Johnny Umuzungu Does Umuganda

I wanted to mention one more thing about the caves. Last week talked about the bats but there is another side. There is a social aspect to the caves of this region. During the genocide, some caves were used by rebel forces for hiding in. Some caves were used by villagers. There's one cave in particular that a village hid in for two years. The women and children never left, the men snuck out at night for food and didn't always return. Some caves are littered with human remains while others are simply littered. Some are considered to be sacred places. There's a rumor of carvings in one from the last King of Rwanda. The caves are an important piece of the history of the region and tell the story of the human experience as well as the geological past. I wanted to include this information last week but I wasn't quite sure how to put it. In this picture, my job was to block the hole in the net that spanned the entrance. Why do I get all of the weird jobs?

Umuganda is a national work day. On the last Saturday of each month, people are to return to their home village or community and work. The task will be determined by community leaders. It might be picking up trash or it might be sweeping the streets. The November Umuganda was planting trees. The night before, I was at the Murabura hotel for dinner. The crew there all know me well by now. We were talking about Umuganda and I asked them what they would be doing. They said that they would be along the road near the border with Uganda towards Kisoro planting trees. I said "sounds like fun, I think that I will join you."

They all erupted with laughter at the thought of some Umuzungu doing manual labor. I reminded them that I am not just some Umuzungu, I am Johnny Umuzungu. I told them about planting trees with the 4-H club back in Ohio, working for Pancake's Nursery and planting thousands of Christmas trees one summer just outside of Rogers. They didn't believe me. The next morning, bright and early, I piled into the bus with over a dozen employees of the hotel and we headed out.

Being the only Umuzungu working, I attracted quite a crowd. It was a lot of fun and I met Dean, the Dean of travel. He snapped these pictures. He is a professional traveler/photo journalist. He is currently working with a local conservation and research group and just happened to be on the road that day. Dean is originally from Nebraska and worked for Pfizer so we have had many interesting conversations since then.

The guy that I am talking to is Justice. He lives in Uganda and commutes. He lives with his 65 year old mother and 2 nephews, one 7 and one 3. The nephews were orphaned when his sister and her husband died in a bus crash. The rest of his family (dad, 3 brothers and 2 sisters) were killed during the genocide. The guy in the picture with me swinging the pick is Pacifique. He is the guy I mentioned a few weeks ago with the full ride scholarship to the National University at Butari. He starts on January 5th.

The kids were just from the neighborhood and wanted to talk to the Umuzungu. It was a really fun day and we planted a bunch of trees. I don't know what kind they were, other than the fact that they were native trees. I will be learning the trees as we develop plans for Gishwati where reforestation will be an area of emphasis.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,
Johnny Umuzungu

Johnny Umuzungu - Bat Boy

Tourism is one of the leading industries in Rwanda. Naturally, the various organizations that are involved are trying to expand this industry in a variety of directions. My buddy Doug is looking to create a rafting experience. He wants to start exploring various rivers starting around March. As you might suspect, I have volunteered to help. ORTPN, the Rwandan wildlife and parks folks are interested in offering cave trekking as an opportunity to do other things in this region besides going to see gorillas.

Thanks to the ring of volcanos and the previous lava flows, there are caves all over these hillsides. Where there's caves, there's bats. We all know that bats are our friends. They consume huge quantities of insects and are required for many plant species to exist due to there assistance with pollination and germination. They are all very unique to specific regions and food sources.

Being a mammal, bats can be susceptible to similar disease that we deal with. In the states, we understand that bats can have rabies just like we can have rabies. Here, the concern is Marburg. Marburg might not sound familiar but it was referred to as an Ebola or a type of Ebola. Does that ring any bells? Back in August, a tourist experienced a cave trek in Uganda and became infected with Marburg.

There is one bat that has been recorded as being a carrier to Marburg and also can die from the disease. That particular bat was in the cave that was part of the trekking experience in Uganda. Before cave trekking is to be offered here, the survey work needs to be done here. I was able to provide some assistance with this work.


