My Life: a gorilla porter’s story
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.
Artists Helping Gorillas
Category: Art of Conservation (AoC), Community Based Tourism, art | Date: Nov 05 2008 | By: Julie
We are at a small boutique in the northern province of Rwanda - not far from the protected area where the endangered mountain gorillas live.
Madame Gaudencia RUSINGIZANDEKWE describes how an artisan may improve his or her own life through handicrafts and other forms of art. Perhaps, one artist at a time, one empowered individual at a time may prove peoples ability to symbiotically cohabit with nonhuman species.
In her own words…Gaudencia RUSINGIZANDEKWE.
Gaudence has a nice collection of handicrafts - beautiful baskets are available for sale at her boutique in the northern province of Rwanda at l’hotel Muhabura.
Gaudencia and Valerie…interview is over!
Agronomist Joins Art of Conservation
Category: Art of Conservation (AoC), Ministry of Agriculture-Rwanda | Date: Oct 27 2008 | By: Julie
Vince (pictured above at left) joins Valerie and Eric - building a strong and more diversified Art of Conservation team!
Please join me in welcoming a new member to our team - Vincent de Paul RUKUNDO. Vince is in his final year of university level studies at the Higher Institute of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry, (ISAE BUSOGO). He brings valuable knowledge and experience in rural development and agribusiness - his special interests are in modern agricultural techniques, soil protection, and water management.
Click here for the website of Higher Institute of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry.
In 2004, Vince performed a role as an agronomist technician at a cooperative in developmental agriculture with focus on farming and forestry. The cooperative is known as COODAF, Cooperative de Developpement Agricole, Elevage et Forestier.
After completing this work experience, Vince performed duties as an agricultural monitor in a project aimed at mobilizing rural people in finding the value of agricultural activities, (PARVA, Programme d’Animation Rurale pour la Valorisation des Activites Agricoles).
Please click here if you would like more information on Rwanda’s Ministry of Agriculture, MINAGRI.
We continue adding to our existing conservation learning curricula and with Vince’s input, we are set to include lots more practical knowledge of every day living as well as introducing progressive techniques and ideas. Very exciting!
Storytelling - Inzara means Hunger in Kinyarwanda
Category: Art of Conservation (AoC) | Date: Oct 22 2008 | By: Julie
“You received HOW MUCH at market for our goat?” the woman screams out at her husband.
So the story goes and it doesn’t look good for the husband who sold the family’s goat at market for an incredibly low price and the family is hungry and needs to buy food.
Rushubi Primary Schoolchildren vote this story to be the one they’ll illustrate in today’s exercise Lesson Where Art Tells A Story.
Illustration by HAKIZIMANA Innocent.
…every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end…
Illustration by MUHAWENIMANA Christine.
Inzara, Hunger by Rushubi Primary School Art of Conservation Students.
A husband and a wife are home and are very hungry…
Illustration by NIYONSABA Valence.
Together they decide that the husband will take their goat to market to sell…
Illustration by BIZIMANA Pacifique.
When the husband returns home from the market, his wife asks him how much money he received from the sale of the goat…
Illustration by MANISHIMWE.
After hearing the low price, she gets extremely angry at him for selling the goat at the cheapest price…
Illustration by MUNYANSHOZA.
The End
Illustration by NTIREHGANYA Leonard.
Not the happiest story I’ve ever heard, but it was up to the children to decide which story they wanted to concentrate on for the day. Perhaps their bellies were empty and HUNGER was at the top of their lists of concerns.
Another story soon.
Cat and Chameleon: Children Exchange and Illustrate Stories
Category: Art of Conservation (AoC) | Date: Oct 20 2008 | By: Julie
Storytelling is the theme of today’s exercise. I ask the classroom of 50 children to share stories they’ve heard from their families and friends or stories they’ve created themselves.
A boy, 10-years of age, stands up and tells a really long and convoluted story - Valerie is whispering her interpretations of the story in my ear. The storyteller’s captive audience listens intently. I must admit I didn’t actually understand the story! Together, we listen to more stories and the kids get plenty of laughs both out of the stories themselves as well as the funny antics the storytellers send out.
Next, the class votes on one story they wish to focus on - they choose Cat and Chameleon.
The story goes something like this….
A cat and a chameleon challenge each other to see who is the fastest runner to reach a chair and sit on the chair before the other one does. Both the cat and chameleon claim to be very fast. 1, 2, 3 and they’re off! The cat speeds ahead but the chameleon grabs onto the cat’s tail without the cat knowing. When the cat reaches the chair and is about to sit down, the chameleon yells, “STOP! You’re going to sit on me!” Hence, the chameleon sits down on the chair before the cat and becomes the winner. The End
Watercolors and watercolor paper are distributed to each student and they begin illustrating a beginning, a middle, and an end to their story.
