Nature Explorers
International
Notes
© All images copyrighted by Amalia Celeste Fernand 2011
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Please enjoy my personal stories, observations, and teachings through descriptions of my travels. I have worked with children on nearly every continent and founded Nature Explorers International after those experiences. I recently spent two years in an experiential graduate program. In The Audubon Expedition Institute, I spent three semesters living outside with a learning community and a semester working in the rainforest. These are my stories....
amalia celeste fernand
A thick blanket of clouds settles above rolling valleys of green and high peaks of blue. There is a wildness among the calm, a mystery behind the seen, a danger lurking beneath the beauty. The Northern Andes mountains of Colombia are home to incredibly unique animals and vibrant cultures that have been threatened by civil violence. In April, I spent a week camping in the rainy Andes of Cauca, Colombia at the eco-village Atlantdia. I participated in a week long Universal Dances of Peace training workshop and taught environmental lessons to the children of the village. I also spent a weekend exploring the colorful markets of Bogotá, the largest Andean city and capital of Colombia. Located at an elevation of 8612 ft, with a population of 8 million people, Bogotá is a bustling metropolis nestled snugly among steep walls of green that seem to disappear into the sky.
The Andes line the Western edge of the South American continent from Venezuela to Chile. This massive mountain range is about 4,300 miles long, 124 miles wide, and contains some of the highest peaks in the world. Potatoes, tobacco and quinine (the malaria cure) all originated in the Andes and a high degree of endemism is found among both flora and fauna. The rainforest's that once encircled the Northern Andes have mostly been replaced by agricultural land, threatening rare species such as the mountain tapir, the Caucan guan, and the spectacled bear. The spectacled bear is the only bear found in South America. Throughout the Andes, they feed mostly on fruit and bromeliads and serve as important seed dispersers. They are found up to elevations of 14,000 feet and are the highest climbers of all bears, spending their days on platforms they construct in the Andean treetops. The montane forests where the bears live are highly fragmented and as the degradation around the fragments increases; habitats shrink, corridors close, and hunters have closer access. For more information on spectacled bears:
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/spectacled-bear/
I traveled through the Andes on an overnight bus ride along high mountain roads from Bogotá to Cali, followed by a local bus to the village of Cajibio. From there, a crowded jeep ride on muddy two-tracks brought myself and the ten Colombians and one German that I was traveling with to the eco-village Atlantdia. A small community of ecologically and spiritually like-minded people live in Atlantdia. They are attempting to live a sustainable and peaceful life amid the forests, farms, sugarcane plantations, and possible violence of the Andes foothills. For one week, 140 people from around the world gathered at Ecoaldea Atlantdia to dance and sing together for peace, unity, and connection. They came from all over Colombia, South and Central America, and even from Spain. Most were Universal Dances of Peace leaders, gathering to learn from the three renowned teachers visiting the village. Each day from 6:30am to 10:30pm, there were workshops offered on dancing, singing, meditation, drumming, yoga, and more. To find out more about the dances or to find a Dances of Universal Peace teacher near you, click here: http://www.dancesofuniversalpeace.org/
Everything was in Spanish and I was one of very few non-native speakers. I experienced a deep immersion into both culture and language as I learned the dances and songs, participated in a native sweat-lodge ceremony, and taught the children. My friend, Lauris Tellez, and I spent part of each day teaching my Nature Explorers curriculum to the children. We had lessons on plants and seeds, insects and spiders, reptiles, amphibians, fish, birds, and mammals. We made art projects, went on nature walks, and celebrated Earth Day together. The children were young, but they had much to teach me about their language, their environment, and their culture. The dances themselves served as an important reminder of the positive powers of community connection. A strong spiritual bond formed between the dancers and tears rolled down cheeks as people sang together for the hope of a peaceful life.
The thought of traveling to The Department of Cauca did scare me. Cauca is one of the regions in the southwestern part of Colombia that has been most affected by ongoing civil conflict. The possibility of being kidnapped is very real. Gunshots and bombs are not uncommon. There is a feeling of instability, a loss of security, an uneasiness that comes with the questioning of who is in control of your personal safety. Yet the only time that I actually felt afraid was before I got on that plane, my head full of preconceived notions and messages of warning from friends, family, the media, and past Colombian residents.
