Working together for the environment

The environmental workshop was really great. The teachers we were giving the workshop were always willing to participate and enjoyed the many group activities we worked on. Actually the group activities and presentations by the Ugandan teachers were key because by day 2 of the workshop it became clear that over half of the participants couldn't understand most of our 'accented' english. Though they all speak (and read) english rather well, our pronounciation of words is quite different. For example the word 'circulation', they would pronounce 'sanitation', and often there would lots of zeh's added onto their words. Plus speaking in the past tense meant words like planted, would sound like plant-e-dee. To bypass such language barriers, we didn't spend any time lecturing. Instead, we would set up a group-based learning activities and groups would present the environmental topic to the rest of the class. Other times we would play word definition matching games and even had a few very competitive games of environmental Jeopardy. When groups got the right answer or finished presenting, Shannon, Aidan or I would say "clap for yourselves" and everyone would clap. All this participation gave the class a lot of energy and was overall a great way transfer the material, as it got everyone actively engaged in the learning process. Even I feel like I learned a great deal from giving this workshop --I am actually considering combining some of the cooperative learning methods we used and taught in the workshop in my own lectures at the University of Toronto (undergrads won't know what hit them ---parti-ci-pa-tion, whaaat?).

Aside from the laughs we had in class, some of the highlights included a visit to a primary school. We did this to identify the environmental concerns at the school. At this school there was this 5-10m deep gully that passed near the school and continued many kilometers across the Kasese municipality. This gully is getting bigger every year and started to affect the foundation of the school building. The gully was carved by water run off from the nearby mountains in combination with deforestation and soil erosion. Over the years ignoring the problem led to a deep gully that regularly injures children that fall in it and that serves as highway for thieves. Not exactly the greatest thing to have next to school full of young children.

The workshop also included a forest walk in Kalinzhu National Park. Now, by forest walk you may think 'a gentle stroll among the autumn leaves'...but no, what I actually mean is hike in the humid jungle surrounded foliage so dense that all you see is green everywhere. There were ~35 of us trekking and we saw strangler figs that grows by choking its host tree, vines covering every tree trunk, trails of safari ants marching, and even a Colobus monkey with its white fluffy tail. On this walk what really amazed me was that some of the local teachers had never been to a national park or even in a forest. In Uganda, they are literally surrounded by forest (well, jungle) and to never have step inside?!!?? Some of them have grown up with ideas that the jungle serves no real purpose, and the goal of the walk was to show them that so many things they depend on actually originates and requires on the existance of trees and wildlife. At the end of the walk we crossed through acres of tea plantations. Among the tea trees they are many, many snakes. To avoid lethal snake bites, they actually have to spray the crops with a chemical that will make the snakes lose their teeth! To collect the tea leaves, locals have to walk among the bushes with a hand-held clipper ---given that these tea plantations cover over a thousand acres I think I'd rather get gummed by a snake then have to collect tea leaves with a hand-held clipper.

The workshop wrapped up with a really interesting discussion on the major environmental issues faced by communities here in Uganda. Bush burning to let goats and cows eat the tender grasses, poaching of wildlife for food, elimination of forests for crop farming, not to mention an exploding population with very mixed reviews on the ideas of family planning. Actually the population of Uganda is 30million, the same as in Canada, except their country is only the size of Southern Ontario. Christianity is the predominant religion here, which may partly explain the resistance to family planning, but on the otherhand Christainity has led to men having only 1 wife (in contrast to the East African tradition of 4+ wives), and on average families range from 6-20 children (can you imagine producing 20 kids!). In general, Ugandans are good a debating and enjoy discussing current issues and politics, so our workshop environmental discussion had some really good points about how the best way forwarded is to conserve the environment while still allowing people to benefit financially (for example, giving poaching villages an source of income through ecotourism that has them now actively guarding against poachers).

By the time the workshop ended I have to say that I was completely exhausted. The hostel we were staying at was really noisy and neither Shannon or I were getting much sleep. Plus the local food we had been eating was ummm, well let's just say that the standard local food is stuff that is high in starch and tastes like dust. For example, ugali, rice or matoke (green banana paste) with nothing on it. Pasta noodles with no sauce or flavoring. Cassava and potato roasted until its lost all possible moisture and tastes like dust. There was jam at breakfast but they would spread on your piece of stale bread less than 1 teaspoon of jam so that you could barely see it. It was getting to the point where I was having trouble choking down one more starchy dry meal. Our meals at home are so sauce based that you really don't realize it until you are without. Well, I should complain so much, there was beans (yuck) and the meat option was mainly goat ---and I mean a stew with all parts of the goat, intestines all the innards (which I passed on). Ok, ok sometimes there was a ground peanut sauce, but in all seriousness, people here write the textbook on 'plain diet' -- and they love it too.

With the workshop over (and a great success in my view!) it was now time to see the wildlife we are trying to protect. Off to Ngamba island and the Chimp Sanctuary. Yes that's right, an island protecting chimps that have once been illegally kept as pets in implorable conditions. More adventures to follow.