Denver Gorilla Run

Denver, CO:  Since most of us can't make it to the jungles of Africa, the Mountain Gorilla Conservation Fund brought the jungles to Denver, Colorado.   Last month hundreds of mountain gorillas ran through the streets of downtown Denver.   The Mountain Gorilla Conservation Fund is hosted the 3rd Annual Denver Gorilla Run helping to keep Dian Fossey's dream alive!  

In 1985, Dian Fossey was murdered.   The Mountain Gorilla Conservation Fund (MGCF) took the initiative to keep her dream alive. When MGCF took over the project there were only 248 Mountain Gorillas left in the world.   Because of the projects that MGCF oversees there are now 723 in the countries on Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.   A Mountain Gorilla can only be seen in Africa; these animals cannot survive in captivity therefore they'll never be seen in zoos.
 
Mountain Gorillas are one of our closest relatives, sharing 98.6% of our nuclear DNA.   This makes them the closest link to mankind and as a group we are trying to help save these animals from extinction.   MGCF introduced veterinary medicine in 1986 with a project called Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project.   The local governments are convinced that this project saved the gorillas from extinction during the war in the mid-90's. Remember the movie "Hotel Rwanda"
 
MGCF needs to expand the veterinary programs offered to the local Ugandans and Rwandans.   The current facility, Makerere University, has outgrown itself and we need more room to further the education of locals to first, protect the Mountain Gorilla, then expand to other wildlife in Uganda and Rwanda.   MGCF needs support in raising funds to build a new expansion to this veterinary school. MGCF is seeking $150,000 to build a new lecture hall tripling the  current capacity. This expansion will provide four new lecture halls and a wildlife museum to conserve gorilla remains for future studying.   MGCF was the first in the world to ever build an "on-location" vet center in 1986 for the protection of endangered animals.   Since then, 20 expatriate veterinarians have served in the countries and now locals are being taught veterinary medcine so they can take over the task of protecting their own wildlife.   This is a great thing for central Africa!
 
  

June 20, 2006

Left to Right: Lisa Voigt,Morgane Berenguer  and Nicola Kilangton are working to help the people of Rwanda.

This is Rwanda

by Nicola Kilangton, Spring, 2006

The rains have come late this year; and although the dryness and heat were an enjoyable change from the minus degrees and snow in Germany during my Christmas holidays, it is good to see the hills that surround me slowly turning green again and the people are out on their plots of land digging and planting, praying for a good harvest and the hope of some extra cash to put the children through school. It is incredible to see what effect the rains or the lack thereof, can have on a country and its people. Throughout East Africa there have been droughts and people are going hungry. The whole mood of a country can change when the rains don’t come – it becomes a desperate situation and tensions run high. Then, their mood swings back to cheerfulness when the first drops fall from the sky. Here, I try hard not to complain when it rains for days on end and keep telling myself that over 8 million people are happy because of these days where the roads turn to mud slides, and one can literally watch the maize grow in the fields. Even the birds seems to sing louder during the day and the orchestra of crickets feel compelled to play through the night.

The days have all run together and I find myself again in April of a new year in Rwanda.  The other day I decided to take a walk on my own, and I took a walk over the hills towards town. I don’t know why, but I had almost forgotten that one is NEVER alone in this country! Even when you think you are - suddenly I find a pair of eyes looking at me from behind a tree or a house wall. Children appear from nowhere and automatically fall into step beside me and although not much is said, (or rather a lot is said but not much understood), they accompany me for a while and then drop back to go back home and others will take their place and so my walk towards town is in the company of these children whose names I am sure to forget but will hopefully recognise their faces on the next walk… Of course they don’t forget mine or any of the other “Musungus” who have lived here over the last years and if they are not 100% sure of who I am they will call every name from Julia, Sarah, Saskia to Morgane and then finally in desperation remember “Nicola”! It’s funny and I have to laugh when I think that Julia left in 2004! Although it does sometimes bother me that one can never be alone or that one’s destination is always asked, the other extreme was in Germany where I had a real sense of being anonymous. I sometimes felt quite lost.