The violence in Cauca in recent years has been mainly due to the cultivation of Coca and land tenure conflicts between indigenous peoples. The guerillas of the FARC-EP, the paramilitaries, and the state forces are fighting for control of drug routes to the Pacific Coast. Or at least thats the common belief behind Colombian violence. In reality, a tangled mess of a story lies underneath the obvious, inextricably linking the U.S. government to the Colombian government and giant U.S. corporations to the para-militaries, and even to Monsanto.
The guerrilla forces started as a frustration at a government always controlled by a wealthy bi-partisan system. As they became involved in the drug trade, they gained money, weapons, and power. The paramilitaries arose to combat the guerrillas and were unofficially supported by the U.S. government and U.S. corporations. Chiquita was prosecuted for hiring paramilitaries to kill people that lived on land now used for banana plantations. Coca-Cola has been accused of hiring paramilitaries to directly assassinate Colombian Union leaders in order to silence their cries for civil rights and create an atmosphere of fear. Thanks to the Killer Coke campaign, many U.S. Universities are now banning Coca-Cola products. To find out how you can help, click here: http://killercoke.org/
International Rights advocate Terry Collingsworth at Conrad & Scherer law firm in Washington D.C. works with his team to fight for basic civil rights and force giant
corporations to take responsibility for their inhumane practices. One of their cases is in Ecuador, with victims from Plan Colombia. In 1999 an agreement was made between the U.S. and the Colombian governments to eradicate the Coca plantations by spraying a highly toxic chemical over the land. The non-selective herbicide, glyphosate, is used commonly around the world and is the main ingredient in Round-up. For Plan Colombia it is mixed with more toxic surfactants to create UltraRoundup, a version that is not allowed to be used in the U.S., although it is produced here and sold by Monsanto. The herbicide pours from spray planes across the Colombian landscape at a high dosage causing large amounts of drift. Across the border, unaware Ecuadorians were left with fields of dead potatoes and generations of cattle born with deformed and twisted legs. Polluted waterways carry the chemical to villages where it is extremely potent to young children, unborn babies, and the elderly. Perhaps it did kill off some Coca plants, but now it is also everywhere else: in the water, in the soil, on the food, in the animals. WIll the children I worked with in Atlantdia one day be exposed to this highly toxic chemical? To learn more about Plan Colombia, investigate the following links:
http://www.phmovement.org/sites/www.phmovement.org/files/Chemical%20Warfare%20against%20the%20People.pdf
http://www.chomsky.info/books/roguestates08.htm
http://www.beehivecollective.org/PDF/narratives/PC_narrative-english.pdf
http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/free/colombia/biowar.htm
http://www.macalester.edu/environmentalstudies/macenvreview/columbia.htm
Coca was once a sacred and medicinal plant. Is a plant really to blame for the violent reputation of Colombia? This complicated web of corruption, greed and power is controlled by those that value the acquisition of profit above all, no matter the human or environmental cost. The Colombians that I met were loving and hopeful and full of pride for their land. They are working together to make an impact: ecologically, spiritually, and socially. The strength of dance and movement as a form of expression is strong and alive in Colombian culture In Las Danzas de Paz Universal, people came together for a common purpose: to dance and sing and pray. The pain some have seen, the fear that many have lived with, those that mourn lost lives, and the hardships that all have endured; together we raised up our hands and mingled our voices in a spiritual plea for universal peace.
Mud walls, cracked and dry are packed between thin, vertically stacked sticks that reach about head high. I look over the wall to two similarly constructed classrooms where children are crowded on benches, bare feet on dirt floors. Uniforms neatly tucked in, they sit obediently and wait. The head master enters, smartly dressed in a pressed suit and tie, a stark contrast to the walls that stand behind him. The children stand to greet him, eager to please, willing to learn, they are the most well-behaved students I have ever encountered.
