Art for Gorillas

Hi! My name is Danielle Boyd. I am from Sugar Land, Texas. I attend Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas where I will be finishing up my last year as an Early Childhood Education major.

This is me at Sabyinyo Silverback Lodge in Kinigi last night. This is the area where the schools with Art of Conservation are located. I am here for three weeks.

My prior experience to this volunteer job has been at home teaching K-5th grade. I also volunteered in Thailand for a month planting trees and teaching a third grade class English. Every project is different and I always learn something new from every experience.

This is me working with some of the students from Rushubi Primary School on the foundation of the rain water tank. This effort is to promote healthy living to the children and the community. Muhawenimana took a strong interest in what I was doing, so we decided to pair up and work together to finish my part. I thoroughly enjoyed working with all of the students. Their concentration during this activity amazed me. Not one child left their mural until they had perfected every detail. They each took pride in their art work which to me reflected a lot about their drive in another aspects of their lives.

Here I am helping Innocent (one of the staff members at Art of Conservation) learn different computer skills. Since he does all of the assistant work, he has taken a special interest in improving his computer skills.

Taking a break from the project work visiting Group 13 in the Volcanoes National Park. This was a very new and eye opening experience for me. After working with Art of Conservation for the last few days I had learned a wealth of information about the gorillas and other animals. However, being able to see these amazing creatures in the natural habitat really struck me deeper than I had expected. No one can really describe what it is like seeing these fantastic creatures interacting with each other. It is something that I feel everyone must try to experience for themselves.

Here is Group 13 playing, resting, and eating during my one hour viewing time. After watching them for a few minutes they moved up towards the top of the mountain. It was quite a challenge viewing them but it made the experience even more memorable.

I will be blogging more during my last two weeks in Rwanda.
Danielle