Remember, you can click on the picture for a larger view

The survey work included a bat survey as well as a virus survey. It will take a while for the diagnostics to reveal the viruses that these little fuzzy guys had, but we did identify some interesting species. One of which was the Egyptian Fruit Bat (the one with the big nose) that is the one that can have Marburg. Another interesting one was a Horseshoe bat. This particular Rhinolophus had measurements outside of the normal range and could be a unique sub-species. This particular bat has a nick-name, the horseshoe bat because it's nose is shaped like a horseshoe and helps to create a bit of a satellite dish with its ears. It echo locates insects. Also, it has a horn like a rhinoceros, like the center piece in a satellite dish. Very cool.



For me, the creepiest looking one was the Otomops Martienseai. It has a really long nose and can open its mouth really wide. This bat is the moth specialist. It is endangered in some African countries and the bat team was excited about finding so many here.


After processing, the bats would need to be warmed up before being released. I was the bat warmer. We kept them in little cloth bags. After processing, they went back in the bag then I dropped the bag down my shirt. In this picture, I had 13 Egyptian Fruit Bats, the Rousettus aegyptiaca, the Marburg/Ebola one down my shirt. They are a very active bat and all of their squirming around tickled like you wouldn't believe.

There is a complete other issue about these caves that I will discuss next week. for now, I need to run. I want to get some tennis in on such a sunny day. Today will be a different sort of lesson, it will be my first game. Wish me luck (and hope that I don't get Marburg).

The Shrunken Forest of Gishwati

Greetings everybody, hope that you are all finding ways to stay warm. It's nice and sunny here. In fact, my only concern at the moment is that it will be too warm for my tennis lesson later this afternoon. I appreciate the opportunity to write to everybody. It does get lonely over here. I have made many friends but it's not the same as visiting with people that have known me for a while. Knowing that you all are reading this helps me feel just a little bit closer to home.

A month or so ago we had a faculty meeting on campus and discussed a partnership between us and the Minister of Agriculture. It seemed that there is some property that is owned by the Rwandan government and they want us to manage it. They want us to develop the concept of research and demonstration farms. The property is in 2 chunks. One will be transformed into a dairy facility. The other it seems will be under my direction in an attempt to create a beef cattle industry for this country. As you might imagine, that has me excited.

The property is part of what was once the Gishwati forest. Up until about 30 years ago it was approximately 250,000 acres. Now, the forest part is about 2,500. Due to the wars that have taken place in the region and the resulting mass migrations of refuges, the majority of the forest had been cleared for homesteads and small farms, most of which were abandoned during the genocide. The trees in these pictures are planted pines or eucalyptus, neither of which is a native species. I was unable to locate the actual remaining original portion of forest, but I will.

As the various political situations have become more stable, the government has resumed ownership of large portions of the property and are interested in community development. There is some international attention to this place from a conservation standpoint because it once had 13 species of non-human primates. You can read some of the history at http://www.greatapetrust.org/save/rwanda.php. I was down there this past Wednesday and took these pictures.

As the infrastructure improves and electricity reaches the more rural areas, it won't be long before the refrigeration capacity expands, maybe even to the point where rural residents actually have refrigerators in their homes. Currently, recipes start with statements like "boil the milk for 3 minutes" or "boil the meat for 10 minutes then..." because the likelihood for contamination is high. Because of this public health concern; goat, chicken or fish will be the meats of choice. They are more likely to be consumed in a timely fashion post-harvest to minimize the pathogen load. Large animals like cattle are difficult to utilize in a timely fashion and therefore are less desirable.

For the moment, the market for quality meats has expanded along with the booming tourist industry. As we develop our beef demonstration farm, we hope to provide a steady supply for the hotels in the area that cater to the Umuzungus that are here to see gorillas. By the way, on a sad note, there was another gorilla that died yesterday. That's 5 since I have arrived. There was a set of twins that suffered infanticide at birth. The mother was new to the group and was only with them for a month when she gave birth. The silverback knew that the babies weren't his so he killed them. The new mother will cycle back quicker since she is not lactating. The animal kingdom can be cruel at times. There was a mature silverback that died 2 weeks ago. An infant was killed last week when two groups mingled, then the mature female yesterday. You can read more about the gorillas at a site that is managed by Dr. Lucy Spelman. She is the head veterinarian for MGVP and lists the details at http://gorilladoctors.wildlifedirect.org/.

On a lighter note, one of the two pineapples that I have been trying to start has developed some roots so I put it in some dirt today. Being an optimist, I haven't given up on the second one and started a third one in water. Next weekend I will claim a garden spot around the house some where. Once the pineapples are up and running, I will try coffee!