The Bigodi Women's Progressive Primary School was started by a group of women that wanted to offer an alternative to the classrooms packed with 90 plus students at the public school. The school is funded by the sales of their handicrafts at the KAFRED (Kibale Association for Rural and Environmental Development) Visitor's Center at the Bigodi Wetlands Swamp Walk. Bigodi is a small village community with no running water or electricity that is located adacant to the famous Kibale National Park. The park is home to over 1,100 chimpanzees, including 3 groups of habituated chimps that researchers and tourists come from around the world to visit. The Bigodi Wetlands are managed by KAFRED. The land protects a corridor between two parts of the park and tourists come every day to join a local guide for a 3 hour walk through wetlands that are home to over 200 bird species and 8 species of monkeys. KAFRED was started in 1992 by a Peace Corps volunteer and has been completely community led since then, serving as a successful model for many other African community projects. I spent two weeks living with the family of John Tinka, Program Director and founder of KAFRED, and volunteering for the organization.
The KAFRED mission is to conserve natural and cultural resources, promote conservation education, and support community development projects through eco-tourism (http://www.bigodi-tourism.org/). Inside the visitors center, there are shelves lined with the intricately woven baskets and recycled paper jewelry of the Bigodi Women's Handicrafts Group. There used to be a sign painted on the side of the building directing tourists inside, but when the building was repainted some months ago, the sign was painted over white. Since then, the sale of the women's handicrafts that support the school has dropped by 50%. My first project was to repaint a sign for the women as well as other announcements on the building. We painted a Red Colobus monkey, rare to find elsewhere in Uganda, a Great Blue Turaco, a large and impressively beautiful bird that is common in the wetlands, a basket, and papyrus, a plant characteristic of a Ugandan wetland that reminds me of a small truffala tree. It was rewarding to see how the guides and the community responded to the new brightly painted pictures and letters and to know that I am going to help the women to sell their wares. I photographed many of the baskets and necklaces and hope to help the group to get some contacts and orders in the U.S.A. If any of you know of someone that is interested in imported goods that positively impact a community, please let me know.
The children returned to school to start a new term last week and I spent 5 days teaching environmental education at the Bigodi Women's School. I taught the science curriculum each morning for grade 6 and we spent the week studying the classification of living things.
I also rotated between the classes where help was needed, working with each class in grades 1-5. For the sixth graders, whom understand English pretty well but not necessarily my accent, we had a different theme each day with a lesson, an activity, and an art project. On Monday we studied plants and seeds, learning about the parts of the seed by dissecting them and about the parts of the plant by going on a nature walk to collect leaves for leaf rubbing posters. On Tuesday we learned about the classification of invertebrates, focusing on the difference between insects and spiders and the life cycle of a butterfly while each child created a butterfly stick puppet. Wednesday began the world of vertebrates with reptiles and amphibians and the creation of a tortoise shaker. I borrowed books and specimens such as a real tortoise shell and snakeskin from the KAFRED science center and I encouraged the children to visit the center and make use of a valuable community resource. Thursday was sharks and birds with a lesson on raptors and the creation of a raptor mobil. Friday led us to mammals where I brought monkey, Serval cat, and antelope skulls to show the differences in the teeth of omnivores, carnivores, and herbivores and the children made African mammal masks.
Each child in the primary school made a chimpanzee mask after learning about the importance of chimpanzees and protecting their habitat. We went on nature walks with the binoculars and magnifying glasses I had brought and we made up a chimpanzee song that was chanted around town. First and second graders made paper bag puppets while learning the names of African animals in English and at breaks I blew bubbles to a chorus of laughing, jumping, screaming children.
My last day at the school coincided with my 30th birthday and the children had a ceremony for me; singing traditional songs, performing traditional dances, and presenting me with gifts from their garden. Each teacher stood to give a small speech of gratitude and In a farewell speech to the children I asked three things of them: To teach others, to stay in school and keep learning, and to remember that their environment is so special that people come from all over the world to see it and that they must protect it. Every day I reminded them to go home and teach their families and friends what they had learned. I explained that their art projects were not only a gift, but a teaching tool to help them remember to share their new knowledge with others. The Chair of the Woman's Group came to me on my last day of the village and told me that parents were calling her and stopping her in the streets, telling her that their children had learned so much from me, asking if I could stay for longer. They DID go home and teach their families and I couldn't be more proud. I saw the children wearing their chimpanzee masks in the village and on my last Swamp Walk, a local boy that sells chimps carved out of mud dug from the wetland was wearing his mask to further entice the tourists.
