The Past week reviewed

In addition to the excitement of our first foundations, work has been progressing very well. The "Ikoro Girls", the puppies, also had their next set of injections and two of them have left us today to Kigali. Akajama and Ingwe have settled in very well in their city home according to their new owner. Hopefully Mpisi and Imondo won't be missing their sisters too much. They will also now be going to the site with me everytime I go giving them and even bigger area to run around in but also more used to being in the car with me and being between people.

Andy and I have taken on another 20 employees on the site. 18 of them are masons which brings our number of masons on site to over 30. The total number of people working on the site is now 70! The enormity of the workforce hits home when one sees everyone setting off to their various workplaces on the site in the morning.

The pathways are proceeding quite rapidly as the guys are clearly into the swing of it with the masons knowing what we're expecting. Its becoming a more and more pleasing sight to see the pathways meander further and more widely through the site. Latest photos of the pathways in a follow-up post.

The roads are going very well with the 1st overland truck parking place completed. The second truck site has commenced which is quite a lot of work as there's a lot of filling up to do but the guys there are working hard with a high level of productivity.

The circle road around the 4x4 campsites is going very well too with a team that seem to outshine the rest in productivity with absolute ease.

In respect of the roads I'll also do separate posts to show some of the latest photos.

The Ikoro "Girls" - latest photos

These photos were taken on their first day back at the site since the day as very small puppies, they went with me to wish all the staff a merry Christmas on the last day of work. Needless to say, everyone on the site gasped, as I initially did too, at how much they had grown. On the site they followed Andy and I around all around the site with the boundless energy of young puppies. As per the vet's initial estimate, they are approximately 12 weeks old here.

"Ingwe" - her head sticking out below her slightly bigger sister "Akajama". Getting a bit bullied at times by her 3 larger sisters, but bully might be an overstatement as she's very adept at holding her own.


"Imondo" - one of the girls that will be remaining with us. Also the tallest of the four and already barking quite readilyat people she doesn't know.





"Akajama" - still energetic and living up well to her name of 'little gangster' by more regularly than her sisters still testing the bounderies of what's right and wrong...as kids do.










"Mpisi" - still my favourite and also one that will remain with us and "Imondo". Second in height only to Imondo, she's bulkier of the 4 and also true to her name 'Hyaena' specialises in being opportunistic, especially when it comes to sneaking up behind me and grabbing my legs/ankles in her little sharp teeth.

Start 2007 update

Work commenced on the site again 2 weeks ago whilst I was on a short trip to the UK. Everyone has jumped in again with renewed enthusiasm and clearly well refreshed after the festive season.

In these 2 weeks, the guys have done a fantastic amount of work again some of which I'm told, was to impress me with how much can be done in a short space of time. Well, success on that front - I am impressed, hugely so!

Very soon we'll be able to do deliveries of building materials to various points on the site via the roads that are progressing rapidly. I've driven my car into the site on the exisiting roads and well impressed. Other than the odd spot that we had to attend to that wasn't as compacted as we thought, the roads so far are looking great.

As for the pathways, I'm going to have to start drawing a map of them and the roads so we can give our clients a layout map. Very pleasing yet humbling seeing the pathways winding through the trees and knowing how much sweat had gone into the making of them.

The "girls" i.e. our puppies have grown a lot and are now ready for their next set of injections including the rabies jab. This will happen in the next few days and then sadly but necessary, we have to say goodbye to "Akajama" and "Ingwe" who are destined to becoming city girls. I'll get some pics of them up here before they go though.

A Serval, a genet and the Ikoro Girls

Serval track photographed in the NW of the site

This photo was one of a few I took in the north-west of the site. After checking the measurements and following as many of the tracks as we could and deferring to the field guides on tracks, we've concluded that these are serval tracks. On showing the pic of a serval to some of the lads at the site, they immediately identified it as the animal they've been seeing on the site. The other tracks in the north we also confirmed as genet tracks. Unfortunately one generally can't tell different genet species from each other just from their tracks so we have to try and get photos to know what genet(s) we have there.

This of course brings up the subject of the leopard's presence on the site. Now while I have not photographed the other tracks yet that have been seen on the site (which the guys maintain are much larger than theses serval tracks) it takes mentioning that pretty much any animals with spots that looks cat-like is called "Ingwe" - Kinyarwanda for leopard. So on whether there's a leopard on the site, methinks the jury's still out on that one.

Now this morning when Andy and I got to the north western border to check for any new tracks, I was greeted by a little whimper and the small "growls" of 4 small puppies. They cautiously approached me from the hessian bag they'd obviously been lying on just inside our hedge. I think my jaw just dropped for a second or two before I called Andy over to get some guys to help me get them to the car. Just 2 days earlier I had been chatting to the Gorillas vet about letting me knwo when they find a dog looking for a home - now I had just got four!

I immediately phoned the vet to ask if I could bring the puppies over for him to have a look at. Whilst waiting for him to phone me back I got out a syring from the first aid kit and started giving them water which they promptly gulped down, clearly very very thirsty. They were also covered with lice and fleas with the skin between the fur not looking too good.

Anyway, we estimated their age around at least 4-5 weeks (our own opinion based on their size and their eyes being open) of which the vets later said was actually closer to 8weeks. Getting some shampoo,we took them home and started the whole wash, scrub and clean followed by some more water, milk and maize meal porridge. The vet later helped us out with some deworming treatment for a 3 day course. Having obviously not had much care or possibly even food lately, they lay down after this and slept a good few hours.

This was clearly going to be quite a bit of work to try and nurse them back to health and get them enough nourishment and hopefully keep them alive. I had just received a very nice Christmas present but was going to have to work to keep it. The guys at the site immediately said that whoever put them out didn't realise that the puppies they had abandoned will now most probably have a better Christmas than them, so I suppose it was a bit of a Christmas present for the puppies to have us find them. I immediately started referring to them as "my & the girls" which confused some Rwandese no-end - referring to them as humans?!