Lesson Where Proportion Helps us Observe More of the World Around Us - DRAWING the HUMAN HEAD Firstly, I wish to begin with a quick response to Paula and Theresa’s comments from the last post Life Without Art and Music? Paula, please visit us here in Rwanda and show us how to make a Podcast of the children singing to share on the blogs. We would love it! And Theresa, I am happy to hear you can find some joy while viewing I grew up in a family that had and continues to have a wonderful combination of creativity and seriousness. I believe if I can’t laugh and play and create in the face of the challenges life presents, then it would be hard to cope and I most certainly wouldn’t be doing any service to the animals and people here in Africa, which is why I’m here in Rwanda. If it appears like our Art of Conservation students are having fun while they are in class learning and creating new ideas, then I am extremely happy as well. Equally important, I think, is what the students are teaching us. Thanks, Paula and Theresa, for your comments and support.
Below, two drawings from Shingiro adult student Pierre Damien SENDUGU.
Below, two drawings by 12 year old student, Fabrice ISHIMWE.
Below, two drawings by Eric HAKIZIMANA - age 14.
More again soon with Putting Things in Proportion: Part 2. Julie
That’s like imagining the Virunga Forest WITHOUT mountain gorillas, forest buffaloes, golden monkeys, and forest elephants (yikes!). ART - Recently, we, Valerie, Eric, Fahad, and I, brought to our Art of Conservation classes a variety of additional artist’s tools. Due to time and financial resource constraints, we will most likely not get to a lesson dedicated to experimenting with acrylics or oils on canvas, for example. This is OK - we cover a lot in our three-month courses - but we still want to briefly expose our students to a few other possibilities and choices for making art.
MUSIC - In addition to art materials, we bring to class any musical instrument we can get our hands on. No one really knows how to play the guitar, but who cares? Sometimes it is just great to make noise.
Life WITHOUT art, music, and mountain gorillas…NO WAY!
Thank you to an anonymous donor for a greatly appreciated contribution. Art of Conservation welcomes Club SIDA spokesperson Odile NYIRAGUHIRWA to this week’s classes. SIDA is an acronym for the disease AIDS in various languages, including French (Syndrome d’Immuno Deficience Acquise).
Odile discusses with Shingiro’s adult students information about HIV/AIDS, living with the disease, measures of prevention and family planning. Topics, such as these, may naturally arouse discomfort and embarrassment, but Odile’s open and sincere approach allows for an effective examination of the seriousness at hand.
Opening a discussion with the kids during our weekend classes, Odile begins by asking the questions. She asks them if they see and feel changes in their bodies, do they want to have children when they get older and if they do, how many children do they want to have. She continues with asking how many brothers and sisters do they have in their family. Sheepishly they respond with numbers as high as eight and ten siblings and add they want to have one or two children. Odile warns of misleading and dangerous situations they may face - one of the most egregious being confronted by an adult who attempts to coerce a child into sexual activities.
After Odile finishes her exchange with everyone, we move to our art lesson of the day which is covered in an upcoming blog, please stay tuned! “We love you, Odile!” holler the children as they press out the door at the end of class. For more information on these topics, please click here, Rwanda’s Ministry of Health. Enjoy the day.
Art of Conservation welcomes Dr. Lucy, MGVP’s regional veterinary manager and WildlifeDirect’s Gorilla Doctors, to this weeks classes. Lesson Where Art Tells a Story is the theme for students to consider as they listen to Dr. Lucy share the story of Nzeli, a female mountain gorilla in Bwenge Group in the Karisoke Habitat. Our students receive the worksheet pictured below for illustrating a beginning, a middle, and an end to this real life action that takes place in the nearby forest,
Let’s take a look at the BEGINNING of our story with the help of class volunteers. Valerie, with her ever-expanding knowledge of veterinarian terms, interprets for Lucy.
Below, student’s illustrations of the story’s BEGINNING.
Moving now to the MIDDLE of our story, Dr. Lucy asks for volunteers to pose as trees. Using the dense vegetation as her cover, she pretends to prepare the blow gun she would normally use to administer antibiotics to her patients. The vets would never let any of the gorillas discover what is about to happen…a syringe, frequently referred to as a ‘flying dart’ is filled with antibiotics and is placed inside a 54 inch-long tube which then attaches to a blow gun. When triggered, the gun, with an oxygenated cartridge, propels the flying dart and hopefully hits the patient in the correct place - all occurring without any gorilla taking notice.
When first asked how veterinarians give medicine to a wild gorilla in the forest, some guesses included the vet giving an ill gorilla a banana with the medicine hidden in the fruit. Not a bad idea, but we soon learn it’s not that easy. I think our students developed a better understanding of how wild gorillas are given medicine when the veterinarians believe it is necessary. The pictures below show the vet in a distance and not right next to their patient.
Dr. Lucy in action!
