Rwanda Pictures- Musanze

The Rainy Season Begins

A couple of nights ago we had an intense thunderstorm, and it rained all night. For the past couple of days, it hasn't rained, but it has been consistently overcast. There are four volcanoes that surround Musanze, Rwanda, and are clearly seen on nice days, but I haven't seen them since my first day. Hopefully it clears up a bit in the coming weeks, and I'll be able to see the gorillas on a nice day. Yesterday I went to the primary school, and helped teach English with teacher Syrus. He's one of the nicer teachers at the school, and seems to genuinely enjoy teaching the children. As I walk to and from school each day, which is about a half hour walk, the people look at me as if they have seen a ghost. Christian, Elie's son, explained to me that most, if not all of these people have seen a white male, with longish hair, and facial hair, so they're all very curious of me. All males, and most females have shaved heads in Rwanda, so I basically stick out like a sore thumb. At first it was kind of irritating that every time I would walk out of the house I would be stared down by people, but now I understand the reason behind it. Often times people will approach me, just to practice their English, and see where I am going. I have not met a Rwandan person so far that has been rude, or insulted by my presence in their country. Hopefully the trend continues!

Kigali for the Day

Yesterday the two other volunteers, Monique and Cat, came with me into Kigali, the biggest city in Rwanda. There is an international trade fair that started the 26th of August, and ends on the 6th of September. We went to listen to some local music, see some original Rwandan dancing, and possibly buy some interesting crafts at the individual shops that were lined up next to each other. We took a three-hour bus into town, and on the way there, a policeman stopped our bus, but I have no idea why, since I could not understand one word they were saying. They pulled everyone off the bus, and checked everyone’s identification. Unfortunately I did not have any source of ID on me, since Cat told me that I didn’t need one going into town. Both Monique and Cat had a driver’s license on them, while both my passport and driver’s license were both at Elie’s house. I pulled out my credit card, DePauw student ID, health insurance card, and library card, and with the help of a little pleading, he let me by. We got to Kigali at around noon, and stayed at the trade fair until about four o’clock. After we left the trade fair, we went to the supermarket in town, so that we could buy some things that we can’t find in the small town that Elie is from, such as deodorant, and a shaver (to clean up my goatee, of course). I got my two items from the supermarket, and then waited in a coffee shop, until the girls were ready to go. Shopping is not particularly my forte, nor is it a passion of mine, so after about an hour in the trade fair, and ten minutes in the supermarket, I was more than ready to go. Anyways, we caught a bus going back to Musanze at seven o’clock, and arrived at around ten. Elie and his family waited for us to come home, and then we ate dinner. I’ve basically turned into a vegetarian while I’ve been in Africa, since half the time I ask what meat they are serving, they don’t have the slightest idea.

Today (Sunday) it is very overcast, and I’m going to meet up with Cat’s friend, who is an intern at a mountain gorilla research center. Hopefully I can find a way to shadow him for a week, or even a day or two, because I need to see these silverback gorillas! The price of seeing the gorillas is 600 dollars, and another 100 dollars for transportation, which is absurd! I figured the obvious reason for this unreasonable price is because the average stay for a tourist in Rwanda is 1.6 days, to see the gorillas. Locals only have to pay about 10 dollars to see them, but still that is extremely expensive for many Rwandans. I asked Elie if the price would reduce if I went with locals to see the gorillas, and he said no. So, hopefully I’ll get an opportunity to work with the gorilla researchers.

Made it to Rwanda!!

Today was my first day in Rwanda. I visited all the possible schools that I will be teaching at. The first was a preschool, the second was a primary school, and the third was the school for the blind and orphaned kids. I'll have to make a decision on one of them. I'm not sure what I want to do yet. I'll keep you updated! So far, I walk around feeling like a foreign object. There are two other volunteers here from Britain, and so far they have been very nice. I'm staying at a house owned by the man named Ellie, who runs all the schools I previously mentioned. Ellie has asked me to figure out where I'd like to teach, and then put together a few lessons to teach the kids about how to conserve their environment. Rwanda is known as the country of a thousand hills, but I think I've already seen a thousand, so there must be a million! The drive to Ellie's house from the Kigali airport was 2 1/2 hours long, so I had a good chance to see a lot of the land. In the next couple of days, I'm going to meet with someone that works for a Gorilla research center, and see if I can do some work with them for a week or so. Since I'm a volunteer here, I can basically choose what I'd like to do, which is nice. The land here is very green, and everything seems very healthy, even though its the end of the dry season. Evidently the wet seasons starts in September, so I'm expecting a lot of rain. I'll post pictures soon!

