Happy Dogs

We have 3 dogs here at the MGVP compound - Chewy, Foxy and Danny.

This is Chewy - he's one of the front yard dogs and is Foxy's brother. He's my buddy now - especially when it is thundering. He's a GREAT guard dog - much barking and snarling, and he's been known to bite... but he's afraid of the thunder and snuggles under my desk when it storms. Apparently he and Foxy were dropped off (dumped is more like it) 5-6 years ago, and adopted by the staff at that time. Chewy loves avocados and there is a huge avocado tree in the yard - you can tell by his girth! Chewy and Danny live in the front yard because Chewy and his brother Foxy fight all the time (good thing they live with veterinarians!).

Danny was brought to MGVP as a tiny puppy. He couldn't walk. The folks here at the time suspect he was stepped on or kicked and his back was broken. He is a total sweety-pie! We have a cart for him that he motors around on 3 times/day and he gets around just fine! I haven't gotten a good picture of him in the cart because every time I go out to see them he runs right over to me and all I can photograph is his face at very close range! This is Danny and Chewy's hang out - quite comfortable! The guards are responsible for feeding them and putting Danny in the cart - and it is obvious they care a great deal for the dogs.

Foxy lives in the backyard and he is so sweet, but very, very shy. He's also my buddy now - I let him in the livingroom at night and give him treats now and then. Well, I give them all treats now and then... He loves to play, but just won't bring the ball back! He's the one I go to when I need a break from my office work or am feeling stressed about something - always a calming influence!

So these are my guys here in Ruhengeri!


And here is somebody I met this week in the forest....

Yay Mountain Gorillas!!!!

Day 26 - waxing philosophical again...

Ithaka
As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon-don't be afraid of them:
you'll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon-you won't encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind-
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

C.P. Cavafy, Greek Poet

My friend Doug posted this on his blog and it really spoke to me. Sorry to wax philosophical 2 blogs in a row, but I have a lot of time to think here in Rwanda. Doug's journey is a fight with Amyloidosis - he is a strong opponent. Mine is a different journey, but then we are all on our own journeys, right?

Leon's children

Leon is our house manager. He is at least 70 years old and has been with MGVP for over 20 years. Everyone loves Leon. He is a wonderful man - quiet, unassuming, hard working. He's tall and thin, which I have learned is classic Tutsi.

Ghosts of the genocide are everywhere.

There are memorial parks in every town filled with bright flowers, benches and plaques.

There is a restaurant on the way to Kigali where people were locked inside and burned alive while watching a soccer game on TV - it is still a burned out shell.

When I was at the bank in Kigali this week there were 3 stories in the paper: "Priest Cleared of Genocide Charges", "Controversy Ends as Remains of 40 Genocide Victims are Laid to Rest", Kiziguro Memroial Site a Legacy of Silent Murders". I was uncomfortable reading the stories while sitting in the bank lobby - I found myself looking around me, wondering what the people in this room lived through. Who they lost. Who they killed. I was horrified at my thoughts.

There is a Genocide Museum in Kigali. Some friends from California visited the museum while I did my business in town. They were there for 3 hours and said it was not enough time, although Christian said he couldn't stay in the children's room.

On the way home we passed a village where dozens of people were sitting in a rough circle, looking serious. Our driver told us that this is a tribunal - a Gacaca court - a sort of community justice system where the accused is invited to admit guilt and apologize in an open forum. It has been 15 years, but there is such a huge backlog in the courts that the accused are still being tried in this way. The car got very quiet for a while.

Here in Ruhengeri, my home for the next 2 years, I find myself looking around at people I now call friends and co-workers. Who is Tutsi? Who is Hutu? What did they do? Where did they go? How do they feel now? But we don't talk about it.

I found out last night that Leon's children were killed in the Genocide. I almost cried when I saw his smiling face at breakfast this morning. His oldest grandson is in college now, and MGVP is helping pay for his education. I can't begin to imagine Leon's pain. All the pain in this beautiful country. And yet the people I work with seem to manage to live in the present. Tutsis and Hutu working side by side to protect the forest and the gorillas.

