Art for Gorillas

Category: Art of Conservation (AoC), MGVP | Date: Nov 11 2009 | By: Julie

Dr. Jean Felix Kinani is MGVP’s Rwandan in-country field veterinarian. Today he visits AoC’s class at Nyabitsinde Primary School.

A student volunteer pretends to be a sick or injured mountain gorilla as Dr. Jean Felix and Innocent prepare the kids for what’s about to happen next.

Wearing a mask to help prevent disease transmission, Dr. Jean Felix has darted his pretend patient with anesthesia. From here the gorilla will be treated or a snare will be removed. Usually a reversal is administered and the patient awakens quickly after a procedure.

Pretending mops and brooms are trees and bamboo, the students act out a possible scene in the forest while the vets attempt to help the endangered mountain gorillas.

Thank you Drs. Magdalena, Jan, and Jean Felix for sharing with our young Rwandan students what you do to help the mountain gorillas. Your expertise and dedication is remarkable.

Tags: children, education, gorilla doctors, MGVP, rwanda, wild animal vets

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Category: Art of Conservation (AoC), MGVP | Date: Nov 09 2009 | By: Julie

Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project’s Rwanda-based vets take time out of their busy schedule to visit our students and shed more light on HOW and WHY they treat the endangered mountain gorillas. Dr. Jan Ramer, MGVP Regional Veterinary Manager, is here today with AoC’s Rushubi Primary School students. Like Dr. Magdalena who visited a different set of kids previously, these gorilla vets encourage our young students to work very hard in school so that perhaps they can be vets one day. Let’s hope!!!

Dr. Jan gives a student a chance to experience what it is like to hold a dart gun. She reiterates that the vets do not carry guns with bullets - only guns with medicine!

It’s a lot more difficult in the forest to prepare the syringe and dart gun so that the patients don’t see - let alone to fire the gun with the syringe hitting the correct spot on the gorilla.

After a very exciting and informative talk with the kids, Dr. Jan settles in for computer work while the students paint their papier mache mountain gorillas. What a great class! Thanks Dr. Jan for your visit. Please come back next year with a new group of aspiring naturalists and vets.

MGVP’s Dr. Jean Felix next!

Tags: children, education, gorilla doctors, MGVP, rwanda, wild animal vets

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Category: Art of Conservation (AoC), MGVP | Date: Nov 05 2009 | By: Julie

Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project’s Rwanda-based vets take time out of their busy schedule to visit our students and shed more light on HOW and WHY they treat the endangered mountain gorillas. Dr. Magdalena, an expert on wild animal health care, talks with the kids and lets the kids practice with some of the tools she uses to treat gorillas in the nearby forest.

AoC’s Innocent and Eric stand by to translate and help Dr. Magdalena as she opens up her medical kit which includes all necessary equipment needed for treating sick or injured gorillas in Volcanoes National Park - quite a bit of equipment to be carrying up the steep volcanoes.

Dr. Magdalena prepares a flying syringe with either antibiotics or anesthesia. Innocent is translating her English to Kinyarwanda.

Innocent pretends to be a tree as Dr. Magdalena and a student prepare to shoot the dart gun containing the prepared syringe out the classroom door. We all made sure no one would be walking by! Kids screech with excitement with the sound of the dart gun and the launching of the syringe. They also get a much better idea of how the Gorilla Docs work in the forest!

Dr. Jan is next to enlighten the kids. Please tune in next time.

Tags: children, education, gorilla doctors, MGVP, rwanda, wild animal vets

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Category: Art of Conservation (AoC), MGVP, Rwanda's Park & Tourism | Date: Dec 30 2008 | By: Julie

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.

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Category: Art of Conservation (AoC), MGVP, Rwanda's Park & Tourism, art | Date: Nov 27 2008 | By: Julie

Angelique MUKESHIMANA and Vestine MUKANDUTIYE dance the Turuwa, a traditional children’s game, as we incorporate Rwandan culture into today’s drawing lesson.

Students use watercolors, crayons and oil pastels.

Click here to learn more about the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project.

For more information on ORTPN, please click here.

Coming up Let’s Dance!: Part 2. Meet Angelique’s father as he stops by to chat with the children. He could be one of the coolest guys in town.

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Category: Art of Conservation (AoC), MGVP, art | Date: Nov 18 2008 | By: Julie

Meet Innocent HAKIZIMANA, a former AoC student and a porter for park staff and tourists visiting the mountain gorillas, as he tells his story during our Lesson Where Art Tells A Story.

My Life by Innocent HAKIZIMANA.

Without fail, the resiliency of people who have been through the most oppressive of situations and nature which continually receives relentless plundering, never ceases to amaze me. But why do we push things to such extremes in the first place?

Fellow AoC classmates illustrate Innocent HAKIZIMANA’s story - a story all too familiar to each of these adults who’ve survived years of war.

Illustration 1.

Illustration 2.

Illustration 3.

Illustration 4.

Illustration 5.

For stories from children living in gorilla country, please click here.

Tags: Art of Conservation (AoC)

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Category: Art of Conservation (AoC), MGVP | Date: Nov 12 2008 | By: Julie

From the land of mountain gorillas, Art of Conservation sends all the best wishes and successes to Orangutan Foundation during ORANGUTAN AWARENESS WEEK 2008.

Below…words from Vince, Valerie, Eric and pictures from our students who live next to mountain gorillas.

Student pastel drawings from our 5 Great Apes lesson.

A student wearing a papier mache mask poses as an orangutan during our evolutionary walk.

Cheers to the beautiful old man in the forest and to the people caring for the orangutans and the forests they live in.

AND, a BIG thank you to MARY B. for your October 23rd donation! It’s so kind of you, Mary, and we truly appreciate your support.

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Category: Art of Conservation (AoC), MGVP, art | Date: Nov 08 2008 | By: Julie

Thank you Mell F. and Mary G. for your recent donations to Art for Gorillas! Our project is riding a wave of optimism lately due to generous friends like you and positive energy the team and I are receiving from the people here in the Northern Province of Rwanda. I hope it doesn’t end! Again, thank you very much.

Madame Gaudencia, in the previous blog, shows us artisanal gifts she has available in her boutique - one of these gifts being a woven-circular support which when placed on top of your head it helps while carrying pitchers of water, pots, or sacks full of potatoes or charcoal or grasses for the goats.

I was reminded of an introduction to life drawing lesson we gave a while ago and the beautiful pictures that the students made using oil pastels on black pastel paper.

I had suggested to Eric to choose a model and pose depicting everyday activities. Eric looked out of the window of our classroom and asked a woman passing by to be our model. The woman had a walking stick and a pitcher on top of her head on her way to fetch water. Here are a few drawings for you to see.

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