USA trip continued. Chicago Zoological Society by Kate Evans–Elephants of Botswana

Last Sunday I travelled from Pittsburg to Chicago.

I am in town to met with various people from the Chicago Zoological Society to learn about how they may be able to assist

Elephants get everywhere, an Beno mask in the Field Museum

Elephants For Africa through infrastrucutre and connections to their projects rather than financial alone– although they have commited to another year’s funding which is great news.

Thanks CZS (www.czs.org).

It was an intense week of meetings with various personnal from animal ethologists, endocrinologists to educators. Their Conservation Education team was running a week long course for South American conservation educators aimed at play nature learning for young children. They were staying at the same hotel as I and so I got to meet with them and learn some Spanish!!!! Thankfully most of them spoke very good English but it was amazing to see how much we could communicate without language through gestures and facial movements, and to see how they could communiate through play with the youngsters they interacted with.

Chicago

After our mutually busy days we would meet in the evening for supper and enjoy some of the delights of Chicago, whilst having a heated tri-lingual (I& Lucas from Argentina common language was German– but I was really scrapping the barrel to remember my school German) debate about conservation and how to get people conservationally aware and concious that their everyday decisions affect all of the world, from the rainforests of South America to the elephants of Botswana.

I love visiting America, I am always greeted by kindness (although perhaps not from the immigration staff) and generosity but I do find the amount of waste created by everyday activities such as eating frightening. Even when you choice to eat in not take out my meals at times have often been served with throw away plates and utensils. I have brought my own termal mug this year to ty and limit my affect this trip (Iknow the whole flying thing is not helping my cause….we are trying to limit the flying).

I encourage all my friends to use a termal mug when buying take out drinks, have a refillable water bottle…..together we can make a difference.

Try hard we only have one world.

Next stop Dallas

To be continued.

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