Mud and Gorillas

The past two weekends I have been enjoying being a real tourist! Two weeks ago we went to Musanze to climb mount Bisoke, an inactive volcano. On Saturday morning we got up at 5.30 to be taken to Parc des Volcans, and trudge through the mist and the mud for 7 hours. It was a lot more fun than it sounds… At one point though it could have gone either way, it was freezing cold and misty, I had mud everywhere, I couldn’t feel my toes, I had just fallen over and it was really sore, and because we were going downhill and it was so steep and slippy I was kind of scared. I was bent over my stick like a crippled old lady and making my way down the volcano by not moving my feet at all, I was just letting the mudslide carry me down. I really thought I was going to cry. Then I looked up at Rose, and she was doing the exact same thing, and she looked hilarious! The absurdity of the situation hit me and all of a sudden I was laughing so hard, there were tears. Then we were all just laughing, and falling around hysterically in the mud, even our guide was laughing  - with us or at us, I’m still not sure. When we got to the bottom he told us we were a great group and he had fun with us. But I bet he says that to all the groups J. So we spent the day laughing, playing in the mud, and seeing amazing views over the Rwandan countryside. Sure what else would you be doing on a Saturday afternoon?

Then last Saturday, I had what I’m pretty sure is going to be the highlight of all my time in Africa. Me, Isy and Róisín went to see the gorillas. It was even better than I’d expected. We went back to the Virungas, but this time we went through a bamboo forest. It was so cool, we had to clamber through vines and bushes, and our guide went ahead with a machete to hack a path through the bamboo. I felt like I was Bear Grylls! Then, just as we climbed through a thick patch of undergrowth, Róisín turned around with the most excited face… we came through into a misty clearing, and there they were, a big group of Gorillas…

They were just sitting there, hanging out, doing their own thing. It was so brilliant to just see them in their own home! We were literally standing in the middle of a big group of gorillas! The group we saw was the Suza group, it’s one of the biggest groups with 3 silverbacks and loads of little babies. We stayed for an hour, just watching how they are. They were mostly huddling up to keep warm, it was a bit cold and drizzly. We just about managed to control ourselves and not hug any of them! One male was asleep beside a female with twins. One baby kept trying to get away, but the Mam was having none of it, she kept him bundled up. Then the Dad woke up and didn’t like how close we were, so he put himself between us and the family like a bouncer. There were other Gorillas coming and going, every now and again we’d see one appear out of the mist. When you see their hands and some of their mannerisms, they just look like big hairy people. Afterwards we went back to Róisín’s house and had a night in with food and wine, and we watched ‘Gorillas in the mist’. Brilliant day!

Now I’m back to reality though. I’m doing loads of workshops, some aspects are going really well, but of course there are always the frustrations. The thing that makes me happiest is when the teachers are really enthusiastic, getting into the activities, and even coming up with ideas of how to adapt activities to suit their own classes. And you kind of think that maybe they are taking stuff on board, maybe when I go into their lessons next week I will see some kind of child centred action. Then of course you have days like today. I arrived at school bright and early, as arranged, only to find no head teacher, the teacher I had an appointment with (and I’d prepared loads of stuff for her) wasn’t there, the kids weren’t even in class, they were running around all over the place. I found an adult who told me that the head teacher and most of the teachers weren’t around today, because there’s ‘exams’. I didn’t see any kids in classrooms. Grr. That’s the thing about this job, there are a lot of rewards, but there are also frustrations…