More Kili Pics

To the Summit of Kilimanjaro!

It has been an amazing and exhausting week in Tanzania. We started the hike up Mt. Kilimanjaro last Thursday, and got off the mountain today around 1 pm. The entire week of hiking was difficult, but each hike was very different from the next, so it kept everything very interesting. Monday night, at 10 pm, the guides woke all eight of us up, had a little breakfast, and began our final ascent to the summit at 11 pm. The full moon was so bright that Jack Oliver and I had our headlights off, and just used the shine of the moon to guide us up the mountain. There were a few casualties to altitude sickness on the way up, but I felt surprisingly fine all the way up to the summit. I unfortunately drank all of my 4 liters water on the way up, so I had no water for the walk down, which resulted in a major headache. A couple of people threw up on the way up, and I think everyone was quite delirious at 19,000+ feet, but everyone made it to the summit. Some made it quicker than others, but the most important thing is that everyone made it to the top! All of the guides were very encouraging for the entire seven-day trip, and they all made the hike amazing! It was truly amazing to summit Kilimanjaro, the roof of Africa, on my birthday, under a full moon. It’s something I’ll never forget! Oh, and I shaved my bushy beard into a healthy goatee. Should be a nice look for my trip to Rwanda, which begins tomorrow. Another adventure begins!

The Hike Starts Tomorrow!

Today we spent the day in Tanzania at the local market, and hanging around our hotel. We begin our ascent up Mount Kilimanjaro tomorrow morning at about 9 in the morning, and well descend next Wednesday at about breakfast time. Our group consists of 8 people, including my Mom, Dad, Jack Oliver, Boyd and Taylor Matson, Jennifer, and Saunders. Hopefully all of us making it to the summit, and return back to base camp in one piece. Everyone is a bit nervous/anxious about our hike, and now Jack and I, who are sleeping in the same tent together, are putting together our day pack, and clothes for the trip. This is Taylor Matson’s second attempt at climbing this mountain, because the first time the altitude got the best of him. Hopefully none of us have to turn around early. Mt. Kili, here we come!

Mount Kilimanjaro, Here We Come!

Great White Shark Day Pics!!

Past Two Nights in the Great City of Cape Town

The past couple of days my mom and I have been in Cape Town. Last night we got into our hotel at around 3pm, walked around the city for a couple hours, and just ordered some pizza and relaxed in our room. We had an early 5 o’clock wake up call this morning, because we got picked up by a van to go cage diving with the great white shark. We were out on the water until 1pm, and it was the most amazing experience ever! We saw a couple of great whites breach from the water, completely elevating out of the water. The used a seal replica, and slowly towed it behind our boat, triggering the Great White's killer instinct to lunge out of the water. I've seen videos of this before, but seeing it live was ridiculous. While I was in the cage, a big great white breached out of the water to take the bait that they lure them in with. Another shark went for the bait, and ran smack into the cage, so I got a real close up look at it, which was unbelievable! The biggest shark of the day, which was about 17 feet long, swam by my mom and I (who was also in the cage with me) at least 10 times. It was an experience I will always remember. Tomorrow we head to the airport at 5, and head to Tanzania to prep for our hike up Kilimanjaro, which begins Thursday! I can’t wait! If it all works as planned, I’ll be on top of the summit on my birthday, which also happens to be a full moon. Hope it’s not cloudy! Happy birthday to my mother, who turns a year younger tomorrow.