To impact a community is a powerful feeling that is accompanied with a deep and piercing humbleness. My life is so much easier than theirs. I watch Fiona work day in and day out before and after attending her fifth grade class and I think about how hard these children work just to carry out the necessities of survival for their family. What have I given the community in the long run really? Filled their children's brains with an excitement for science and a greater knowledge of their environment and provided them with a creative approach to learning with arts and crafts that they had never seen before. To a school that has absolutely no supplies, will the donations that I left them be useful, or simply serve as a reminder of the privileges that children in rich Western countries are accustomed to? What is an art project to a child with no shoes, a school with no walls?
In eleven days, I have made connections that will last a lifetime and have left a positive impression upon children that long for role-models. What could I do if I stayed longer? Can I change a life in that small amount of time? Unfortunately, my sickness in Ethiopia delayed my trip and cut three precious days from my time in the village. Maybe I have not changed lives, but I have planted seeds in the minds and the memories of children whom can change the world, for we never know how those small seeds can grow and develop to shape the future. If you would like to help donate to the school or the Bigodi Women's Group, please let me know, and I thank all of you tremendously who donated supplies for this trip.
To see the excitement in a sixth grader whom has never used scissors before or the wonder as they discover how a hole punch works and their pure delight at the simple act of coloring is indescribable. I have also donated supplies to Unite, a conservation education organization working with schools near Kibale that is associated with a zoo in North Carolina
http://www.nczoo.org/conservation/International/UNITE.htmlUganda-North Carolina International Teaching for the Environment initiative (UNITE)
Thank you for listening and for your positive energy and support, for it is how I keep my strength.
"Fighting back the sickness, breathing beyond the need for more. Finding the wealth and the richness in a third world shack with an open door, felt so low and helpless, wondering how to help this..."
-Seth Bernard and May Erlewine
I must admit a sigh of relief as I watched Ethiopia disappear out the plane window and settled into the cleanliness and comfort of a pampered flight by Emirates Air. In the best flight of my life, I left that world of suffering behind with warm towels, delicious food, comfortable seats and stellar entertainment. I would highly recommend flying Emirates, based out of Dubai, if you ever happen to have the chance. I walked off the plane to what seemed like a different world, humidity wafted around me in a sea of green on a giant lake. The Uganda International airport is in Entebbe, located on the shores of the massive Lake Victoria. To me, everything looked clean and beautiful and I enjoyed being much less of a spectacle as here, tourists are more common place. I arrived at my beautiful guest house on a hill overlooking the lake as the rays of sunset poured oranges and yellows upon the flat glassy surface and I felt as if I couldn't be happier.
Early the next morning I watched the sunrise over a sea of endless tea plantations and rolling hills as we drove 6 hours west to the small village of Bigodi, near Kibale National Park, where I am living for 2 weeks. I am staying with the family of the Program Director and partial founder of KAFRED, John Tinka. The Kibale Association for Rural and Environmental Development (KAFRED) was started by a Peace Corps volunteer in 1992 to help the communities located around Kibale National Park towards a way of life that is more sustainable for the environment and beneficial for the people. KAFRED protects the Bigodi wetlands, 4 square kilometers of preserved land that serves as a corridor between two sections of the National Park. Local people are employed and trained as guides to take tourists through the wetlands, home to 200 bird species and 8 primates species. I have already seen six different monkey species, an African Gray Parrot, The Great Blue Turaco and the Uganda National Emblem: The beautiful Crested Crane. KAFRED also supports a woman's craft group and a small science center and works to bring environmental education to the schools surrounding the park.
Tinka has a large and friendly family and I have a private, comfortable room. There is no running water, and only limited solar electricity. I shower under the stars with 2 basins of water, one boiling, one cold. I dip the cup in each and pour it over my head and a shower has never felt so good. The family serves my meals on a grass mat and there is always lemongrass tea with black tea bags to add. I watch them work as I eat, each person busy with a different task.
On the first night, as they began to dish out their meal, some continued to work and I tapped Fiona on the shoulder: and gestured toward her work: "Are you going to eat? Let me try." To a chorus of giggles I sat down with a tall wooden bowl between my legs and a very tall, round stick in my hands. For the next hour I used this form of mortar and pestile to crush peanuts for peanut sauce. Up, and down, up and down. Sounds simple, but after a while my hands began to hurt from the gripping and the pounding. A children's job, something given to those who are in between ages, not quite as useful as adults, yet coordinated enough and big enough to work the pestle. Up and down, up and down. "This is hard work!" I exclaimed, stretching my hands. Tinka smiled at me: "Organic!" he said, and I told him of the food processor or blender that we would use. "I don't understand," he said, "how you can use those machines and still call it organic?"
