Archive for April, 2008
Art of Conservation welcomes Dr. Lucy, MGVP’s regional veterinary manager and WildlifeDirect’s Gorilla Doctors, to this weeks classes. Lesson Where Art Tells a Story is the theme for students to consider as they listen to Dr. Lucy share the story of Nzeli, a female mountain gorilla in Bwenge Group in the Karisoke Habitat. Our students receive the worksheet pictured below for illustrating a beginning, a middle, and an end to this real life action that takes place in the nearby forest,
Let’s take a look at the BEGINNING of our story with the help of class volunteers. Valerie, with her ever-expanding knowledge of veterinarian terms, interprets for Lucy.
Below, student’s illustrations of the story’s BEGINNING.
Moving now to the MIDDLE of our story, Dr. Lucy asks for volunteers to pose as trees. Using the dense vegetation as her cover, she pretends to prepare the blow gun she would normally use to administer antibiotics to her patients. The vets would never let any of the gorillas discover what is about to happen…a syringe, frequently referred to as a ‘flying dart’ is filled with antibiotics and is placed inside a 54 inch-long tube which then attaches to a blow gun. When triggered, the gun, with an oxygenated cartridge, propels the flying dart and hopefully hits the patient in the correct place - all occurring without any gorilla taking notice.
When first asked how veterinarians give medicine to a wild gorilla in the forest, some guesses included the vet giving an ill gorilla a banana with the medicine hidden in the fruit. Not a bad idea, but we soon learn it’s not that easy. I think our students developed a better understanding of how wild gorillas are given medicine when the veterinarians believe it is necessary. The pictures below show the vet in a distance and not right next to their patient.
Dr. Lucy in action!
THE (happy) END. Nzeli recovers from her injuries with the help of antibiotics and - just as my dad who was a MD often prescribed to aid many ailments, ‘Get it out in the sun!’
Thanks to Dr. Lucy and all of our guests who graciously take time to visit Art of Conservation classes and speak with our students. Through discussion and art lessons, we all gain a better understanding of what it entails to care for wild animals, forests, and people. Perhaps budding artists and / or veterinarians are blossoming as we speak. Until next time,
Forest Elephants, Loxodonta africana cyclotis, is the last in our series of
More vital information on elephants here, Elephant Voices and here, Ethiopian Elephants.
It is difficult for me to unwind after Saturday and Sunday children’s classes. I receive such a big boost of energy being with the kids and working with Team AoC: Valerie, Eric and Fahad.
We’ll explore more animals, plus bugs and birds of the Virunga Forest in future Julie
We just love GOLDEN MONKEYS! Cercopithecus mitis ssp. kandti Kids in Saturday’s Art of Conservation class learn about golden monkeys. Pencil drawing and watercolor by Pacifique MFITUMUKIZA. Pictures made by NTIRENGANYA. Found in the bamboo forests, this primate weighs 10 to 15 pounds. TUYIRINGIRE’s pictures. Habitat loss through agriculture, wood extraction, human encroachment and illegal harvesting continue to be the major threats to this animal. Student BIZIMANA’s creative expressions of a Golden Monkey. Thank you Theresa and Professor Minor for your recent comments. I’ll share here the quote Vernon Minor shared with me. Fahad still busy at the chalkboard. A student examining his work. Julie
Eric taught us how to draw a mountain gorilla and now we move on to Fahad’s instruction on how to draw a forest buffalo. Forest buffalo, Syncerus caffer nanus, not to be confused with a savannah buffalo! Below, Annonciata NTAWIZERA, a student from Art of Conservation’s Shingiro adult class draws and paints a forest buffalo. Forest buffaloes, smaller than savannah buffaloes, are below 120cm in height and 320kg in weight. Their smaller, but heavy build, short legs and slow pace isn’t a disadvantage to them when they want to retreat into the dark forest cover. Annonciata’s pictures above show the animal’s small, back-swept horns - unlike the savannah buffalo’s enormous bossed horns. Here’s a collection of watercolors from 9 Shingiro artists. Don’t forget about the other guys! While mountain gorillas are surely the claim to fame here in the Virungas, our students bring to light a few of the other wonderful animals inhabiting this area. Fahad busy at the chalkboard. I am not in the forest often and I have yet to see a forest buffalo, but as long as they are there doing their forest buffalo thing I am greatly satisfied. Hmm, what Animal of the Virunga Forest will Art of Conservation students illustrate next? Julie
Over the next few posts I’ll share with you pictures made by our With pencil and paper, students from all three classes follow Eric’s instruction on There are 740 mountain gorillas remaining in the world today with half of the population in the Virunga Forest and the other half in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in Uganda. 70% of these mountain gorillas are visited by tourists each year.
The Virunga Forest - Parc National des Vocans (PNV) - consists of 125 Km2 of mountain forest and six Virunga Volcanoes: Karisimbi, Visoke, Mikeno, Sabyinyo, Gahinga, and Muhabura. Genetic similarity between people and gorillas is around 98%.