Pictures of the Day- Cape Town Winelands

Wine-lands of Cape Town

For the last couple of nights, my mother and I have been staying at La Residence, a very nice hotel outside of Cape Town. Today we visited several different wineries for my mom's travel company she is working for, Roar Africa. We went on a nice bike ride at the first vineyard we saw, so that my mom could see the property to at its full potential. Then we went to a couple other vineyards, and did some wine tasting at a couple of them. My favorite stop was at Franschhoek Motor Museum, which was a wine testing vineyard established by an Italian man, but he had about 60 different vintage and modern cars in four different garages, and it was interesting to see the progression in his car time capsule. Some of his new modern cars were absolutely incredible, and would be amazing to drive some of them on the rural roads in the wine-lands of Cape Town.

Pics of the Day- Londolozi

Our Last Day at Londolozi

Today my mom and I had a fabulous time at the Londolozi game reserve. We had a wake up knock on our door at 5:30, and went on a game drive at 6. We saw three huge male lions that were sleeping for the most part, but did get up once or twice to change position. We also got a chance to see a baby giraffe, some warthog, several different antelope, and my favorite, the leopard! It was a female leopard that just killed an impala, and dragged it up a tree. At the time she was lying at the base of the tree, and taking a bit of a nap, to recuperate from her stalking endeavor. We went back to camp, had some breakfast, and then my mom and I went and saw the original village where the workers, and other individuals have lived for many decades. After that, we did a bit of a workout, and then had some lunch. After lunch, we went on another great drive, and saw the leopard again, but this time she was up the tree feasting on the impala she had killed. At the base of the tree there were several hyena that were trying to find scraps on the ground, and attempting to scale up the tree, but had no luck. On the way back from the game drive, we got to see a cervet, which is very rare to see. Our ranger told us that this is the second time he seen one of these since he has been at Londolozi, which has been 10 or so years, so that was really cool. We had an amazing dinner, and unfortunately this is the last night we will be here. Tomorrow we head to Cape Town, to start our wine tasting journey, and then eventually I get to dive with the great white sharks! I can’t wait! One week till Kilimanjaro!!

Sunset Picture

Made it to Londolozi!

Today my mother and I both arrived to Londolozi game reserve. The property is absolutely amazing! From the second we arrived, the service has been completely over the top, and the animals we have seen so far have been brilliant! While we were having lunch, a herd of elephant walked in front of us, and enjoyed a little play time in the water below us, amazing to watch. After lunch, my mom dragged me along to do some "yoga in the bush," which is a new program that they have set up here, which I have to admit was quite nice. It was the first time I have ever done yoga, and it was a lot better than I expected. After that, we went on a nice game drive with David, the ranger, and our tracker, Simon. We saw lots of elephant, giraffe, kudu, cape buffalo, and several leopard tracks. We looked for the leopard and her three cubs, but never found them. Simon has already guaranteed that we will find them tomorrow. I really want to see a leopard while I am here, and David and Simon both told me that leopards are their favorite animals, so I feel pretty confident we will see one tomorrow. I'll keep my fingers crossed! The elephant we saw were spectacular though. We saw them on the edge of the stream, drinking water. The light was perfect, and they seemed like they were almost posing for the camera. Once the sun was setting, we stopped to take a break from the game drive, and were able to stretch our legs and enjoy the sunset, which was spectacular. I can't wait for our game drive tomorrow at 6 o'clock in the morning!

The End of my Stay in Philippolis

The past couple of days have been very relaxing. Yesterday I went with Kate to see !Xarip Dame. The exclamation point before Xarip is a clicking sound that you use to pronounce the word, it’s not a punctuation error! The dame is the largest dame in all of South Africa, and it was quite a spectacular site. After that, we grabbed some lunch on the way back to Philippolis. Once we returned back to Kate’s house, we relaxed for the rest of the day. I had a bit of a sore throat, so I didn’t feel like doing much else. Today, I woke up, and anxiously wanted to see how my Cincinnati Bengals did against the Cowboys in their first preseason football game. I saw that they lost, but at least they didn’t give up any offensive touchdowns! My throat felt better today, so I planned to go out with the same boys that I went hiking with the other day. They didn’t show up, most likely because it was very cold today. It was the first cold day I’ve had since I have been in Philippolis, so I’m not complaining. I went on a short run, and stayed inside for the rest of the day. I even got to see Sportscenter on Kate’s TV at 3 o’clock pm, and I got to see both the Bengals highlights, and even more impressive Reds highlights. Hopefully I’ll return from Africa, and get a chance to see the Redlegs compete in the playoffs, and continue rooting on the Bengals after a strong start of the season! Tomorrow I head off for the airport at about noon, and travel to Johannesburg to meet my mother! I’m excited to see her, and go on a nice week or so journey before our mission up Kilimanjaro! It’s been a great stay at Philippolis, and I’m looking forward for more adventures to come!