Gorillas part 2

We do monthly health checks each gorilla group in the park. That means we each go check on a group 2 times/week. Thursday was my first experience doing a health check -I might have mentioned last time that the gorillas were amazing, but I thought I'd give you a little better idea of how the day went! Jean-Felix is the Rwandan veterinarian on our team. We went together to visit Group 13 with Eric as our tracker - he's been tracking this group for over a year and knows each gorilla well. Trackers are hired by the park service to literally keep track of every gorilla group, and they each visit their assigned group daily. With only 350 gorillas in the park it is soooo important to know the health status of every individual.

So here's how the day started - up at 5:30 and on the road by 6am. We have to get to the group before the tourists so we don't bother tourist experience. I was so excited that I didn't sleep much the night before! I figure I'm in relatively good shape, but I requested to go to one of the closer groups for my first time. I haven't adjusted to the altitude yet, and well, I'm a little chubby these days... Eric tells us (well, he tells Jean-Felix because he speaks only Kinyarwandan) that the group was in the crater yesterday (this sounds exciting to me - it did not occur to me that "crater" means much climbing...). We drive over very bumpy roads through little villages (kids still smiling and waiving and saying Bonjour Mzungu!) and finally come to our parking spot between two trees at the side of the "road". I've got my backpack with rain-gear, extra jacket, camera, binocs and water. Jean-Felix says I should give it to our porter Joseph, but I think I should carry it myself. In the end I give it to Joseph because it seems that is the convention.

We start walking through cultivated fields on a gradual uphill slope, and after about 20 minutes I am totally winded, but I try not to let on. We walk another 10 minutes and make it to the border of the Park de Volcanos. I get a drink of water and drink really slowly, trying to catch my breath without acting tired. I don't think they buy it, but they are kind and don't laugh at me. Now the fun starts. As soon as we scramble over a 4 foot rock wall marking the park boundry, we are enveloped in vegetation. The air is close, the smells are musty. There is a path, used by trackers and tourists, but also used by animals. The slope is now close to 45 degrees, and it is muddy and rocky. I'm watching my feet closely so I don't fall - then I see these HUGE, deep footprints. I recognize them easily, but am still amazed when the tracker confirms my suspicion - Tembo. Elephant. I'm seeing wild elephant foot prints that are less than a week old. I guess I really am in Africa, and I'm speechless.

We continue to move up the slope until we reach what looks like a impasse to me. A very, very steep, rocky hill thick with trees, bushes, nettles and thorny ferns. Eric the tracker stops and looks and listens - he now thinks the group has gone over the edge of this "hill" down into an old volcanic crater. So we climb on. I stop at one point to check my heart rate - 180. Sweat is pouring down my face and I feel a little dizzy, but I trudge on (much more slowly than my Rwandan partners on this trip). Now I know why we use Joseph the porter... We walk for another 45 minutes, up and down the ravine, and then Eric stops and says we're here. My legs are trembling uncontrollably and my breath is coming in rasps, but I made it! The gorillas are about 100 meters up the ravine from us. I don't hear or see any signs of them...I have so much to learn. Jean-Felix, Eric and I proceed up the slope - I'm last - through a long tunnel of vegetation. As I poke my head out of the top of the tunnel I turn to my left and there is Agashya. The silverback. The adult male gorilla who leads this group. He is surrounded by 3 playing youngsters 2-3 years old, and several adult female gorillas. The scene is peaceful. The sounds of contentment and chewing, and smells of gorilla perspiration are so familiar to me from my days as a gorilla keeper. They barely notice us. Jean-Felix is already busy at work looking at every individual he can see and discussing who is who with Eric. I am sitting there slack-jawed, looking at the gorillas who are all around us. We spend 90 minutes with the group, trying to see as many individuals as we can, which is surprisingly difficult with the thick vegetation and steep slope. We manage to see all but 3 of the 26 group members, including a 6 month old baby! Everything we see is recorded to be entered into medical records when we get back. I guess I really am in Africa. Working as a veterinarian for endangered Mountain Gorillas.

