We are halfway through, OMG?!

Week of June 30th - July 6th

Monday, June 30th: This week was all about visiting the KFSP schools to review their preparations for World Chimp Week. After being awoken by a screaming rooster outside my window, we had a quick breakfast (which featured one bad egg with a dead chick in it, luckily no one ate it) and then the CE scholars headed over to the office for our weekly CE team meeting to finalize all things World Chimp Week. After our team meeting, where we learned the weekly schedule and went over edits that needed to be made to last week's presentations and posters, we attended the weekly staff meeting and presented our previous work and what to expect in the week ahead. 

At lunch, we were joined by Professor Machanda, who came to say goodbye before returning home to the States. We then returned to the conservation education offices to plan for our school visits later in the week. Ideally, our visits would last from 3-4:30 or 5:00 and would include the following:

- Presentations from each school's wildlife club that they were preparing for Chimpanzee (these included skits, traditional dances, poems, songs, etc.). We ranked each presentation on a set of criteria, and on World Chimpanzee Day (July 14th), we will be visiting the two schools with the highest scores. 

- 2 games that we prepared. 1) Tooling Around: This was a game that I came up with, focusing on how chimpanzees use tools. Club members raced in teams to use a stick to extract as much honey as they could from a water bottle, mimicking how Chimpanzees use similar materials to extract honey from trees or hives. 2) Snare Races: This game was about teaching kids about snares, which are traps used to catch wild animals, often injuring and maiming the chimps who get stuck in them. In this game, four kids raced, two tied together with a rope at the hands or feet, another jumping in a sack, and a third child running free. The kids all race from one end of a field to another to be the first to eat a banana. The kid who is not entrapped in a "snare" always wins, showing club members how snares make it difficult for chimpanzees to eat and function normally. 

- A general presentation on chimpanzees and another one on either chimp behavior or threats to chimp

- A short film about a boy who saves great apes from poachers.

During our afternoon meeting was when we learned we had to plan on having only 10 minutes to play the games we had planned and present our PowerPoints, so we scrambled for the rest of the afternoon to make an abbreviated presentation and put together two schedules, one for only 10 minutes, and one if we were granted extra time. Towards the end of the afternoon, the wifi got so bad we had to head back to the guesthouse early, but I was able to get in a walk and some reading before dinner (which featured some delicious tomato soup). 

Tuesday, July 1st: Our first day of school visits and Kenneth's birthday (CE team faculty member)! There was not much CE work to be done this morning because the materials we needed to prep our Tooling Around game still had not arrived. The honey actually did not show up until 30 minutes before we had to leave (poli-poli), so we had to rush to put the game together. We had all the scholars helping us and stuffing water bottles with leaves and honey (to up the difficulty of getting the honey out), only to find out the leaves were poisonous, whoops! We didn't have time to take out the leaves, so we all had to agree not to let any of the kids eat any of the honey. 

When it came time to go out into the field and visit the schools, we all split up into groups with each of the scholars going with a CE team faculty member. I went with Theo and Derrick and had a really successful day. We got to watch the wildlife clubs' skit, song, and poem, provide improvements and commentary, and were then able to play two games with them, present the Chimp Behavior PowerPoint, and then watch the short film. In total, the entire team was able to visit four schools! 

After we got back to the guesthouse and ate dinner, I attended evening prep with Eavan, Luke, and Dave. These are the evening classes for boarding students, and we sat in on the grade 5/6 class focusing on social studies. In Uganda, students have to test into secondary school, which is not accessible to everyone, so these students were studying for their exams. The social studies content featured a lot of religion, which was a little rough to listen to after attending church for 4.5 hours on Sunday, but I made a new friend named Mark, who helped me out (and also renamed me "Irene").

Wednesday, July 2nd: A very eventful morning! After breakfast, the CE Laidlaw team went to reset and fix the honey game, removing all poisonous leaves and putting new honey in the bottles. This process caused us to be mistakenly swarmed by hundreds of bees, which covered the tent in front of the guesthouse, buzzing like crazy. Kenneth and Derrick came out and fixed the problem by putting dirt over any honey that was on the ground, and surprisingly, only one person was stung, and only once! 

