Art for Gorillas

Hi Sheryl – Great to hear from you. Keep up the great work you do in providing us with a lot of information on conservation issues and so much more on your blog at Please Do Not Tap on the Glass. Thanks!

The Virunga Volcanoes, home to the endangered mountain gorillas, is an UNESCO World Heritage Site and just outside of this protected area in Rwanda is where our project operates.

I had the opportunity to visit another World Heritage Site today – in Mexico. I – and a thousand other tourists – looked in awe at the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza which are located in the northern center of the Yucatan Peninsula.

“El Castillo” (the castle) is the massive Temple of Kukulkan. The Mayans began construction at this site in 460 B.C. using limestone predominately.

This particular Mayan site is 2000 square miles. Chichen Itza can be translated to mouth of the well.

Sculpted limestone panels form the walls at the Great Ball Court.

I looked for spider monkeys for my non-human primate fix, but I did not spot any of these critically endangered new world monkeys.

The jaguar and snakes played important roles in Mayan’s highly advanced civilization of cosmologists.

I asked the woodcarver pictured above if I may have a look at his carving tools to compare them to those used by the Rwandan woodcarvers. He showed me the knife you see here – what is absent is the machete the carvers back in Rwanda so heavily rely upon.

I ran into Jean-Paul Lukusa, the lab manager for the MGVP, click here for more on MGVP at Gorilla Doctors, before I left for the US and told him I was going to Mexico for vacation. His eyes lit up as he put in a request for percussion instruments and shakers.

I’m bringing you a gift, Jean-Paul!

There are many great books on Mayan civilization, archeology, etc… as I am no expert on these subjects. I hope you get a chance to visit and/or learn more about this fascinating culture.