Rwanda, where our art classes are being held, is a poor rural country with about 90% of the population engaged in mainly subsistence agriculture. A few of the environmental issues are deforestation, overgrazing, soil exhaustion, soil erosion and widespread poaching.
AIDS-HIV transmission, malaria, and tuberculosis are threatening diseases prevalent in Rwanda. So are food or waterborne diseases such as diarrhea, hepatitis A, and typhoid fever.
There is strong evidence suggesting that many primate species are susceptible to many of the infections that humans are afflicted with and that the transmission of infection can occur in both directions. Please stay tuned for Fahad’s instruction of more VIRUNGA FOREST ANIMALSl! Julie
I send a BIG thank you to my sister Mary and to an anonymous donor for their generous support. A lesson in Color Theory I had a nice laugh when Valerie told me about a man from the What may seem like a simple act of mixing two primary colors is truly a new skill for some which results in a functional application of knowledge. I learned that this man paints houses and signs on store fronts. It is gratifying when we sense an immediate application from our lessons, but this is seldom. Sometimes there is pressure in delivering quick and precise metrics of a project - and are those figures really accurate and at best helpful? Our project’s aim to provide stimulus for creative exploration, learning and a place to contemplate and perhaps reassess common beliefs of ones place in this world can produce rather elusive results. We won’t do people’s thinking for them, we expect people to do their own thinking. This way, it is fair and real.
Fortunately there is a call for accountability in this work we do here. What is the saying…it goes something like…a picture is worth a thousand words…..? More again soon,
Art of Conservation welcomes GOLDIE to our Sunday morning kid’s class. Goldie, a Vizsla, accompanied Dr. Magdalena and her daughter Kasia to Nyabigoma Primary School to help share with the kids the importance of being kind to animals and how to care for domesticated dogs. (In my limited command of Kinyarwanda, Rwanda’s national bantu-based language, one of the first things I insisted on being able to express was…
The regional headquarters of Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project
Most of the kids are frightened of Goldie, although they do not scream and run like I’ve witnessed many times before. I’d say perhaps 5 out of the 50 children felt comfortable to pet the dog at the beginning of class.
I rarely see domesticated dogs in people’s compounds here in the Northern Province of Rwanda. On a few occasions I saw children running down a path with a dog. The kids carrying a stick. I asked my friends what was happening and they suggested the kids and the dog were ‘hunting’ perhaps for small rabbits. I also recall seeing dogs in pre-colonial monochrome photographs displayed at the National Museum of Rwanda in Butare. The dogs are seen surrounded by the royal families of the time.
During the night, with Umulinzi and Ibyiza next to me, we often awaken to the feral dog’s howling in the dark distance. Before settling back to sleep and assuring my dogs that we are OK, I contemplate on the sobering matter of feral dog populations and also the gut ache I get with the thought of people being horrible to dogs. We should have the compassion to treat other people and all animals with mutual respect and mutual consideration.
Until next time,
If you were one of our current AoC students, you’d now be finishing up the 4th of 12 classes. (Each group - 50 students per class - meets one day a week for 3 months). Team AoC tries to set a lively pace. We’re ambitious and have lots to share with each group, but we also need to move at the right speed - not too fast. We want the learning and exploration process to be a pleasurable one. Here’s an idea of what each class has covered so far: Class No. 2 includes a free drawing exercise. For example, we might ask the students to draw wild animals INSIDE and OUTSIDE of the forest with pencil. This lesson helps Team AoC assess the interest and skill level of the students. We also want to make certain everyone feels comfortable using paper and pencil, working right- or left-handed. At this point, we also begin to schedule guest speakers and visitors. In the third class, we practice drawing the basic elements of shape. Class No. 4 is about using our eyes. We ask the students to draw their own hand, after really and truly looking at it. Our goal with these first four classes is to help give the students confidence. As we spend more time in class together, we’ll encourage more creativity.
It is my hope that each of our students feels a sense of achievement and pride after each class. I know I do. Someone recently suggested that we run a competition for the best drawing or best artist for each class. My reaction was no way. Though competition is a fact of life and it can bring out the best in people and situations, it’s not what these art classes are about. I believe it’s essential to give people a chance to explore their world unencumbered by expectations. I want to give the adults and children in class an opportunity to express themselves. It’s just three hours once a week. The competition will always be there, but I prefer to leave it out of class. Good-bye for now, |
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Welcome to Art for Gorillas.
This is Julie Ghrist, director of Art of Conservation (AoC):
Creating a Healthful Connection between People & Mountain Gorillas.
Team AoC includes Valerie Akuredusenge, Eric Mutabazi, and Fahad Ndangiza.
AoC is a partner of Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project, Inc. (MGVP, Inc.).
