Every semester towards the end of the trip all the Carpe students have 4 to 5 days of free travel that they themselves plan every aspect of, from accommodation to transportation to the activities. This semester we wanted to step outside the norm and were feeling very inspired by service so we decided to search for a service project that we could embark on instead of seeing a tourist attraction. After searching without any luck the Carpe Diem office emailed us and said that they had an idea for a project. This project ended up being the opportunity to volunteer on a rhino sanctuary in central Uganda. We were so excited at the possibility that we agreed right away, yet we had no idea what to expect.
When we arrived at the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary we were told that we would be working directly with the rhinos. The first day we arrived the rangers took us out into the bush and we had our first glimpses at 3 of the 12 rhinos at the park. We were able to get really close to them with still keeping our distance. At the sanctuary there are 3 male adult rhinos, 3 adult female rhinos, 3 baby boy rhinos, and 3 baby girl rhinos with the youngest baby being only 6 months old. The massive beasts had such a grace and calmness to them which we didn’t expect. The second day the group split into 2 for a 10 hour monitoring session. Each group was headed by a ranger who took us out into the bush as we tracked, monitored, and data collected all day. We experienced a normal day for a ranger and watched the rhinos every move. Our second day at the sanctuary we were assigned foot patrol. The sanctuary is surrounded by an electric fence which keeps the rhinos in and the poachers out. Because poachers attempt to break the fence we had to walk around the permiter and report any broken pieces or attempted entries. We don’t actually know how far we walked but patrolling the fence is not an easy job. That afternoon the head ranger took us to the cattle gate where we could see the cattle program the sanctuary set up. When the sanctuary opened and obtained the land people’s cattle grazed on the land. Instead of kicking all those people off the sanctuary allows the cattle and cattle keeper to enter and graze under certain rules. This is beneficial for the rhinos because they only eat short grasses and the cattle eat the taller grasses and make them shorter. Our final day started early with a bird walk where we went onto the land and listened and looked for all the species of birds we could find.
Overall it was an amazing program and we are so lucky to have spent a few days there and we left wanting more time to learn about the other programs the sanctuary has started. We are very happy that we chose to step outside the box and do another volunteer project after just having done 2 1/2 months of volunteering. How many people can say they’re worked on a rhino sanctuary and have gotten within 20 feet of them? The 7 of us can now check that off our life dreams list.