Once the bee problem was resolved, we attended a food storage training with the Health Team, where we learned how to build storage racks aimed at preventing food contamination by keeping it off the floor. Then we prepped more supplies for our afternoon school visits.

After lunch, I headed out with Kenneth and Luke to visit another primary school for World Chimp Week preparations. This visit was not as smooth as our last due to a late start and some technology issues, but we adapted and had a great time in the process. The cutest little boy even sat on my lap during the short film screening!

Thursday, July 3rd: Thursday, we woke up and got all our CE morning work done by 10 am, giving us the morning to rest and relax before our school visits in the afternoon. I spent my morning reading, doing some yoga, and chatting with Eavan and Cecille about Formula 1. 

In the afternoon, Theo and I were again paired together with Cathy to visit Iruuhura Primary School, which is where we also hosted our career day on the 4th. This school is very close to Kibale National Park and has the most amazing views! After a quick school tour, we got into our programming and were super efficient. 

When we got back to the guesthouse, I was able to play jump rope with some of the kids, who are starting to get my name down (they have been calling me Mary), and then ended the night playing Scrabble with Theo and Luke (featuring many questionable words as Luke had zero vowels).

Friday, July 4th: 4th of July! And more importantly, Career Day! We woke up bright and early and headed out to Iruuhura Primary School along with the rest of the CE team and the health team scholars for career day! This was a schoolwide assembly featuring guest speaker, wildlife veterinarian, Dr. Peter Apell. While the event was pretty long, it was interesting to see the traditional dances performed by the Wildlife Club and to hear the Ugandan National Anthem. Dr. Apell also gave a great talk about the need to conserve our environment for the sake of wildlife, but also ourselves. He brought along lots of interactive tools, dressing one child in a protective suit that wildlife vets might wear on call, and even shooting his dart gun into a tree! Interestingly, Dr. Apell's entire talk had to be translated from English into Rotooro, the native language, as Dr. Apell is from Northern Uganda, where there are different regional dialects, which is why he spoke in the national language, English. However, since Ugandan students do not start formally learning English until 3rd grade, the talk was translated into Rotooro so everyone could understand. 

While this event was mostly planned before we Laidlaw scholars arrived in Uganda, we were treated as guests of honor and got to participate in the tree planting after the talk, and even gifted fruits, vegetables, and a live rooster! 

After the event and a rest back at the guesthouse, we headed over to the Kasiisi Church for our third guest speaker talk, with Reverand Peluche. She shared some very inspiring lessons she has learned in her profession, including the importance of confidence amongst leaders, in order to inspire growth (she also called me out for yawning, sorry!). 

The day came to a very unpatriotic end with an early bedtime, as I was completely drained from our busy week! 

Saturday, July 5th: The perfect way to kick off the weekend! I woke up and read in bed until breakfast, and then we were joined by Goretti, who manages the guesthouse staff, and her mom and brother to learn basket weaving and traditional beading techniques. Their work is incredible, and it is through crafting that Goretti's mother was able to support her family and put her children through school! We only ended up doing the beading because of some rain, we all got to make the cutest red bracelets, and Goretti let us know that she can teach us the basket weaving anytime we wish. I will be taking her up on that offer! 

After lunch, I went into Fort Portal with Eavan, Luke, & Theo on a quest to find stamps. Unfortunately, we came up empty-handed (the post office closes after lunch on Saturdays), but we still had a successful trip, purchasing lots of snacks for the house and picking up cute souvenirs. We ended the night at the guesthouse watching Fantastic Mr. Fox on one of the CE team's projectors (because we haven't used up all the WIFI this week, yay!), which was lovely.

Sunday, July 6th: After last week, I opted not to attend church this Sunday, so I got to sleep in a little. I spent the morning reading and then learning to play netball with some of the Kasiisi girls (who finally know my name). While I am still fuzzy on what the exact rules of the game are, from what I can tell, it is pretty similar to basketball, only the nets don't have a backboard, so shooting is a lot harder. I played with them up until lunch, which was chicken pizza (delicious!), and then finished my book. Tonight I am hoping to get in a nice walk, and we are hoping to finally get around to watching Pitch Perfect after dinner (wish us luck). 

This week was busy and wonderful, and I cannot wait for what we have in store for week #4, which should include chimp trekking and a day trip to see some giraffes (EEEEE)!