2009 Bird Calendars for Uganda Schools

There have been several different methods to raise funds for the two little schools that we support in Uganda. Every year we have been selling calendars showing birds of Africa. Here is the front picture for the 2009 issue. The proceeds are all used as funds to support the schools program at Kasenyi and Equator Highway primary schools in Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda. Equator Primary has a large number of registered AIDS orphans. You can see some of what we have done in the student blogs from the years 2007 and 2008, or from chapter 27 of The Trouble With Lions. You can find out more about the book here, where several pdf pages and part chapters can be read.

This year I have gathered enough photos to do one with the theme Black, Grey and White Birds of Africa. Here are some of the images from it.

To make the link to the schools more clearly I have added photos taken by Tessa Leena who accompanied us as videographer on the trip in February 2008. She took dozens of pictures at both schools and I have included a few that show the kids and their school surroundings.

One of our activities was to paint a mural in a classroom and artists Vivian Lau and Tyler Stitt spent a good hour with the landscape that depicts the park, the Lake George and some of the Giant Euphorbias. We also painted, or re-painted, the school blackboards, which looked more grey than black when we began to work on them. Here are Jo Haigh and Jill Meacher hard at work.

Calendar sales have been brisk so far, at $20.0 each, which gives us a profit of under $8.00 towards the school programs. If you would like one, or a whole lot, please contact me through the comments section below. They make great Christmas presents and Sandy Farber, of Jubilee Travel in Saskatoon (details here) has just purchased one as a birthday present for her bird-watching sister. Sandy has been our go-to travel agent for all the arrangements for the trip.

We cannot offer a discount on the price, as every cent goes to the schools, and we do not have a charitable tax number. We can only take payment by cheque or cash, and we would have to add postage, as we do not want to cut in to the money we raise. This has been a low-key operation over the years, but 100% of our proceeds go where they are needed.

The launch in Saskatoon

Refinery Launch of The Trouble With Lions

What a turnout! Thanks so much for everyone who came along, we had about ninety folks take a big slice out of their evenings and come to join Jo and me at Saskatoon’s Refinery for the public launch. The intimate space of the basement gave everyone a chance to mix and mingle and lots of folks purchased copies of the book. My hand got a bit tired signing and also making sure that every single copy had the typo on page 237 corrected. More of this below.

After a glass of what-you-fancy we headed upstairs to the theatre where Cynthia and Jim had laid out the chairs on three sides of the room and set up a couple of tables for my toys – a computer and projector, as well as the sound system for Brother Kurt, who would play some music in the “intermission”.

Jim McCrory, well known broadcaster in the Saskatchewan scene led the event of with an intro, and then I told a few stories about some of the work in the early days, when I was translocating rhino. I ran an old two minute movie clip, shot on Super 8, of the actual techniques of rhino capture and with the technical revolution this has been digitized for use on PowerPoint. I also related the account of how a San man (used to be called Bushman, but that is no longer appropriate) captured ostriches with a small snare and a piece of ostrich shell. Ostriches are fatally attracted to anything white, so Anton, which was the man’s Westernized name, gave us a dramatic demo of how a bird will dip its head into the trap and end up with the snare around its neck. As the snare, made of very strong natural fibre, is tied to a stout tree the ostrich is doomed and the man and his family have a nice pile of meat. Of course this is just one example of how humans have acquired their meat from wild animals since time immemorial. This leads into a discussion of the wider subject of what is now dubbed “Bushmeat”, an emotional subject that has become a high-profile issue in many forums.

From there we listened to Kurt, who is a member of my writers group, as he played a couple of well-known tunes for us – Wimoweh, and She’s Got Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Feet.

After that break I headed into the newer territory of our work in Uganda, and this occupies the last six chapters of the book, covering conservation, human tragedies, teaching, humour and the very complicated human x livestock x wildlife interface. One of the humorous events occurred when a female member of the party, standing in what passed for a shower, sluicing herself off with water from a cup repeatedly dipped into a plastic bowl, became convinced that a Peeping Tom was giving her the once over. It was a local member of a wildlife troop.

And the typo? The caption of the photo of the hyaena on page 237 has one crucial word missing. Here is the photo, and anyone not in the know would at once recognize it as being of the groin region of a male. It is not. The caption reads “External genitalia of a juvenile spotted hyaena.” One crucial word is missing. Between juvenile and spotted should come the word “female”. For a fuller explanation you can take a look at the text, or for the real detail buffs go to the actual science references in the bibliography. The ultra short version is that early in the life of the fetus the chemical events that lead to either testosterone or oestrogen being the major sex hormone are not the same in hyaenas as they are in other mammals.

It seems as if no book is ever published without a typo or two. Peter Midgley, the managing editor on this project, himself a published author, told me that Persian rug makers would always insert a deliberate error so that their work would not rival the perfection of Allah.

The Trouble with Lions coming this April!

The Trouble with Lions: A Glasgow Vet in Africa (UAP, April 2008)

From the cover:
“The trouble with lions is that while you are conducting a pregnancy test, you need to be equally, if not more, aware of what you can learn from the lion’s other end.”—Jerry Haigh

Such is the kind of dry, canny wisdom that Jerry Haigh brings home with his fascinating collection of stories about working with wild animals in Africa. Conversational in tone, conservational in theme—you will be right beside Jerry, wife Jo, and a colourful cast of vets, guides, and wardens as they scour Africa’s sprawling vistas “troubleshooting” lions, rhinos, humans, and other indigenous mammals. Veterinarians, conservationists, and fans of real-life adventure tales will want to keep this memoir handy on the dashboards of their Land Cruisers.

“Dr. Haigh has written a book that tells the interconnected stories of people, agriculture, and wildlife conservation, about species as diverse as rhinos, chimpanzees, domestic cattle, and Ugandan kob. In writing The Trouble With Lions, as in choosing a career as a veterinarian and teacher, Dr. Haigh made a decision to make a difference. His book will make you want to do the same.”—Jane Goodall, from the Foreword

A Glasgow-schooled veterinarian, Jerry Haigh developed much of his wildlife expertise and storytelling acumen over years of working and living in Africa with his wife Jo. He currently works at the University of Saskatchewan’s Western College of Veterinary Medicine in Saskatoon.

Praise for Jerry Haigh’s first Africa memoir, Wrestling with Rhinos:
“…a lively and detailed glimpse into the life and thoughts of a dedicated and down-to-earth young veterinarian as he experienced Kenyan life.”—Elizabeth Abbott, The Globe and Mail

“…a free-flowing colourful series of yarns from a veterinary enthusiast. A great read.”— The New Zealand Veterinary Journal

“Wrestling with Rhinos reads like a James Herriott on safari, filled with amusing anecdotes, as well as more serious life-threatening situations.”— The Scottish Field

The University of Alberta Press
Wayfarer, a literary travel series
Book design by Lara Minja
Printed in Canada
$34.95 in Canada
www.uap.ualberta.ca

0-88864-503-1
ISBN-13: 978-0-88864-503-6