Day 78 (Saturday)

The light is good this morning so I go out to take some pictures to help remember Kabarore.  Some people ask to have their picture taken, others refuse.  I take a picture of our local shop, but the shopkeeper will not be in it.  Soon I will have to get my case and rucksack on the bus to Kigali. I have been told I will probably have to pay for a seat for my case.  In the past travelling with just a rucksack has been difficult enough.  The buses have very narrow aisles and usually no places to put luggage, so you sit with it on your lap.  Hence buying a seat for my suitcase!  But I still wonder whether the aisles of the bus will be wide enough for me to fit my case through.

Day 79 (Sunday)

It is interesting that there are so many more mosquitoes in Kigali than in Kabarore.  I have been bitten about 8 times since arriving here, whereas in Kabarore I was bitten probably 5 times in ten weeks.   It is obvious it is going to rain.  I can see the dark clouds sweeping in and the wind gets up.  It rains for nearly 5 hours and then by about two p.m. the clouds fade away and the sun comes out.  There is nothing for it but to wait out the rain. It is a real downpour, so there is no point in going anywhere or trying to do anything.  Something has disagreed with me and I am feeling a little delicate.  The first time for ten weeks, but it is not bad and I am just feeling tired, dehydrated with a few pains in my stomach.

Day 80 (Monday)

It is raining again, this time when I get up with no let up in sight.  After saying there were more mosquitoes in Kigali, I spent the night with one inside my net!  It woke me up every time it buzzed close to my head (which was often).  I managed to kill it at about 5.45 a.m. and then had a peaceful hour before being woken by the rain on the tin roof.  Today I want to finish all my business with VSO Rwanda.  I hope to pick up my passport, get my reference agreed, expenses claimed, collect my stuff from the safe and print out my plane ticket home.

Day 81 (Tuesday)

A bit of excitement today.  I am travelling north west towards the Volcanoes National Park; the home of the silverback gorillas.  When I get up it is raining hard, so I delay the start of the trip.  Once on the bus we pass through the most spectacular scenery I have seen in Rwanda.  A swollen river falling 30-40m over a water fall; slopes of 60-80^o being farmed and volcanoes in the distance.  The soil changes from orange to black and it starts getting cooler as we climb to over 2000m.  This is where they grow potatoes!  The guest house has spectacular views in all directions, but particularly to the north and west where the volcanoes rise another 2000m within a couple of kilometres.

Day 82 (Wednesday)

Up early to be at the reception breakfasted and ready for our excursion to the gorillas.  We are blessed with a beautifully clear, sunny morning.  We find out that we have been allocated a place in the group going to see the Sabyinyo group, which is 12 strong and one of the closest.  However, the group is led by Guhonda, who is thought to be the biggest silverback gorilla in the mountain forest and probably the world.  We have to trek through the thick bamboo forest on muddy trails until we get to the trackers who have located the group.  There are two gorillas in a nest in a tree.  One, a female, comes down when our guide calls to her.  Once down she looks around and then starts heading straight towards us.  It is as if we are invisible.  We are certainly no threat.  We are told to stand back, but there is really nowhere to go.  The female gorilla ambles past at a distance of just over a metre.  So close I cannot even focus the camera!  We watch her eating juicy thistles and listen to the sound of her passing wind (frequently and loudly!).  We see a mother and baby.  The baby can hardly balance on all four paws and tumbles around in the dirt at our feet no more than a metre away at its closest.  The trackers have located Guhonda in a nest on the ground.  It is a natural rather than a constructed nest, surrounded by thick bamboo and ground vegetation, so he is invisible.  Francois, our guide, who knows the 16 calls that gorillas make (and what they mean), reassures Guhonda that he is a friend and no threat as he cuts down the vegetation on one side of the nest.  Gohonda is quite placid as we see him with one of his mates and a baby.  The gorillas find a new nest each night so no harm has been done.  Guhonda stirs and looks straight at us; he is no more than 3m away. These habituated gorillas are unaffected by our presence.  They eat, they groom, they rest or play as if we are not there.  Guhonda probably weighs in at 220kg, but he doesn’t look that big.  Amazingly, the gorillas can climb the bamboo; it does bend under their weight, but it does not break.  On the ground they are agile and fast.  The guides find the “queen” (Guhonda’s first and oldest mate) with two other females.  As I am walking past she beats her chest and starts to run right at me.  We have been told the worst thing to do when this happens is to run away.  I run, not away, but out of her path!  We have seen 9 out of the 12 gorillas in the group.  It has been “a once in a life time experience” and one I will never forget.

Day 83 (Thursday)

Today is the start of Genocide Memorial Week and a public holiday. I am not sure what to expect, but the gorilla centre is very quiet with only nine visitors.  A group of boys we talked to yesterday have gathered to take us for a local walk.  Their English is very good and they are all studying the sciences in senior school and want to be doctors.  The boys lead us towards the forest where there is a Twa village (they refer to them as pygmies).  They live in round houses made of  various plant materials and farm the land around them, although according to the boys they would rather hunt in the forest, but this is prohibited.  In comparison to the other Rwandans we have seen they seem very poor.  The house is maybe 3m diameter and has smoke seeping through the “straw” roof.  The man outside is smoking a pipe and is friendly enough, but he does not want me to take a photograph.

Day 84 (Friday)

I leave the Volcanoes National Park to travel back to Kigali.  My tour here is almost over.  When I look back, I think it has been the most amazing experience.  Not all good of course; some of it has been a bit dreary; other bits have been challenging and the rest new and different.  This new and different has been exciting, enjoyable life-changing and is a set of experiences that I could not have had without the opportunity provided by VSO.   To live and work in a developing country in a “frontier” town as a lowly paid civil servant would do, has certainly given me a new perspective on my life in England.

Day 85 (Saturday)

I fly home tonight at 8 pm local time.  Today will be consumed by packing and if I am lucky I will be able to enjoy a bit of warmth and sunshine before heading home.  I am leaving five days early, as this is Genocide memorial week and tourist activities are not straight forward.  I feel I have seen everything I want to see and it is a good time to leave.

It is a little strange that in 12 weeks I have picked up almost nothing as souvenirs to take back.  Lots of photos, lots of memories, but there is very little here that they make to sell to tourists.  There are very few tourists and those that do come whizz in and out usually just to see the gorillas.  Overall, I think it is a small friendly country with a powerful vision for its future, to which there is real commitment from the people.  Most of the people I have met, particularly the children deserve to succeed for they have ambition and work hard.  There is a long way to go, but there is hope for the future and it lies in the ambitions of the young.