When I first arrived in Ruhengeri (recently renamed Musanze) I struggled to find an outlet for physical exercise to help release the intensity I feel here and cope with the amount of work which needs to be done. As I’ve described, we start art classes with breathing exercises and yoga. Physical activity helps me stay balanced.

The only way to hike in the forest here - where the mountain gorillas live - is with a Rwandan military escort, so I would have been in trouble had I decided to try it. Otherwise, the landscape here is farmed and busy with people.

When my mom, sister, and brother-in-law arrived from the United States for a visit, they brought along a few tennis rackets and tennis balls. I’ve played tennis on and off for years and it’s a sport I love. I knew there were two clay courts within a five-minute walk from my house. So off we went.

I noticed two of my young neighbors, Valence and Jean Bosco, timidly following us. Once at the courts, my mom and sister encouraged them to join us and handed them each a racket. They started hitting away with considerable ability considering this was the very first time they held a tennis racket. My mom later noticed a home-made racket in my neighborhood. One of the kids had made it using a stick as the handle and a plastic lid from a discarded tin can as the rim and what looked like wire for strings.

Tennis has become part of life for me here since my family’s visit, and part of life for 13 kids. I decided to arrange tennis lessons for Valence and Jean Bosco and eventually, 11 other neighborhood kids. They are coached by Rachid and Elysee every Saturday and Sunday. I also play several times a week, when not in class or trying to do my own art or in my office.

As you may have read on Dr. Lucy’s blog, I managed to hook her into tennis, too. She hadn’t played in years and has told me that she looks forward to each chance to play in Ruhengeri. Now the newest vet to join the team,
Dr. Magdalena, is taking lessons with her 4-year old daughter every weekend. The only thing that stops Lucy or Magdalena is a sick gorilla or the rain. For the kids, they are ready to play rain or shine.

Some of the team.

On a trip to the US, I took a lesson from Coach Bunny Bruning and together met with John Terpkosh. They were thrilled to hear I’d gotten the kids started and excited about tennis. They submitted a proposal to the USTA (United States Tennis Association) on our behalf for a grant to pay for tennis equipment and as a result, all the children have new tennis shoes, rackets, t-shirts, and more.

Jean Baptiste is the ballboy and Rachid is the head coach at Ruhengeri Tennis Club. As you can see, we are all very excited with the ball-hopper we received from USTA.

The ball-hopper is easy for the kids to carry to and from the courts, but this new and super cool ball-cart is another story. Dr. Lucy (Gorilla Doctors) a tennis player and regular player with the kids, gave the children her padlock and chain to store the ball-cart in the tennis ’shack’, but Jean Baptiste said it would surely be stolen over night. We hope the shack will be rebuilt with a door and this way the ball-cart can stay in there overnight safely.

Art of Conservation’s art instructor, Eric MUTABAZI, asked me if his two children, Hassan and Zawadi, could join the team. Zawadi was the first girl to join the team! And just last week, we added another two, Clementine and Gentille. Go girls!

Zawadi, in the middle, shows her two new teammates some tennis drills.

Coach Elysee introduces Gentille to the basics.

So what does tennis have to do with art and gorillas and conservation? I have watched each of these kids develop a sense of responsibility and respect for each other that they didn’t have when we started. They have also gained a new skill, and a sense of community. Each started as a clumsy kid fumbling around with a ball and racket. Now they’re a group of 13 kids who are having fun together; each feels they are a member of a team. Additionally, it doesn’t take long to find astounding role models in the world of tennis like Martina Navratilova - these kids haven’t had a chance to watch tennis on T.V - but they know many of the names of players. Martina Navratilova was the supreme player on the court, but look what she is doing off the court…helping rhino’s in Africa, involvement in the arts, and champion for equal human rights. Kind of takes my breath away! So YEAH to tennis and bravo to my mom and my sister for getting the kids - and me - on the court and thanks to Bunny, John, Andy Susanin, and USTA for the awesome support.

These young tennis players painted their own designs on T-Shirts.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have Coach Bunny along with Martina, John McEnroe, Roger Fedderer, Serena and Venus Williams, Maria Sharapova, Justine Henin-Hardenne, Rafael Nadal and all the other incredible players here? We’d certainly have the whole town playing.

Julie

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Valerie, Eric, Fahad and I are preparing to give a geography/evolution lesson to our
Art of Conservation students. We won’t be teaching from a text book, however. We will teach in a more creative way using a special prop, one that looks like Planet Earth. But who can make this for us in Rwanda? Alphonsine, of course! Alphonsine lives in Kinigi, near Parc National des Volcans where she works out of her home, making all kinds of things from dried banana leaves. I doubt any one has ever asked her to create a big round ball. Eric used an inflated plastic tennis ball to show Alphonsine an example of what we want, explaining that we’d like her to make something similar but of dried banana leaves and BIG, but not too big that it can’t fit into the back of my truck.

Eric shows Alphonsine an inflated plastic tennis ball, a model of the future Planet Earth to be made of dried banana leaves.