One on of my walks I was accompanied by one of the boys of the orphanage. We were walking towards the Memorial site at the end of the road. It was the day of the 12th anniversary of the Genocide, that in 1994 took hold of this small country with an unimaginable brutality and held it in its grip for 100 days. My companion tells me that he was only little, but that he remembers relatives dying and seeing a man slaughtered. He tells me that he still dreams about it at night. A woman of about my age joins us in our walk. She is alone and begins to tell me her story. People here do want to talk about their experiences and it strikes me that this is the only time of the year when they are “allowed” to. My heart went out to this woman who witness the deaths of her husband and six children including the baby that was bound to her back. She herself was struck down and left for dead. She lives in one of the little houses opposite JAM. This is a small settlement which provided housing for the widows of the Genocide by another NGO (Non Governmental Organisation). Here she lives and tills the land around her house.  We walk and she talks. I listen and try to imagine what it must be like and find myself thanking God that I never had to go through something like a Genocide. And once again I have to face the fact that life is not fair. Our paths part at the Memorial and I join some others of my staff and children from JAM at the site for a time of remembrance. This is the third time that I have stood with the people of Rwanda and each time it is with a different awareness. This time I stand as only “Musungu” and in a way represent all the “Musungus” who packed their bags (and dogs) together and left these beautiful people to fend for themselves. I don’t feel as one who left, and who could have and should have stayed, but I feel acceptance by the community in which I work and live as one of them. As I stand looking at the faces of the people around me I realise that I know a lot of them by name and that makes this time a very special and personal experience for me.

But then this is Rwanda, and here people matter. After returning I had to again get used to the fact that when I went to get my bread or milk I would first of all have to account for “being lost for so long”, answer the questions about the health of my family and then hear over and over again that I had “grown too big”! What can I say? Mum’s cooking was too good and she was always putting food on the table as if the army was about to arrive (which more often than not, invariably happened in the form of my sister’s family arriving!) Thankfully those extra Kilos have been lost again and now I have to hear that I am “losing my weight”. You just can’t win!

As I sit here in my office I realise that it is about to rain – again! It’s funny to notice the differences in societies around the world. At the first sight of a dark cloud people in Europe would start rushing around trying to make as much ground as possible and avoid getting wet. The British carry always an umbrella and so are not too disturbed about a little water, but here in Rwanda I have noticed that people will continue working in the fields, walking along the road until the rain becomes too much and then they just go and stand under the roof of a house that is nearby. They meet with others and the owner of the house will often stand with them and so they pass the time chatting and catching up on news. When the rain passes everybody goes their own way again. I have learned much about the importance of people as opposed to things and time pressures.

For years I had always packed an old shoe box full of little presents for a little girl or boy somewhere else in the world for Christmas. Last week I had the first hand experience of receiving about 3,000 of these boxes for the children of JAM and the community’s children. I almost cried as I saw the excitement and joy of the children as they opened their boxes to find pencils, dolls, cars, socks, toothbrushes and lots of sweeties! One girl came to tell me she has now a friend in the USA! The box had contained a small letter from a girl in the States – she became a friend! These boxes had come to us as part of the “Hope Rwanda” mission that is taking place in this country for the 100 days of mourning. Christians from all over the world have come to Rwanda to give the people of Rwanda a scene of hope and joy and these boxes are a symbol of that hope and joy being put into practise other outreaches involve visiting the inmates of prisons and making a small difference to the man on the street by meeting a need. I feel privileged to be here and witness these events.

The Training Centre has started its second course! Who would have believed it? New faces and ideas are once again filling my days here. The “old” students have turned up at regular intervals just to have a look or chat to their teachers or tell me that they have found a job and come to say “Thank You”. I feel so proud of them and continue to pray for they ways that will lead them into a brighter future. In Nursery School we have 60 children and it happens that if my office door is open at 12 o’clock the room fills with these little ones wanting to say goodbye to me! But not just at 12 does that happen…certain children will make any excuse to leave the Nursery and then just come to be with me and together we walk back to the Nursery… they are so special and a few are finding very quickly a special place in my heart.

President Bush welcomes President Paul Kagame of the Republic of Rwanda

President Bush welcomed President Paul Kagame of the Republic of Rwanda to the White House on Wednesday, May 31, 2006. President Bush and President Kagama discussed excellent bilateral relations, including Rwanda's successful participation in the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). The leaders also discussed Rwanda's strides toward reconciliation, democracy, and inclusiveness, and the important role of women in advancing these vital objectives. The United States' role in Rwanda's economic growth and development through trade, investment, and assistance was also discussed. President Bush took the opportunity to recognize Rwanda's contributions to stability in the Great Lakes region, as well as its peacekeeping contributions in Sudan.