On Monday morning we had a great time at our Korean Coffee Time!
Our next door neighbor, Moohwa, on left.. Youngkyoung, on right from
exercise and Bible study....and center stage, our guest from the US, Anita.
Moohwa and Youngkyoung's husbands and Bruce all work in the
same building here in Kigali so we have quite a connect!
I'm learning a lot about South Korea, as well as Rwanda!
After our coffee time and Hyong's talk at CMU/Rwanda in the morning
the four of us took off north to visit the Volcanoes and to take Anita and Hyong
to go on the Gorilla Trek.
Rwanda and Uganda have more Gorillas than anywhere in the world in
a concentrated area so it will be fun to hear about their trip. It is quite expensive
so we are only going once in July when some of our family comes to visit.
Finally, we found a place to pull off so we could try to get a picture of this incredible panorama of beauty. Thousands of hills!
Of course, when we stopped the
kids started coming to see us.
They live right over this little
ridge... had a couple of cows in
their house area and seemed excited about us taking their pictures. The kids always love to see their pictures in the camera.
were waving and screaming at us... You can see the excitement on their faces---to greet and see a muzungu,(white person or foreigner). I love their smiles... They bring great joy!
And then we got to the ridges of Volcano National Park.. I don't know the names of each volcano, but i hope to learn them. This was the only time we saw them.. just a little before dark. But they make a beautiful backdrop for the trees and farms. They are active volcanoes and you can hike up into them to see the lakes and walk around the rims. This is something we will not be doing.
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| This is the Kinigi Guest House where we stayed. Nothing fancy but the scenery, but we still had a great time. The beds were pretty hard. But, we had banana flambé for dessert and it was as good as any 5 star restaurant! |
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| The dining area. Got up at 6 to see Anita and Hyong off on their Gorilla Trek. Breakfast was here, too. |
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| The gardens at this place were so pretty and did I tell you how cold it was? A fire in the fireplace was necessary at night. Our room didn't have one, though.... but we survived with the heavy wool blanket they provided. I was surprised to see the size of the hydrangeas due to the coldness at night.. but they seem to be thriving in this climate. |
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| Got to the place where the treks are organized and the native dancers were already goin' to town! The drummers and choir always accompany the dancers. I wish you could hear it. I think Bruce videoed with his phone so i'll try to get it here later. |
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| How you can do this and smile about it at 7 a.m. is a mystery to me. |
These are traditional Intore Dancers... yes, those are wigs.
Innocent tells me that Intore dancers are hand-picked due to
their dancing talents and also based on their personal character.
All I know, is they are extremely good and powerful.
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| The women of the choir and the dancers are simply beautiful! |
Each day for the Gorilla Treks there are only 50 people
allowed to go. They divide the groups into no more than 8 with a guide.
Anita and Hyong were really lucky. They only had 4 in their group.
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| We drove them to the edge of the jungle area where they were going to leave from. These are sights along the way. This was a new kind of house construction that we hadn't seen before. They build the house with small timber sticks and then "mud it in". |
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| This young shepherd was as curious about us as we him. Look at these little babies! |
getting out of the car to go see the gorillas.
At night a guide goes into the jungle to see where the gorillas are bedded down for the night. That is where they take you to in the morning then.. and why the hike starts so early.
Sometimes they stay put but other times they start moving early and then you "chase" them through the jungle until you find them.
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| Bruce and I did some exploring and headed back to the guest house for breakfast. On the way we saw all of these women out working in the fields. |
I'm not sure why they were all working in a line, but there
must be some reason.
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| But then it started to rain and we never did see the volcanoes again! Anita and Hyong DID find the gorillas and have some spectacular pictures. I hope we can get some even 1/2 as good in July. But they only had to hike in 20 minutes before they found their gorilla family of 17.. which included a set of baby twin gorillas riding around on their mommy's back. They said you can get as close as 5' or so from them.. but you aren't allowed to touch them. And if they touch you.... then you just stand still.. ya, right! How could you do that if a Gorilla touched you??? They were deep enough into the jungle that the rain barely reached them. That was great for them.. since it was really pouring where we were. |
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| On the drive out of the park we saw these "really little" ones playing football-(soccer)-- Too cute! |
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| I took this picture while the car was moving so it isn't totally clear, but this is the scene that you see over and over and over again. Women walking with their babies on their backs with a heavy load on their heads. And they aren't walking on flat ground. Always up and down steep hills. The Rwandans are strong people! |
One last shot of the beautiful hills before we drop back into the "lowlands".
We had a great 2 day trip and later in the day we watched all the Gorilla
pictures before Anita and Hyong and Hedda got on the airplane to fly
back to the States.
It was so wonderful to have them here and to be able to show them
how wonderful this country is! I think they liked it, too!
God never stops amazing me about the things in His creation that He gives us
and the friends of the heart that we continue to meet
that know Him
and love Him.
We are all so blessed!
love,
margie
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