The "walk" back was rough for me, but I was euphoric. I asked Jean-Felix when we got to the truck if he considered this an easy or moderate walk as I peeled off my muddy rain-gear and slicked back my sweat soaked hair. Of course he said it was easy. I'm in trouble.

Here are some photos to give you a sneak preview. I'm supposed to put gorilla content on the gorilladoctors.org blog, but until it is up and running I just have to show you some of what I've seen! Jean-Felix is in the front, and Eric behind him. And just a couple of our charges. Believe it or not I didn't get any good photos of Agashya - still figuring out my camera - but I promise better photos soon!

Goup 13

Gorillas!!!
Amazing, awesome, familiar, majestic, funny.
And I'm really, really out of shape, at 6000 feet.

Hadada ibis as alarm clock

They wake me up every morning. A sort of loud, nasal caw. Then the dogs start to howl, and sleep is out of the question... We used to have a hadada ibis at the Brookfield Zoo named Stevie. He would sneak up behind us while we were cleaning the exhibit and do that loud CAW, and he got me every time... now I think of Stevie every morning!

Today was filled with a community meeting addressing conservation issues, and bringing partners like NGO's (like us - MGVP), government (local and national), etc. We did some brainstorming in small groups - what are the issues, who are the players, what is the message we want to deliver and how to deliver it. The amazing thing was (in addition to the fact that Jan Ramer from Indiana was sitting in on these meetings) that the meeting was conducted in 3 languages. English (mostly for my benefit, and because it is now the national language), French (former national language) and Kinyarwandan (regional language). One person switched languages several times in one sentence! We Americans are so language challenged... but I vow to improve my French while I'm here.

I also spent several hours today helping Magda, one of the other MGVP veterinarians, put together a power point presentation about respiratory disease outbreaks in the gorillas over the past 2 years. Very interesting. Last year the outbreaks in gorillas happened 4 weeks after a similar rise in cases in the surrounding human population. We don't yet know if it was the same virus, but are working on that.

Sooo, 2 weeks at the office so far and tomorrow.... GORILLAS!!! Finally!!! I get to see them in the wild. See the reason I am here.

More photos soon!

Democratic Republic of Congo

So much for writing every day - it has been crazy busy here the past week!
Last Wednesday we visited Goma, DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) to check on gorilla orphans that are being housed there temporarily. The border between Gisenyi, Rwanda and Goma, DRC was relatively easy to cross after we bought a $35 visa. Jacque and Eddy, the MGVP veterinarians who work in Congo, met us at the border. The difference between Congo and Rwanda is like night and day. Roads in Congo are very rough and dirty, and the city is crowded and loud, but people were still open and welcoming. We are always very careful when we come to DRC. Our veterinarians know the area well and are always alerted when rebel activity is nearby and dangerous. Today things seemed to be business as usual...

This is downtown Goma.

The black rock is a lava flow from when Nyiragongo Volcano erupted in 2002. It left 2 meters of lava in the town, but was slow moving so nearly everyone was able to evacuate. Goma is rebuilding, and it is interesting to see that some of the shops now have basements that used to be at ground level...
These next photos are taken on the road to Rumangabo - things got progressively more rural. It was pretty overcast so we couldn't see the volcanoes well, but this gives you an idea of how the countryside looks.






It has taken me a while to upload these photos so I'll sign off for now. More about Rumangabo soon - the gorilla orphan facility we visited is inside the Virunga National Park, and is beautiful!

I figured out the photos

This will be a short blog - too late for many words!
I figured out how to upload photos - here is the house - pretty nice! The first two photos are the livingroom. Don't worry, the TV only works for DVDs.. Next is my office - very comfortable!












This courtyard is in the middle of the U-shaped house, dividing the main living space from the lab. I've already found a chameleon and several skinks in the courtyard. Common,I know, but exciting for me! Wonderful birds too!