Alphonsine made over 200 frames for our latest art exhibitions held in December 2007.

An artist is standing in front of the art which is displayed using frames made by Alphonsine.

And here is Samantha standing in front of some art a few months ago!

A close-up view of the labor-intensive work.

I met Alphonsine over a year ago. Since then, I’ve hired her to make various things for me, all out of banana leaves of course. She makes mats and frames, boxes, and baskets. If I surprise her with a large order, she’ll often hirer other banana weavers to help her. I recently asked her to make me a set of mats to use to hang some of our artwork. When I explained that I needed ten 3.5 foot x 3.5 foot square panels - and soon - she responded as usual with smiles and laughs. At that point, Alphonsine grabbed my hand and led me to her workspace saying something in Kinyarwanda that I couldn’t understand. Valerie translated. Alphonsine was just letting me know that this type of work takes time. She also had to find especially long banana leaves for these mats. Who knows what she’ll need for the Earth.

Making the big square panels requires especially long and hard to find banana leaves.

Until next time,
Julie

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Recently, Art of Conservation welcomed Dr. Magdalena to Nyabigoma Primary School.

Dr. Magdalena Braum is MGVP’s Regional Field Veterinarian. She delighted the children by demonstrating how chimpanzees use tools (stones and flat surfaces) to crack nuts and how they may use a stick to catch food, perhaps a bushbaby, which is hiding inside of a tree.

Dr. Magdalena asks the kids, “What countries surround Rwanda?” and “What are the two biggest lakes in Africa?” and “How far did the forests here extend 100 years ago?”

She also explained why it is important to protect the mountain gorillas and help keep their families intact.

Following our guest speaker, Eric and Fahad led a drawing lesson. Everyone practiced drawing the basic elements of shape.

This student is practicing straight lines, curved lines, circles, ovals and more.

Kasia, Dr. Magdalena’s 4 year old daughter made her first visit to class and was happy for her mother to stop talking so we could get on with the drawing lesson!

Julie

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Thank you, Theresa, for your contribution! We raise funds to do our work and Team AoC truly appreciates your help. The areas where support is most needed are for staff salaries, art materials, and printing costs for art to be displayed. So again, thank you, Theresa.

Jean de Dieu NGIRIRA, a member of the Karisoke Research Center staff, was our guest speaker at Shingiro’s class. Jean de Dieu is both a gorilla tracker and a gorilla caretaker. He works diligently to protect the gorillas in the forest as well as the group of orphaned gorillas who live at the Interim Quarantine Facility in Kinigi, located just next to Parc National des Volcans. This facility is run by several partners, including MGVP and Karisoke.

At Shingiro’s adult AoC class, guest speaker Jean de Dieu NGIRIRA, discusses the importance of protecting the forest.

Because he lives in Kinigi with his family, Jean de Dieu understands how the community feels about the gorillas and gorilla ecotourism. He encourages the people he meets in ways that he knows they can succeed. At class - as he does on a daily basis - Jean de Dieu explained that Rwanda benefits greatly from gorillas through the money gained from tourism which pays for water tanks, health centers, and schools, and creates jobs. For this reason, he stressed that it is in everyone’s best interest to protect the gorillas and their habitat.

Class members asked lots of questions. A Shingiro community health worker asked guest speaker Jean de Dieu if gorillas have the same problems as people do when they give birth. He said no, they rarely have problems giving birth, plus no one is there to see it. A young man who said he is a traditional healer expressed frustration because he said the herbs he needs for his traditional healing practice are in the forest. He also asked Jean de Dieu if traditional healers can help gorillas who are poisoned. (Many Rwandans believe that illnesses come from poisons.) Jean de Dieu quickly explained that we can leave that up to the veterinary team run by MGVP. (please click here to see Dr. Lucy Spelman’s work in Gorilla Doctors.) They intervene with anesthetic and medicine delivered by darts if needed - and rarely.

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed and depressed by these beliefs about poison. People sicken and die here from the same diseases that affect people all over the world. Poison may be one of them but it can’t be the only one.

A community health worker at Shingiro AoC class.

A young man taking the AoC class at Shingiro is a traditional healer.

Then onto the art exercise for the day.

Eric asks volunteers to come to the chalkboard to draw basic elements of shapes.

Students listen to Eric’s instructions and practice line drawing.

Here, again, are more places to see great artistic expression from
Art of Conservation students if you find yourself in Rwanda…

Pelagie MUKANYANDWI, Executive Secretary of Nyange Sector, is standing in front of watercolors of reptiles made by people of her community. She is one of the project’s biggest fans and we think she is one of the coolests!

On the road to Kinigi, banners are displayed with the children standing in front of the art and having fun.