Lesson Where Art Tells A Story
Student HABIMANA Leonard’s illustration.
Student MUKESHIMANA Angelique’s illustration.
Student SEBASHYITSI Pierre Celestin’s illustration.
Student MUKASHYAKA’s illustration.
Student BIMENYIMANA Fidele’s illustration.
Student NYIRABUNANE Floride’s illustration.
Student TURACYAYISENGA Claudine’s illustration.
Student NSHIMIYIMANA Claude’s illustration.
And finally, student ABIJURU Marie’s illustration.
Today’s class involving watching and listening to the children tell their stories, sensing their minds to be full of thought and creativity, witnessing a few of the more timid students muster confidence to share with everyone, and finally seeing the illustrations they arrive with for Cat and Chameleon was a unique pleasure.
Another story coming up.
Sorry for my absence!
Category: Art of Conservation (AoC) | Date: Oct 16 2008 | By: Julie
Help Protect the Mountain Gorillas - Sponsor One Child in AoC’s Conservation Learning Classes!
Valerie, Eric, and I are getting closer to finishing up lots of action planning and budgeting for the project - fortunately it’s not quite as difficult as I had first imagined it to be - but we do look forward to returning to the classroom and working with the kids. I apologize for not posting regularly - I miss hearing from you and sharing pictures and stories with you of life here in Rwanda - so I will get cracking on it and write more often!
Soon a new donation button will be active here at Art for Gorillas allowing donors to sponsor one child at $150.00. This allows a child to participate in what I think will be extended to a 6 month course, as opposed to just 3 months - in our project’s Conservation Learning through Art program. Your donation goes toward materials the child would never have the opportunity to use as well as help with Eric and Valerie’s salaries. Please consider this option! Your support is greatly appreciated!
Speak with you all again soon,
Julie
A Walk in the Gorilla Park with Odile and Olivier
Category: Art of Conservation (AoC) | Date: Sep 28 2008 | By: Julie
My buddy Ged of Terra Incognita ECOTOURS recently extended me the chance to go gorilla tracking with him and I jumped at the opportunity. (Please click here to view Ged’s ecotour destinations and my trip to Madagascar with Terra Incognita)
Upon arrival early in the morning at Rwanda’s Parc National des Volcans park headquarters in Kinigi our group of eight learn we will be visiting Kwitonda Group and are presented to our guides, Odile and Olivier.
This is Odile.
Park Guide Odile NYIRAGUHIRWA briefs us, the visitors, before we climb over the buffalo wall to enter the protected area, Rwanda’s Parc National des Volcans.
You may remember meeting Odile as an Art of Conservation guest speaker during the HIV-AIDS awareness, family planning, and personal hygiene unit. Recently, Odile finished university and applied for a guide position with ORTPN, the Rwandan tourism and national parks service, and she got the job!
This is Olivier with a tracker.
Olivier MUTUYIMANA, a park guide in Rwanda for ten years, positions a visitor from the United States with a nearly perfect vantage point of the Kwitonda gorilla family in the near distance - always enforcing visiting humans to be apart from the resident mountain gorillas by 7 meters.
Odile and Olivier graciously accept my request for a short conversation on tape about their roles in conservation.
The day was a quintessential Sunday Walk In The Park - the sun was shining, the paths were hardly muddy or slippery, and the gorillas were perfectly accommodating by emerging from the dense vegetation and plopping themselves down in an opening for excellent viewing.
Kwitonda, the silverback, holds the pose similar to Auguste Rodin’s late 1800’s bronze, The Thinker.
I turn to see another thinker, Ged.
Throwing Dantean and Wagnerian contemplation out the window, three young gorillas occupy themselves with the great act of play as I enviously pine to join in on the fun.
Growing Pains at AoC
Category: Art of Conservation (AoC) | Date: Sep 20 2008 | By: Julie
Greetings! This is Julie reemerging from a brief time out - visiting friends and family in the US, returning to my Rwanda studio to contend with a horrible internet connection, and then finding our project waylaid by the powers that be! Not always easy here, to say the least.
Art of Conservation is set to establish its conservation learning program through art-based activities into Rwanda’s primary and perhaps secondary school curricula. The groundwork has been laid and now Valerie, Eric and I must put into words, graphs, tables, statistics, and any other form (we’ve got plenty messages through art, but that doesn’t seem to suffice) to convey our project as a meaningful and sustainable partner in conservation.