THE (happy) END. Nzeli recovers from her injuries with the help of antibiotics and - just as my dad who was a MD often prescribed to aid many ailments, ‘Get it out in the sun!’
Thanks to Dr. Lucy and all of our guests who graciously take time to visit Art of Conservation classes and speak with our students. Through discussion and art lessons, we all gain a better understanding of what it entails to care for wild animals, forests, and people. Perhaps budding artists and / or veterinarians are blossoming as we speak. Until next time,
Forest Elephants, Loxodonta africana cyclotis, is the last in our series of
More vital information on elephants here, Elephant Voices and here, Ethiopian Elephants.
It is difficult for me to unwind after Saturday and Sunday children’s classes. I receive such a big boost of energy being with the kids and working with Team AoC: Valerie, Eric and Fahad.
We’ll explore more animals, plus bugs and birds of the Virunga Forest in future Julie
We just love GOLDEN MONKEYS! Cercopithecus mitis ssp. kandti Kids in Saturday’s Art of Conservation class learn about golden monkeys. Pencil drawing and watercolor by Pacifique MFITUMUKIZA. Pictures made by NTIRENGANYA. Found in the bamboo forests, this primate weighs 10 to 15 pounds. TUYIRINGIRE’s pictures. Habitat loss through agriculture, wood extraction, human encroachment and illegal harvesting continue to be the major threats to this animal. Student BIZIMANA’s creative expressions of a Golden Monkey. Thank you Theresa and Professor Minor for your recent comments. I’ll share here the quote Vernon Minor shared with me. Fahad still busy at the chalkboard. A student examining his work. Julie
Eric taught us how to draw a mountain gorilla and now we move on to Fahad’s instruction on how to draw a forest buffalo. Forest buffalo, Syncerus caffer nanus, not to be confused with a savannah buffalo! Below, Annonciata NTAWIZERA, a student from Art of Conservation’s Shingiro adult class draws and paints a forest buffalo. Forest buffaloes, smaller than savannah buffaloes, are below 120cm in height and 320kg in weight. Their smaller, but heavy build, short legs and slow pace isn’t a disadvantage to them when they want to retreat into the dark forest cover. Annonciata’s pictures above show the animal’s small, back-swept horns - unlike the savannah buffalo’s enormous bossed horns. Here’s a collection of watercolors from 9 Shingiro artists. Don’t forget about the other guys! While mountain gorillas are surely the claim to fame here in the Virungas, our students bring to light a few of the other wonderful animals inhabiting this area. Fahad busy at the chalkboard. I am not in the forest often and I have yet to see a forest buffalo, but as long as they are there doing their forest buffalo thing I am greatly satisfied. Hmm, what Animal of the Virunga Forest will Art of Conservation students illustrate next? Julie
Over the next few posts I’ll share with you pictures made by our With pencil and paper, students from all three classes follow Eric’s instruction on There are 740 mountain gorillas remaining in the world today with half of the population in the Virunga Forest and the other half in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in Uganda. 70% of these mountain gorillas are visited by tourists each year.
The Virunga Forest - Parc National des Vocans (PNV) - consists of 125 Km2 of mountain forest and six Virunga Volcanoes: Karisimbi, Visoke, Mikeno, Sabyinyo, Gahinga, and Muhabura. Genetic similarity between people and gorillas is around 98%.
Rwanda, where our art classes are being held, is a poor rural country with about 90% of the population engaged in mainly subsistence agriculture. A few of the environmental issues are deforestation, overgrazing, soil exhaustion, soil erosion and widespread poaching.
AIDS-HIV transmission, malaria, and tuberculosis are threatening diseases prevalent in Rwanda. So are food or waterborne diseases such as diarrhea, hepatitis A, and typhoid fever.
There is strong evidence suggesting that many primate species are susceptible to many of the infections that humans are afflicted with and that the transmission of infection can occur in both directions. Please stay tuned for Fahad’s instruction of more VIRUNGA FOREST ANIMALSl! Julie
I send a BIG thank you to my sister Mary and to an anonymous donor for their generous support. A lesson in Color Theory I had a nice laugh when Valerie told me about a man from the What may seem like a simple act of mixing two primary colors is truly a new skill for some which results in a functional application of knowledge. I learned that this man paints houses and signs on store fronts. It is gratifying when we sense an immediate application from our lessons, but this is seldom. Sometimes there is pressure in delivering quick and precise metrics of a project - and are those figures really accurate and at best helpful? Our project’s aim to provide stimulus for creative exploration, learning and a place to contemplate and perhaps reassess common beliefs of ones place in this world can produce rather elusive results. We won’t do people’s thinking for them, we expect people to do their own thinking. This way, it is fair and real.
Fortunately there is a call for accountability in this work we do here. What is the saying…it goes something like…a picture is worth a thousand words…..? More again soon,
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