A quiet Sunday afternoon...

After a long day at Akagera on Saturday, I was looking forward to a quieter Sunday. The sun was shining and so I decided to go for a walk. For a while, I had wanted to venture down into the beautiful valley below my house and I had been told of a path that was not too tricky to walk down.

I went with my housemate Cathy and, as usual, we were greeted by many people as soon as we stepped outside the front gate. In Rwanda, people always greet you in the same way – by saying good morning/afternoon, asking how you are, asking where you have come from and asking where you are going. Trying to explain that you are just ‘going for a walk’ is very difficult because people in Rwanda are usually far too busy fetching water, planting crops, looking after children etc. to have time to just ‘go for a walk’!

As we turned off the main road and began to walk down into the valley below, it was suddenly peaceful. We left behind the trucks, motos, bikes and people and concentrated on making our way down the steep muddy path, stopping to look at the wonderful views. Since the rainy season has begun, it is incredible how lush and green the landscape has become. This moment of peace was not to last... as we turned a corner, we came across eight children who were happily playing in a foresty area. They were shoeless, covered in mud, all wearing their school uniforms (although it was Sunday, so this was probably because they don’t have another set of clothes) and were incredibly happy to see us! For the rest of our walk, we were joined by these eight children, two goats and a piglet. Unsurprisingly, we did not get very far. On the climb back up the hill, the children wanted to play and I ended up chasing many of them, who squealed in delight as they were able to run much faster than me!

Can we come for a walk too?

Catch me if you can!

When we finally reached the top of the valley, we said goodbye to our new friends and headed home. Looking at the sky, Cathy and I thought we had timed things just about perfectly as we could see that a storm was coming. Mist and dark clouds were descending as we quickened our pace and soon you could no longer see down into the valley because it was just a mass of swirling fog. We made it home just as some large drops began to fall. I jumped straight in the shower to have a much needed wash (I was hot and muddy from chasing the children) and listened to the rain pummelling on the roof and against the windows, safe in the knowledge that I was in my dry house... or so I thought! Just as I was dressing, (while thunder rumbled, lightning flashed and raindrops turned into huge hailstones outside) I heard Cathy shout from the living room, “WATER!” I ran in to see muddy water gushing under our front door, which leads straight into our living room! The drain outside had overflowed!

We grabbed the shoes we’d left by the door, pushed the sofas and tables as far back as possible and then looked at each other in shock as the water continued to rush in! I then shouted, “Rice sacks!” (which we have a store of for making posters for the classrooms in our schools) and we ran to grab them and tried to stuff them under the door. It helped a little, but not for long and soon the sacks were floating around the living room and the water was ankle deep! Suddenly, Dorney Rowing Club sprang into my mind! I remembered that when the boats get full of water at rowing club, the children use plastic milk bottles with the tops cut off as scoops for bailing out. So Cathy ran to get the large basins that we wash clothes in and I ran into the kitchen with my pen knife and sliced off the tops of litre bottles of water. I then pulled on my wellies (their first use in Rwanda was in my living room!) and we began to bail out. For much of the time, we were just keeping the water at ankle level, because the flood continued to pour under the door, but eight huge basins later, we started to win! After 6 or 7 basins, when most of the water had gone, we even had the humour left to take a photo of our flooded living room!

Bailing out muddy water, once the worst of the flood was over.
Thank goodness I packed my wellies!

Akagera

There aren’t many things that will make me leave my bed in the early hours of the morning, but on Saturday 23^rd October, I crawled out from under my mosquito net at 5.30am, pulled on many layers of clothing and grunted a good morning to the four other volunteers, ready and waiting in my living room. After a honey and banana sandwich for breakfast, I was soon as excited as them, because this morning, we were going on safari in Akagera National Park!

I am lucky to be living in Kibungo, which is only an hour away from the southern entrance to Rwanda’s National Park, which is named after the Akagera River. Rwanda is known as ‘The land of a thousand hills’ and so it was very different going on safari here to when I went to Lake Nakuru and the Maasai Mara in Kenya. My experiences had been of wide open plains, but in Akagera it sometimes seemed very similar to the Chiltern Hills back home! I was left with a sense that the zebras I saw grazing could easily have been horses in the English countryside! However, being stared at (in not the friendliest of manners) by a large male buffalo and seeing several hippos emerge from a lake soon reminded me that I ‘was not in Hazlemere anymore’!

Zebra grazing in Akagera National Park.

An impala in the bush.

Look! A giraffe!

I saw a wide variety of wildlife throughout the day as I stood up looking through the roof of the pop up safari truck I had hired with my volunteer friends. This included seeing the buffalos, hippos and zebras that I have already mentioned, as well as impala, waterbuck, eland, monkeys, baboons, eagles and many exotic birds (that I cannot remember the names of!). As expected, we were not lucky enough to see the elephants or the two remaining lions that day. I was very keen to see giraffes and was delighted that, when I spotted them in the distance, we drove through the bush to where they were, got out of the vehicle and walked towards them (keeping a safe distance) to take photos. Another exciting moment was when our guide shouted for the driver to stop and a HUGE black mamba (the most dangerous animal in the world) slithered right across the path in front of our vehicle. Apparently it is rare to see this snake and I was quite shocked by its size!