Classes are postponed until January 2009, which is such a bummer. When we’re teaching the children, Valerie, Eric and I, are certain that our approach to conservation really works - the children are engaged, parents are pleased, we constantly receive requests from other school headmasters for the project to be implemented at their schools.
I’ll try to better embrace the ‘growing pains’ we are experiencing. It is positive on many accounts - the project has filed for its own 501(c)3 status both in the US and Rwanda, we are looking forward to having closer relationships with other partner organizations, and we’re extremely happy about working closer with educators so that our program can be sustainable and still operating in the many years to come.
Please share any comments, criticism, ideas, and/or encouragement which you think may help us improve our conservation learning project and how we may better waltz through the bureaucratic red tape.
A plethora of pictures, profiles of people in conservation, and life in Rwanda is still coming your way - enjoy.
I put this collection of drawings together from our lesson Animals of the Virunga Forest and had it printed as a banner while I was at home in the US. The banner material is durable for displaying the people’s work outside, for instance, along the road leading to their villages and schools.
Congratulations Fahad!
Category: Art of Conservation (AoC), art | Date: Sep 01 2008 | By: Julie
Fahad is off to Kyamgobo University in Kampala, Uganda where he will begin his three year study leading to his award of Bachelor of Art and Industrial Design.
As you may guess, Valerie, Eric and I are filled with mixed emotions as we say good bye and good luck to Fahad. We feel sad to see him go, but alternately we’re thrilled about this wonderful opportunity he has in furthering his formal education.
Please enjoy the photos below as we celebrate Fahad and his contributions to the project, art, conservation, and laughter.
Fahad is pictured here at the far right with Eric and Valerie.
Fahad’s family was originally from Rwanda but needed to cross the border into Uganda during the 1959 war. He grew up in Kisoro District in western Uganda where he attended primary and secondary school.
Fahad instructs the children how to draw a golden monkey for our Animals of the Virunga Forest art and conservation lesson.
After completing primary and secondary school in Kisoro, Fahad attended Kakungula Memorial School in Kampala, Uganda for two years of advanced level arts.
More lessons on proportion, this time drawing the human head.
Dedicated to his passion of art, despite the many attempts from his brothers to join them in their business ventures, Fahad remains determined to follow the path of art and conservation.
Fahad assists Eric during our color theory lesson. Here, Eric begins with the primary colors; yellow, red, and blue.
I met Fahad after he completed his advanced level arts at the end of 2007. During our first discussion, Fahad expressed his desire to be in Rwanda, his home country, to share his knowledge with his people. Hence, he got a job with the project!
Fahad helps a student with her t-shirt design.
Fahad and Eric - such handsome guys.
Exposing students to a wide variety of artist mediums, Fahad shows his box of oil paints in front of a canvas and easel.
Fahad paints a sign for our ‘Where Do Gorillas Come From?’ lesson.
Valerie, Eric, and I hope to visit Fahad at school in Kampala. There’s a lot more art going on there compared to Rwanda’s capital city and its towns and villages and Fahad promises to show us everything.
Julie
Lemurs Are Like My Kids
Category: Art of Conservation (AoC), Community Based Tourism | Date: Aug 19 2008 | By: Julie
Hi Sonja - Glad you liked the previous post with all the colors!
My holiday in Madagascar is coming to a close - soon work will resume in Rwanda. Before we leave this great land of lemurs here is another figure behind conservation, Mbola Manarivo Jean, describing his work protecting Berenty Nature Reserve in the southern region of Madagascar.
To visit Berenty Nature Reserve, we first arrive by plane at Fort Dauphin and then travel on an extremely potholed road for 3 hours. Above are people we meet along the way.
Big tamarind trees compose part of Berenty’s dry gallery forest which is located on the banks of the Mandrare River. It is such a beautiful forest.
Madagascar flying fox bats hanging out near the Mandrare River in the dry gallery forest.
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Verreaux’s sifaka hanging out there too.
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A forest guard.
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A close-up of Didiereacaea in the spiny forest.
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A towering baobab tree.
Sisal fiber drying in the sun.
Oooooommmmmm, Ring-tailed lemurs basking in the glorious sun, appear as if they are reciting this sacred mantra.
I recommend everyone MOVES IT to Madagascar to witness its beauties and treasures.
The country’s flora and fauna face grave consequences due to rampant deforestation and other environmental degradation. Supporting people like Vy and Jean - featured in the videos - helps with protecting the lemurs.
Lords & Lemurs - Mad Scientists, Kings with Spears, and the Survival of Diversity in Madagascar a book written by Alison Jolly, gives terrific information about Berenty and the island’s history as well as details of her research.
Next post from Rwanda,
Julie
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