's Guide: Integrated Environmental Education Lessons within the Ugandan Primary School Curriculum...for Primary 5 and for Primary 6 & 7)
materials distribution (to schools)
education programs geared towards teachers and tutors (such as the one we will be facilitating next week with primary 5, 6 and 7 teachers)

P.S. Primary 5,6 and 7 is about our grades 5, 6 and 7.

The Informal program involves

Roots & Shoots
Forest Education

There are two Forest Education sites that JGI Uganda have been involved with: Budongo (newer and further north) and Kalinzu (south-east, close to where we will be working next week). These are both along the rift valley, and both are part of and managed by the National Forest Authority. Budongo (built with financial assistance from Disney) has been in existence for only 2-3 years yet has already had 2000 students participate in the programs. Kalinzu is older (3-4 years) and was built by the Japanese; this site has seen some 4000 students!

JGI Uganda teaches their material to the National Forest Authority which then delivers it to the various school groups. Students from rural schools spend a half day at the site. JGI pays for all of the transportation costs for the students. The Kalinzu site focuses on primary 5 students from 12-15 schools. In each session, students go on a forest walk with a facilitator then they participate in a number of Environmental activities. JGI has the workshops designed so that students fill out a pre- then post-questionnaire ...followed by another post-questionnaire 6 months later. The results are showing some nice improvements in Environmental awareness among the students. In addition, Tracey has received anecdotal feedback on the positive effect that the environmental sessions have on the students back in the classroom: they are more involved in class. Additional results indicate that illegal tree cutting has been reduced in the areas where the students return to and that more people are acquiring the proper licences to cut trees.

JGI materials have been sent to 2000 schools located between the two Forest Education sites. About 265 different schools have participated in the workshops.

The Ugandan Educational System is set up differently from that in Canada. There is a Ugandan Education Ministry that sets the curriculum for the whole country. There are Centre Coordinating Teachers (CCT's) that report directly back to the Ministry of Education. Then, various District Education Offices coordinate the schools and deliver materials, etc. Teachers are responsible to these. So, in a sense, education itself is more decentralized than in Canada or Ontario.

Jacque coordinates the Roots & Shoots program for Uganda. For those of you unfamiliar with Roots & Shoots, it is a JGI program that is really about empowering youth around the areas of Community, Animal Welfare and the Environment. This program has been in place in Uganda since Jacque joined JGI in spring 2006. Already there are 96 groups functioning around the country! There are several Ugandan organizations which have student clubs, the most useful of which have been the Wildlife Clubs. The Wildlife Clubs have been involved in recommending schools for participation in Roots & Shoots. Jacque then runs introductory workshop for teachers to familiarize them with the program and to train them in the leadership skills needed to facilitate student development of the clubs. Each club completes an activity report form(s). The submission of these is a good indication of whether the club is active or not. New, active clubs then receive more materials to help them develop further. There is a second level workshop for teachers where they learn about practical activities that they can use with their students. Jacque shared some really amazing stuff with us here...

tip taps are hand washing stations beside the outdoor toilets which are made of only rope, twigs and a jerrycan. These are designed so the jerrycan tips water out when a person steps on the rope (therefore there is no need to touch the can with dirty hands). Hygiene is improved.

herbal and vegetable gardens are planted by schools providing food ... and flavourings for food.

one school here in Entebbe makes bulletin boards out of used and discarded paper. These are brilliant! (UTS...get ready to try these out!)

Jacque is currently planning more workshops for both teachers and students. In addition, she is out visiting schools regularly and multiple times.

She has some great positive feedback for active clubs, students and teachers consisting of annual certificates for each active group, certificates for the most active student, the most active teacher, T-shirts and bags. In addition, active groups can receive small grants (from donor funds) for some of their projects.

Right now, the Roots & Shoots students range from ages 5-16 years. Most clubs are in the primary (elementary for us) schools although there are currently 3 secondary schools involved.

Groups are encouraged to make their first activity an observational one to find out issues that exist around their schools. In addition to the individual school initiatives, Jacque provides a suggested activity for each term that all Roots & Shoots clubs can be involved in. The 1st term is Community, the 2nd is Animal Welfare and the 3rd is the Environment. The most recent community activity was for students to think about their own totem and how it affects what they do. In Ugandan culture, people are born into a clan and each clan has a totem. Jacque's is the monkey, so she is not to harm monkeys in any way. The students then write their reflections and send them in to Jacque; she will be collating these for distribution.

This is not all the woman does. Mobile Education involves bringing JGI's video player to different schools to show different videos, especially about what is happening in other areas of Africa.

On top of all of this, Jacque is developing a peer councilling program for girls that will be linked to HIV. This will involve training girls (she is thinking that 2 girls plus 1 female teacher from each school) to work with other girls in their schools around HIV and other issues that keep girls out of school e.g. lack of money to buy sanitary supplies. Ideally, this will also be linked to TESO (Health organization) so that girls who are at high risk for having HIV could be tested and supported.

