Horns, Hippos and Herds of Buffalo!

An Outing Day… for AIC.  We headed to the place 

they make the jewelry out of cow horns

and Innocent was our interpreter for the day. 

What a great job he did!  

 The ladies were taken with him.

Trying to get in the shade!

Showing what the horns look like when they get them. 

Where all the refining takes place! 

Look inside.

Closer!  This all has to be cleaned out first. 

Then ground and polished.

But to make the horns supple so they can be worked on they first
must be boiled in motor oil.

Mary holding a finished product…. a bracelet. 

The guys talking to Innocent.
This project place is sponsored by Japan!

The "polishing" grinder! 

A buffer,  basically! 

 After all the explanation… it was time to shop
and shop we did!

Even a model to try on jewelry for us!! 

Couldn't go home without lunch at J Lynn's!!!
Had a great time talking together and having fun being together.  

AND 

Since Cynthia, Patrick and Kofi had never been to Akagera we took them to see the animals 

for their Christmas present.  I seemed to have lost my best pictures of the day…  but here are a few. 

The kids had never seen live hippos before so it was quite a day! 

From the Impala

To the Crocodiles!

This day was totally gorgeous.
This is one of the 5 lakes in Akagera Park.

The little Warthog Family!

And this Buffalo Bull near where he is always standing. 

These were the hippos we saw in the water. 

Very relaxed and just cooling in the water! 

Checking us out!

But we pulled into another lake area ( earlier in the day ) and found this territorial hippo fight just getting started!  

The two males were apparently fighting to be the bull for the herd in the water.  Only one will win!  

These two were really fighting..
The big one almost flipped the smaller one over.
This was loud and the kids were a little scared.
The hippos make very loud honking/snorting sounds
when they "talk".

They took a break and the little one went away bleeding from teeth marks and the big bull headed back to his previous location
with all the females in the lake.   He was clearly the winner.  

Some of us looking on and others huddling in the car…
a little afraid of the hippos.  But what a sight we had seen!

Back on the road we find another little striped family!

Two Topi

Two Waterbuck  or is it Bushback?

Two giraffe!

and two friends!

These three were so cute together! 

Synchronized grazing!

 Braying away!

We rounded the corner of the lake to go to our lunch
spot and looks who was there!

And he had boots on today! 

WAIT…. Both of these guys have boots on!

Look at those clouds as the guy with the long neck gallops away.

No, he's back for a drink.

Giving us the look over! 

We made our way to the lunch spot and spread out our picnic!

Bosco was our day driver and he is a very good one with a great car for the day.
Sylvere on the left, is our other driver whenever we need him.. He is also a great driver! 

First, we were the vultures… snarfing down lunch and 
then we saw these real Vultures!

More herds of impala…

More zebra and Co.

And we concluded our day with a huge herd of buffalo.

Water Buffalo!

Are they retreating?

Nl

No, they are back sniffing the air to see what kind
of animals we are. 

 The stare down! 

They NEVER blink!!!! That's what makes them so dangerous. 

But this guy thanked us for coming… in his own special way.

And we were off to drive out of the park
and make our way back to Kigali.


On the drive to the park in the very early morning it was very quiet in the car.  But on the way home… the kids never stopped talking.

It was wonderful….and their lives had
been enriched by the animals and we
had loved seeing their joy and amazement
in seeing animals and scenery that they had never
even seen in books.

 It was magic!

love,
margie