Here's the chameleon - I think it is a Montane side-striped chameleon.




Yesterday and today were spent getting my office organized and learning my way around the computer files.
Tomorrow starts week 2 and I am ready to dig in and wrap my head around all aspects of mountain gorilla health!

Mzungu

Yesterday I took a bike ride with Krista, one of the vet students working on a public health project here. We rode through the town and turned a few heads. A couple of children called out "Bonjour Mzungu!" with big smiles and waving hands. It was very sweet! Last night Krista and I ate at a small restaurant in downtown Ruhengeri called the Modern. We had beans and rice, hot cabbage salad and chipatas. mmmmm!! The two of us ate for under $4. We were the only mzungus in the restaurant, and 2 of a handful of mzungus living in the city. Mzungu means white person, and does not seem derogatory. There are all kinds of folktales about the derivation of the word, dating back to when the first Europeans arrived in Africa. One I've heard is that in the early colonial days each time a white person walked by, the locals thought it was the same person (we all look alike!). So Mzungu means people who walk in circles.... There are other stories, but this one sounds good to me! So I'm a mzungu - different from the people who live here. I will always be an outsider here, but the people seem open, curious and friendly. I am honored to be allowed to work in this beautiful and complicated country, and I plan to learn as much as I can about the people and culture while I'm here.

first week in Rwanda

Had dinner with Bob on the deck last Saturday night. We watched a pair of wrens feed their brood - it was a beautiful Indiana evening. Like magic (and a very, very long commute...) I had dinner in Ruhengeri, Rwanda with Mike Cranfield, the director of the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project, on Monday night. How crazy is that!

Rwanda is much as I remember it from oh-so-many years ago (1985), although Kigali is more modern, the roads are better, and everything is clean - no litter anywhere! The ride from Kigali to Ruengheri is about 2 hours, almost all uphill toward the Virunga Volcano Range, through intensely managed fields. Rows and rows of crops go all the way up the hillsides, some nicely terraced and some not. It was cloudy so I couldn't see the peaks, but even so there are more hills than in Indiana...

We arrived at the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project regional headquarters Monday evening; my home for the next two years. The headquarters is a compound with a very large house that has been divided into offices, a lab, the veterinary clinic and sleeping areas. There is also a small house on the property - more housing for scientists and students. There is a beautiful courtyard with flowers, small flowering trees and bushes, and large front and back yards with flower and vegetable gardens. I have an office (I took a picture but after 15 minutes of trying to upload I gave up - I'll keep working on it!) that looks out onto the courtyard and has a window to the backyard too. My "house" is part of the big house, just off the diningroom and kitchen. I have a livingroom, bedroom and bathroom. There is an extra bedroom that Mike uses when he is in town. Very comfortable. Leon is our house manager - he cooks and does the laundry, among other things. He's been with the project for many years, and has seen many veterinarians come and go. He works quietly and is unassuming, but he doesn't miss anything... and he's a GREAT cook (again, I'll work on the uploading photo thing...they are probably too big...).

Tuesday and Wednesday Mike, Magdalena (MGVP field veterinarian who has been with the project for several years) and I attended meetings with government agencies in charge of tourism and conservation, gorilla trackers, gorilla guides for tourists, research organizations - all partners in Mountain Gorilla conservation - all very, very dedicated people. VERY interesting for me - I put names to faces, learned about the history and challenges of the various projects. I feel so honored to be a part of this dedicated group. Thursday was spent unpacking, getting started on my visa and park entry permission papers in town (I can't go to the gorillas until I complete 2 weeks of quarantine, and have my permission papers). Finally, yesterday I had some time to begin to learn the mechanics of the job - Magdalena showed me the medical records, Clementine (our office manager) got me started with the budget, I tried to get myself organized in the office... And today I began to answer a weeks worth of emails!

There is sooo much more to tell, about the people, the 3 great dogs at the compound, the birds, the geckos, the town, and my new pet guinea pigs, but I'll sign off now - I'll try to add something daily when I can. Let me know what you want to hear about!