It is beyond amazing what a couple of dedicated women in an organization like JGI can do for others. Whew! ...and this was only the morning!

We ate lunch with the JGI staff...Ugandan food...yum! Avocado salad, a peanut paste dish, beans, potatoes with some incredible sauce and rice. Wonderful.

The afternoon saw us working on the blog, sharing our materials with Tracey and working through the workshop outline.

Tomorrow, we visit a local school in the morning...then keep going! What a brilliant learning opportunity this it.

I'm of to watch some cool videos on the environment that we will be showing to our teachers next week.

Written by Meg (on behalf of Alie and Emma too)

Photo of the 3 of us in front of the Elder Tree

2008-07-07T07:53:00.003-04:00

We're Here

2008-07-06T10:20:00.002-04:00

We've Arrived!

After 2 1/2 days of long, long travel, we've safely arrived. We've landed ourselves at the best bed and breakfast, The Gately Inn, a new place in Entebbe. Love it!

We were really glad to meet Carol and Tracy from JGI Uganda last night when they joined us for dinner. They gave us a great intro to the country and it's many intracacies. We begin going through our workshop stuff, stuffing workshop packages, etc. early Monday morning.

After a long and much needed sleep last night, we spent the afternoon today at The Ugandan Wildlife Education Centre. Fabulous! We've taken an extraordinary number of pictures already - gorgeous close-ups of vervet monkeys including a mom feeding her tiny baby. Some of our favourite things were the gorgeous crowned crane with its "sparkler" feathers on its head, the medicinal gardens with its plethora of healing plants, the crazy shoebills with the beak that looks like a mask and seemingly too heavy to hold up, and Meg is super pumped to have finally seen a duiker in the wild (Brent - I remembered what you worked on in Africa) We finished up with a nice cold Fanta on the shore of Lake Victoria!

We dropped in at the JGI and had a nice chat with Carol on their balcony with a prime view over the lake. We also met a really nice student from the US who's studying STD's in chimpanzees and the potential implications for fertility and its effect on population dynamics. We look forward to meeting Debby Cox, the executive director, who is currently "up country" visiting with folks from Disney! So cool! We were sad that we missed Jane Goodall, herself, by only a few hours. She was here for the 10th anniversary of the Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary where we are going on Friday. The sanctuary hosted a chimpanzee conservation workshop under the theme "preserving our heritage and protecting our closest relatives" where Jane gave the keynote address. Wish we could have been there.

Now back to our Inn to try more of the delicacies on the fabulous menu and recline on the couches in the open-air porch. Life's rough! Thinking of all of you... Wish you were here.

More to come!

Meg, Emma, and Alie

I can't believe it's only hours away now!

2008-07-03T00:31:00.008-04:00

I can't sleep! I can't believe that in only a few hours I'll be on my way to Uganda. WOW...what an opportunity...thanks again for forwarding that e-mail James!
Packed? nope...but I will be.
I am so looking forward to all the new people I'm about to meet, to working with Emma and Alison...to Uganda! Alison, Emma and I got to know each other quite well over e-mail so it was great to actually meet with them face-to-face...was that only last week? I think we're going to make a really good team.

In 8 days, I'm going to be on a forest walk with rescued chimpanzees...the reason for the extra TB test, measles, etc. vaccine and meningitis vaccine. I'm dreaming about this already.

gotta remember to pick up the T-shirts on the way to the bus!
...and yes, Rick and Tony, I'll fill out the application on my 12 hour layover in London...I promise!

We're Off

2008-07-02T11:15:00.001-04:00

We’re Off!

In less than 24 hours, Meg and I are off by bus to Buffalo where we’ll take to the air for our marathon 2 day journey to Entebbe. It’s the milk run of air travel: Buffalo – Chicago – London – Dubai - Entebbe! Emma follows on Friday, jumping off from the U.S. eastern seaboard to Addis Ababa and then Entebbe. Amazingly, we all get there within one hour of each other!

Packing and last minute details are taking up most of our last days in Canada. Things like watch batteries and emergency supplies of duct tape seem to take on enormous significance. More importantly, getting enough $US in 50’s and 100’s newer than 2000 and making sure our immunizations are well documented have been our main focus.

We’d like to thank everyone who donated school supplies and books for us to take to support the Ugandan school system. Each item will help.

The next time you hear from us, picture us on the shores of Lake Victoria, slightly jet-lagged but enjoyed the warm, humid African air.

Alie

Our Trip at a Glance

2008-06-29T23:08:00.007-04:00

July 5th - Arrive in Entebbe, Uganda

July 7th - Meet Educators; Tour Schools; Prepare Workshops
July 10th

July 11th - Visit Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary
July 13th

July 14th - Environmental Education Teacher Training Workshops,
July 17th Bushenyi, South-western Uganda

July 18th - Explore Queen Elizabeth National Park
July 22nd

July 23rd - Alison departs for Tanzania

July 24th - Meg and Emma depart for Canada

July 29th - Alison departs for Canada