On August 17th, 2012, history was made – Mom and Abby touched down in Africa. After being delayed in Boston and New York, and dashing through the Brussels airport, they landed and a whirlwind week and a half adventure in Uganda and Rwanda began.
We started our journey in Uganda at Lake Bunyoni – a beautiful lake surrounded by terraced fields. We stayed at a hotel on one of the islands in a geodome – an open thatched hut with a porch overlooking the lake. We spent 3 days there so Mom and Abby could recover from their journey. One day we decided it would be fun to rent a dug-out canoe and paddle around the lake for a bit. Well, fun may not be the sentiment we all had during the first hour of spinning in circles, but we got it together and made it around a neighboring island and back. I don’t think any of us will jump at the chance to go canoeing together again anytime soon. After a few days of rest and good food, we headed off to Queen Elizabeth National Park for a safari.
Upon arriving at the park, we were greeted by the sight of elephants off in the distance. We got to the Safari Bush Lodge where we could unpack and clean up from a morning of travelling. The lodge was beautiful. It was a cluster of individual safari tents raised on a platform overlooking a lake. There was an outdoor shower with the nozzle attached to a tree branch and the floor made out of loose soft stones. We could sit on the porch and listen to the hippos and elephants down a the lake. From there we went on an evening cruise in the Kinazi channel, where we saw hippos, elephants, buffaloes, water buck, impala, alligators, and a million types of birds. You always know when you’re doing doing something right on vacation – Abby starts taking a million pictures. With her going crazy with her new fancy camera, Mom enjoyed the view through her antique binoculars which she took down off the display shelf at home, attached a Canon SLR strap to them, and called it good. Anywho, there is a still a functioning fishing village (a little more rustic than Chatham) in the park and they do their fishing at night, so we were lucky enough to see them launching their boats and paddling off into the lake at sunset. It was beautiful. From the boat launch we headed back towards the lodge, taking a slight detour to see if we could find any animals roaming about late in the day. We found A LOT of elephants, which our driver was more afraid of than I thought possible. He kept hiding the car behind bushes so the elephants couldn’t see us and at one point he thought one was going to charge (not sure how bathing in the mud signaled a stampede), but he floored it and the Mama elephant reared up, blew her trunk, and ran into the dust cloud in the road behind our accelerating car.That night we had amazing hot showers under the stars and then headed off to an amazing 4 course meal under a large safari tent lit by lanterns.
The next morning we went chimp trekking in a gorge – this was rough. You basically descend down over a cliff via some steep, slippery, not-made-for-short-people steps. Once we made it to the bottom we started looking for chimps. It had been raining so they were still sleeping up in the trees, but after an hour or so started to play and jump around in the trees. One was kind enough to start throwing his breakfast at us. Thinking we would return the same way we came, I mentally prepared to climb up the cliff via the same awful steps we took down. Well, it was just our luck that we went a different direction out that was a million times more grueling. It required us to scale the side of the gorge by holding onto vines and sticks and pulling ourselves up a mud faced wall without any real support. At some points the walking path was less then a foot wide, where one false move and you were falling down the side of the gorge into the river. There was also this lovely huge true that had fallen across the path – you couldn’t go under it, you had to go over it. Unfortunately for me, the tree trunk went up to about my chest, so getting over it wasn’t pretty and at one point I started falling back and screamed, “Mommy, help,” thinking I was going to fall backwards to my death, in a gorge, in Uganda.Well all 3 of us made it over the trunk, our quads starting to burn from the serious off-roading we were doing. Every time we thought we were getting to the final ascent, we were proven wrong. Eventually, by the grace of something powerful, we all made it to the top and the guide was kind enough to point out how nice it was that we made it out with no broken bones. The steep, slippery, not-made-for-short-people steps would have been so much better.
The rest of the safari was without any major catastrophes. We saw lions, elephants, cob, hippos, buffaloes, and more. We saw one lion that had been caught in a snare, which was sad. Because the park still has people living in it who want to protect their crops and villages, they set up these snares, which prove to be a big problem in the realm of conservation and animal protection. After the safari, our driver took us back over the border to Rwanda, where we met up with Gordon and prepared for an early morning gorilla trekking adventure.
We arrived at the Volcanoes National Park office at 7 AM, where we watched traditional dances performed by a local group and were split up into our trekking groups. They assign the groups by fitness level – there is always one group full of grey haired old men and women who have an easy 30 min walk on flat land. We felt better about ourselves when we saw that group and knew we weren’t a part of it. We were assigned the Titus family, which was an hour and a half steep hike up Karisimbi volcano. I was lucky enough to trip a million times and step in buffalo poop en route. When we were 100 yards away, we left our walking sticks and bags. It’s hard to describe the feeling of seeing gorillas for the first time. They are huge, fluffy, big black eyes, and could totally rip you to pieces if they so pleased. The silverback was HUGE and walked right in front of us a few times – Abby was not a fan. you get such an adrenaline rush when this beast of an animal walks so close you can nearly feel its fur. There was a 7 month old baby gorilla, whose mother was very protective. Every time we got a sight of the little fur ball, the mother would take her farther into the bush. At one point we could actually sit down a mere 5 feet from a lunching gorilla. The official rule is that you are supposed to stay like 8 meters away, but the terrain we were working with didn’t allow for that. We were never more than 3 or 4 feet away from them. After an hour, we began our descent down the mountain. Honestly, being able to do such an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime thing with my family was awesome. I won’t forget my sister’s face when the silverback walked right next to her or the look on my mom’s face when she saw the baby gorilla.
From the gorillas we made our way to Kigali where everyone’s exhaustion finally caught up with them. Gordon and I went to get burritos for everyone while they washed the bud and jungle grime off and climbed into bed with their respective kindles. After a night’s rest in a guesthouse, we made it to Ruhuha – my home in Rwanda. To say Abby and Mom were champs would be an understatement. They rolled with the punches, bounced along the road in an over-packed minibus, visited all of my close friends and the school, went to the market, drank local beer, squatted over a hole, took cold showers, and cooked outside – almost all of which was done with a smile.
After nearly two years in Ruhuha, it was really nice to show them how I live and how different it is from the U.S. It is easy to talk about Rwanda on the phone and explain how I live, but before they came I often felt like they didn’t completely grasp how challenging my life here is. Sometimes I would get a “suck it up” sentiment when I talked about how I was frustrated or something didn’t go well. With their visit here, I think they get it now, which is great. When I return to America and people ask “How was Peace Corps?” I can’t really say anything more than “great and rewarding” because they’ll lose interest. Now I know that at least the people I love know what I did, where I did it, and how difficult it was to survive the two years, despite how “great and rewarding” it all is.
To say the good-bye was difficult would be an understatement. I love my family dearly and miss seeing them and doing things with them on a regular basis. Bringing them to the airport, knowing they were going back to the comforts of America, while I had to return to the village was tough. I love them for taking the time to visit me on the “dark continent” and living to tell the tales. The support and love they showed me while they were here really gave me the energy to make it through the last 3 months in the village. I sincerely look forward to getting off the plane in 2 months and seeing them again.
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