Great Day in Philippolis with the Kids

Today was a very enjoyable day for me. I woke up around 8 o’clock, to pack my backpack for my days hike. Everyone except me left today, to go to Samara until Tuesday. I said goodbye to the group, and headed to Kate’s house to wait for the local Philippolis kids that said they wanted to take me hiking around the area. They showed up promptly at 10 o’clock, and we headed out for a nice hiking adventure. The five kids that showed up were between the ages of 13-16. They took me over barbed wire fences, up hills, through farmland, and we stopped at a nice resting spot to have a picnic that Kate provided. All the kids were very interested in knowing more about the USA, so I drew a map of the United States in the sand, showed them where I lived, and I had to have answered at least 30 or so questions about my country. Then one kid said proudly, “I hear Africa has lots a great minerals such as gold and diamonds, and has lots of things to offer.” I told him that he was completely right. Then he continued to say, “Then why can’t we get our stuff together?” I didn’t know the politically correct answer, but I went on to give them an example that a while back, the white man had all the power in Johannesburg, but now today the black man has majority of the power. The problem that exists there today is that there is too much hostility between the black and white races, because the black people resent what has happened to them in the past and that is why their crime rate is so high. I then continued on to say that although horrible events may have occurred in the past, Africa needs to live in the present and put aside racial tension and do what is best for their country. All the kids agreed with what I said, and even emphasized, “What has happened in the past is done, we need to live in the present and worry about our future.” I was very impressed that they agreed with what I said, and went on to tell them that they are the future of Africa. Instead of putting their heads down and continuing to walk, all of them looked up at me with eager faces claiming they were excited for the challenge. We had a lot of good conversation through out the day. I also got a chance to see some scorpions and cool lizards that we found by lifting up rocks. They were all super excited to show me everything they could. After our walk, I asked if we could play some soccer around where they lived. I grabbed a soccer ball, and went into their part of Philippolis to play a friendly game of soccer with the guys and their friends. Today was a very nice day! They want to do the same on Monday, which I look forward to.

Tigers in Africa?

For the past couple of days I have spent the majority of my time working with Pete, a geography teacher from England, on putting the windows in on our brick classroom. Yesterday I woke up at 7 to go on a nice jog, because I knew it was going to be a hot day. I got back close to 8, showered up and had some breakfast, then went off to the building site until noon. I grabbed a quick bite to eat, and then went off to the 6th grade class to do a few exercises with them on their conservation class. Last week we just watched the movie “White Lion”, and talked about it briefly afterwards, but this week we had them first draw out a scene from the movie that they remembered, which was interesting because some drew a lion, porcupine, or elephant, while a couple drew a picture of a rifle. After that we had them do a word-search on some of the key terms that were mentioned in the movie. Some kids whizzed through it, while others couldn’t finish it with out peaking off the person next to them. Finally we had them work in groups of six to put together a puzzle of six different animals we cut up into pieces. We put all the different animal pieces together, mixed them around, so they would have to work together to arrange them in their proper position. We made both the word-search and then puzzle a competition, and the winners would receive more candy then the other kids. All the kids enjoyed themselves, as did I. Kate drove me back to the “hole,” which is where we eat our meals, and hang out together, so that I could board the bus to go on our excursion to Tiger Valley. At first I was very skeptical on going to see tigers in Africa, but once I was there, and John Vardy explained his reasoning for having these tigers on his property, the whole aspect began to really make sense. In short, he explained how the tiger population in Asia is diminishing every year, and while the populations in India and China continue to grow, there won’t be enough room for the tigers to survive. His future plan is to continue to expand his property to 100,000 hectors, and introduce the lion, leopard, cheetah, and hyena into his tiger populated land, because evidently these creatures once lived together in parts of Asia. There is already a lioness on his property that gets along with the other tigers, because John introduced the baby lion when one of the tigresses gave birth to a small litter. At first the mother tiger didn’t accept the baby lion, but soon after it became part of the family. I saw footage of this lion and tiger hunting together, which was spectacular to see. There were also two white tigers on the property, which was awesome to see, because there are not any other wild white tigers in the world. It was a fascinating place to see… Today I built all day with Pete, and we’re almost above the window line. Tomorrow I’ll continue working on the wall. The group before us only completed 4 rows of bricks, and I think we’ve completed about 16-20 rows… we’re cruisin’.