Julie

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Our Tuesday, Saturday, and Sunday Art of Conservation classes follow the same general format each week. We pick an art media and a theme. That way, the instruction each week is similar. Of course, every student is different. Our lesson last week was a drawing exercise using pencil and paper. Students were asked to draw a gorilla, a forest elephant, and a wild buffalo as they might appear IN the forest and then the same three wild animals as they might appear OUTSIDE of the forest, where outside is farmland or villages - or someone’s backyard. The drawings created by all 150 people (50 in each class), despite the fact that they live in different places near the gorilla park, were strikingly similar. The elusive forest elephants were the least anatomically correct animal whereas the wild buffalos and mountain gorillas were more recognizable. IN the forest, animals were always surrounded by foliage. OUTSIDE of the forest, the drawings show people wielding Rwanda’s ubiquitous yellow jerrycans and pangas, (machetes) and yelling to fend off the animals.

Below, is a collection or sample I put together from twenty-two different drawings from the drawing exercise showing wild animals OUTSIDE of the forest and how people react.

Nyabigoma Primary School’s headmaster was with us on Saturday for class. He told me that he has 669 children enrolled in school with only six classrooms and seven teachers and limited materials.

Kids drawing.

Most classes we begin with physical exercises that I hope help make everyone feel more relaxed. We begin with breathing and then move on to stretching, balancing and trying various yoga poses. I try to make it fun and positive for everyone.

Balance is an important concept in the interconnectedness of life.

More again soon,
Julie

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Our first week of classes consisted primarily of attending to the class lists and introducing the project. Team AoC has learned that the first class meetings can be a bit trying due to the number of students who show up. While the district secretaries and school headmasters do their best in providing us with a list of 50 individuals they wish to participate in AoC’s classes, many more people show up and insist on staying. We explain to the extras that it is difficult to provide the materials and space for more than 50 people. Many of them do not even know what we are offering, but to them it is perhaps a missed opportunity which may offer aid to their hard lives.

Valerie, Fahad, and Eric are busy getting the names, ages, and level of education from the children of Nyabigoma Primary School.

Tuesday mornings, Valerie, Eric, Fahad, and I travel approximately 9 kilometers west and a little south of Ruhengeri/Musanze Town, where we all live, as if one is heading to Lake Kivu which is located on the border of Rwanda and DRC. From this tarmac road, we head north and bounce along for about 5.7 kilometers to Shingiro Sector Office. The landscape is pretty. Not every inch of land is cultivated so the natural outcropping of the volcanic rock presents a more rough and freer place. Trees are taller and are not organized systematically.

Telesphore NSENGIYUMVA, Executive Secretary of Shingiro Sector, spent time with
Art of Conservation’s team describing the challenges his communities face, such as wild buffaloes leaving the nearby Protected Area,
Parc National des Volcans (PNV), and wreaking havoc on people’s property, otherwise known as crop raiding. A dry stone wall is in place around much of the park’s perimeter to deter wild animals from coming out of the forest, but the buffaloes, forest elephants, golden monkeys, and mountain gorillas still manage to check out what is on the other side. Telesphore claims that poaching trees in the park occurs frequently. Some of this wood is then made into charcoal and sold. People, he says, survive day to day and at this level of reasoning they can’t embrace the protection of the park and its animals. Additionally, the 1994 genocide and the 1997 insurgence deeply affected this area of the Northern Province, leaving many orphans and widows. Many of these distraught individuals rely on prostitution as a means of survival and many are HIV positive. Polygamy is widely practiced here, but frowned upon by the government.

The students enrolled in the Shingiro art class range from 23 to 59 years of age and are either a community health worker or a traditional healer. The nearby health clinic is currently underway with improved health care orchestrated by Laura Clauson and the CCHIPS program. For more information on Laura and CCHIPS, please see Clinics Rising.

We started drawing at the second class meeting in Shingiro. We asked the students to draw a picture of a mountain gorilla, wild buffalo, and forest elephant as they would be in the forest, using pencil. After some initial giggling and moaning, they started drawing. Then we asked the students to draw the same animals as they would appear outside of the forest. Below are drawings by student Jean Domicille NKUYAHAGA.

Nyabigoma Primary School is not quite as far away as Shingiro but in a pretty area, as well. From here, one can see many of the six Virunga Volcanoes, the tallest being Karisimbi at 14,187 feet / 4,324 meters. We will be here every Saturday and Sunday for the next few months, reaching out to 100 kids. Eric did all the talking about the project on Sunday as I relaxed in the back of the class with Valerie translating to me Eric’s words and I am so glad I did. I was taken by Eric’s poetic description on how everything is connected and how during the time together we would be learning from each other. I think the kids felt the same way because when he finished speaking, no one moved. Then they started clapping. Wow, I am fortuntate to be working with such people.

A look at some of the faces of AoC’s students.

In closing, here are a few photographs showing some of the places, locally, a Rwandan and a visitor can view art being made in our classes.

Jean hangs the banners every morning and takes them down every evening.

Students paint their own design on AoC T-Shirts.

L’Hotel Muhabura manager, Desiree GATARAYIHA, and Valerie stand next to art displayed at the hotel’s restaurant.

Dr. Lucy Spelman, MGVP, at Kinigi’s ORTPN headquarters.

Until the next posting,
Julie

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