Everyone in the family (except a group of 4 young children aged 2-6 that romp about) is always busy working. One person washing clothes, another chopping wood, another sweeping, another cooking beans, another working on that endless peanut sauce. A baby goat in the yard suckles from his mother while chicks cluck after theirs. And I think, perhaps I am a person that is programmed for a simpler way of life. Me, who did not have a fridge or a shower curtain in my new house the last 2 months, out of laziness or busyness? Perhaps. Or perhaps because these are things that are simply not necessities to live. There is so much that our busy, technological Western world makes us believe that we need, but do we really? When over half the world lives without so much and human kind for thousands upon thousands of year evolved without...
The desperation in the eyes of a child as he holds out his hand to beg reflects back upon all of us. Ripped and dirty clothing lay tattered across his shoulders, bare feet stand amidst rocks and burrs, flies gather at the corners of his eyes and below his nostrils where snot and sleep have accumulated, but there is no water to clean it off. "You, you, you!" he cries, pointing at my sunglasses, belt, water bottle. "One birr!" (1/16th of a dollar) he yells while pushing his hand close to my face. And I never give him anything more than a smile and a "Salem" (a greeting meaning peace) because if I did, it would cause mobs and misunderstandings and serve merely to perpetuate the situation. We are giving in a bigger way, but for people whose lives are based on moment to moment survival, that is hard to understand.
Extreme poverty is defined by the World Bank as those living on $1.25 or less a day. 21% of this world, or about 1.4 billion people live in extreme poverty. When coming from the perspective of a country that holds 80% of the world's wealth, we rarely stop to think about how lucky we truly are. Even the poorest person in the United States is better off than the average Ethiopian. There are no welfare or unemployment programs, it is every man, child and woman for themselves. Since 1990 Ethiopia's population has risen to 80 million from 52 million and the per capita annual income is $180, one of the lowest in the world. Rates of deforestation in coffee growing areas are estimated at 25,000 acres per year.
In Ethiopia, the birthplace of wild coffee, farmers get as little as $110 off an entire crop. Well-paid workers at coffee plantations receive 66 cents per day, the average is 55 cents per day, which is not enough to provide a decent standard of living for a family, even in Ethiopia. Starbucks sells Ethiopia Sidamo whole bean coffee for $10.45 a pound, yet maybe a penny or two of that goes to the actual farmer. Brochures state that Starbucks protects topical forests and enhances the lives of farmers by building schools and clinics. In some places in Latin America, Starbucks does do these things, but not in Africa. Starbucks opens an average of 25 new stores a week in the United States alone, where we have 5% of the world's people, that drink 20% of the world's coffee. We have a responsibility to make sure that the farmers that grow our coffee are not starving. You can not look into the desperate eyes of those begging children and ever be the same again.
For more information about Starbucks and coffee growing in Ethiopia, please read the article: "Starbucks calls its coffee worker-friendly, but in Ethiopia, a day's pay is a dollar" by Tom Knudson in the Sacramento Bee at:
http://www.sacbee.com/101/v-email/story/383817.html
After Chris Treter of Higher Grounds in Traverse City had spent years visiting poor coffee growing regions around the world, he came up with the concept of "Beyond fair trade" and started the non-profit On The Ground that works to improve standards of living in coffee growing regions. He works directly with the Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union that has about 100,000 Ethiopian farmers as members, receiving fair trade prices for their coffee. But, yet, is it really fair? They receive pennies and the middle men get rich. There is so much more that needs to be done and so much more help to give. As the Run Across Ethiopia finished it's final day, joined by coffee buyers from around the world, we arrived in a village in the coffee growing region of Yergacheffe. We were once again greeted by thousands of smiling faces and an outpouring of generosity, love and thanks. Each runner was given a gift of traditional clothing and dressed for the crowd. The people spoke of what the money from the Run would do for them and what they still needed.