The Past 2 Days in Philippolis

Yesterday was a very fulfilling day. Kate came up with the great idea of doing a “60-minute makeover” type ordeal on an 80-year-old man’s shanty house. His home was in horrible shape when we first arrived. There were several windows missing, the paint job (both inside and outside) was non-existent, there were spider webs, spiders, and black widow egg sacks underneath his bed and table, his mattress was completely worn down and full of dust, and his clothes were scattered around… basically this man needed our help, because at his old age, he would have never gotten around to fixing up any of these problems. We started by taking all of his furniture outside, scrubbing down the walls (outside and inside) with soap, and sweeping the floors and the ceiling. Then we painted the outside a light tan color, and put in new windows. Once the outside was complete, we wiped down his table, his beds, and put all of his clothes on hangers. Kate bought two new mattresses for his beds, so he will hopefully sleep better and not kill his back with the crappy mattresses he had before. Next we painted the inside with a similar color as the outside, let it dry a bit, and then moved his stuff back in his house. Kate also bought a bunch of useful household items such as sugar, salt, flour, coffee, and other generous items. The coolest part about this whole project was that Kate had the old man leave his house for the entire day, because he is very grumpy, and she was worried he would complain the entire time. She told him we were only going to redo his windows. When he came back, he was ecstatic with what he saw. It was nice to see this grumpy old man with a huge smile on his face!
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Today has been a bit slow. We continued building the elementary school, but everyone was really tired from yesterday’s work. I just had some lunch, and it gave me some energy to hopefully do a better job working this afternoon. Kate had mentioned that I may be going on a hike with some of the local kids around the mountains this afternoon. If that works out, it should be a lot of fun! Tomorrow we are going to see some tigers that someone has on their farm, and has been raising them for many years. It’s going to be weird seeing tigers in Africa, but I’ve never seen a tiger in “the wild” so it should be a great time nonetheless.

Weekend Trip!

Just got back from our weekend trip at some game reserve about 2 ½ hours out of Philippolis. I stayed in a small hut with two other teachers, and enjoyed the presence of the guides that were in charge of the place. During the day I walked through the game reserve with one of the guides dog, named Shadow. I would walk until lunchtime, grab a bit to eat at the campsite, and then head off again to explore the land. At one point I stopped at the river to search for some cool rocks, in hopes that I would find a diamond or two. Unfortunately I had no such luck, but I did find a couple of neat rocks. At night we would make a fire, and the guides taught us a fun game called “Lie Dice”. It’s very similar to poker, except you play with poker dice. The rules are quite complicated, but it was very fun to play once I got the hang of it. We had a flat tire on the way to the campsite, and also on the way back to Philippolis, which was annoying, but wasn’t the end of the world. I wish I had brought my fly-fishing pole, because there were all sorts of fish rising on the river every morning and evening. The people who went white water rafting came back every time miserably cold, and eventually I started my own group of hikers. As much as I do enjoy white water rafting, I think I made a good decision going on hikes. I got to explore a lot of the property, which was fun, and gave me a chance to have a bit of time away from our huge group. Tomorrow we are doing a make over to some man's house who lives in Philippolis. It should be a fun day!