The building of the fence continues!

Here are some photos from the construction of the new chimpanzee enclosure from today, it's progressing very well!

Urgent appeal!

The construction of the fence for the new chimpanzee enclosure continues!
Fence construction today, 22. March 2010

We now need your help to keep the work going! We need to raise another 100 000$ to finish the fence. For you to follow the fundraising and hopefully be inspired to donate what you can, we have made an urgent appeal. You can find this on our facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/lwiro

or on this direct link

http://www.sjimpanser.net/urgent.htm

Every dollar is very important to us!!

Together we will make this happen! The chimpanzees of Lwiro need to climb trees again!

Donations!

Thank you so much to the people that have donated money!

Aurora P - 65 USD

Simone H - 20 USD +15 USD

Claudia R - 30 USD

Theresa S - 25 USD

Thank you so much guys! It means so much to us!

Everyone that donates gets a personal thank you and a nice photo of one of our primates on email, please consider helping us!

Lola, the red-tailed monkey

PARTY TIME!!!

The Women of CRPL! Mama Dorcas, Mama Guillamine, Carmen, Mama Irene, Mama Bea and Andrea.

A few drinks and a chat!
The Mamas dancing!

It is nice for the workers to spend time together outside of the Sanctuary. They really enjoy this time.

Everybody dancing!

The 8th of March marked International Women’s Day for 2010. In Lwiro there were many celebrations occurring, with all of the population out in force wearing their finest attire. Even the men love this day and get dressed up. However, as the chimpanzees need to be fed, like every other day of the year the celebrations for the CRPL workers did not start until 5pm. After finishing work we all donned our party clothes and sang and danced our way from the CRPL to the local guest house. On arrival we took some cokes or beers and sat down for a chat. The four women workers were beaming the whole night and looked beautiful in their special outfits. After a little rest the music began and we all danced the night away. A wonderful night was had by all in celebration of women everywhere!

EXCITING NEWS!!!

Yesterday the 6th of March 2010 was an exciting day for all of the animals, staff, partners, sponsors and friends of CRPL!!! We started digging the foundations for the Chimpanzee Forest Enclosure! I am sure that most have you have been following our desperate plea for funds to help us achieve this very large project, so you understand that we have been working hard to get this started. What you may not realize, is that this is already over two years of planning, and we are only just beginning the construction. We do not yet have all of the funds needed. But we do have the funds to start! And we figured it is better to get started now and continue to raise the funds as we go. We WILL get this built and these animals into better conditions, and our aim is to do it as soon as possible. I hope all of our blog followers and facebook friends will celebrate this exciting time with us! If you would like to be a part of the project, please donate on the blog. 100% of the funds donated will go into building this fantastic home for the chimpanzees of the CRPL! A big thank you to everyone who has already donated and to our sponsors. We have started this with your help!

SLEEPING BABIES!!!

At the CRPL we have 12 chimpanzee infants who all live in a cage together. They range in age from about 1 to 3 ½ years old. In the wild, chimpanzees are very dependent on their mothers until they are quite old; because of this we have a caregiver in with the babies for 24 hours a day. This caregiver becomes the nurturer, cleaner, disciplinarian, protector and more to these little chimpanzees because they don’t have their mothers with them. Papy and Armani, our two caregivers both work rotating 24 hours shifts with the babies. Both Papy and Armani love the babies and are very good with them. They hug and play with them all of the time, but are also very good at encouraging them to grow and learn.

At about 5pm when it is getting dark and cold here in Lwiro the babies and their caregiver move into the dormitory attached to the cage. This is such a wonderful sight to see and probably one of my favorite times a day (although, it is hard to choose when you live and work here). The babies all march inside, sometimes walking with a friend, sometimes swinging in from a rope!

I have always been curious to see what exactly happened within the dormitory at night. I often ask the caregivers ‘who sleeps where’ and ‘with whom’! With these questions in mind I decided to send my camera into the dormitory for the night with Papy. I did wonder if I would ever see the camera again in one piece. The pictures below are the result. It seems that although there is room for everyone to have some space to him or herself, they like to sleep directly on top of one another. This no doubt gives them comfort and warmth!

Thank you!

We would like to thank PAAW for their donation of $1000! This money will go toward the forest enclosure. Every donation goes such a long way here, and your support is so appreciated! http://www.paaw.org.au/

Mangay!

Nests galore!!!

While all of the staff were working very hard to get the day going, the Goma Group thought they would relax a little while longer and try to beat off the morning chill by making nests. It seemed that everywhere I turned; a nest was being made or enjoyed. It also seemed that everywhere I turned a nest was being stolen!!! They were having such a great time that I had to share it on the blog!

Yonguesa!

Irangi!Kama!

Kanabiro and Felixta!

Kenya!Kamituga!

Good morning Lwiro!!!

I took my camera out first thing this morning to capture the day as it began. Every day is a busy day, but the mornings are always the most demanding. The food preparation team must pick out, weigh and wash all of the items for the day and there is a lot of food to be cooked. They then need to start sorting the food into groups for the day ahead. The monkey and chimpanzee keepers must move animals around so that they can successfully feed and clean all of the cages. They have to do all of this while the animals are demanding food…NOW!!!

Salamavilla (right) and Wima (left) demanding food from Claude the keeper!

Lume demanding breakfast...soon Lume!!!

Bahati and Christoff washing and sorting the food!

Mama Irene and Mama Bea chatting about the day ahead. Mama Bea sitting, cooking food for the animals!

Kaleshe cleaning out the Goma Group dormitory!

Kahole cleaning Shumi, the baboons cage!

Doublago our farmer planting some onions first thing in the morning!

Julius, Fizi, Mangay, Uvira, Monique, Loia, Lulinga, Aketi and Butembo

(Misisi, Maiko and Ituri in Hammoks)

The rainy season is upon us at this moment in Lwiro. This means there is a lot of heavy rain and it is often very cold. Usually it rains at night, but sometimes we get heavy downpours during the day as well. Yesterday was one of those days. When it rains the babies become very quiet and seek comfort from each other (as they would from their mothers in the forest). Here is a lovely picture taken during the storm of the baby cage. You can see that nine of the babes were huddled up together, while three were feeling more independent and sitting in the hammocks above. Once the rain stops it doesn’t take the babies long to start running around again.