Mr and Mrs Lamborn come to Rwanda!

My parents arrived at Kigali airport on 2^nd January 2011 and I was so excited to see them! They had brought a very big stocking from Father Christmas with them, containing lots of goodies of things I can’t get in Rwanda very easily, like shampoo and proper chocolate, but the main reason for my excitement was because I hadn’t seen them for 4 months and I couldn’t wait to show them around the country I have been living in!

 Our first stop was my volunteer house and my mum and dad were very lucky because they visited on a day when there was both water and electricity (quite rare)! We stayed in Kibungo overnight, because the next morning I was going back to Akagera National Park so my parents could experience their first ever safari! This time, I saw even more giraffes and hippos than before and I had to eat my lunch very quickly so it wasn’t stolen by baboons!

Hippo shaped visitors!



Eyeing up my cheese sandwich...



The most exciting thing I had planned while my parents were visiting was a gorilla trek! Rwanda is famous for the gorillas living in the Volcano National Park in the north and on 7^th January, I had booked tickets for us to go and find them! We were put into a trekking group with a guide and warned about how to act when we found the gorillas – try not to look them directly in the eye and never run away if they come towards you, just crouch down. We were going to try and find a family of 8 gorillas called the Titus Group, which included a very large silverback male.

The silverback carefully inspecting his visitors.

Keeping a watchful eye on us whilst relaxing with his family.

After trekking up one of the six breath-taking volcanoes for two hours and then walking through very dense forest for another 30 minutes, we were rewarded with our first sighting of a gorilla – the huge silverback himself! At first he was hidden by bushes, but he very soon decided to check out who had come to visit! We had been told to stay 7 metres away from the gorillas, but clearly no one had told the gorillas this because as he came very close to us indeed. He soon realised that we were friendly though and went to sit in a clearing, where he was joined by members of his family.

We were able to stay and watch the gorillas for one hour and it is an experience that I will never forget. They are beautiful animals that we have so much in common with and I felt that I could almost draw speech bubbles coming out of their mouths, knowing exactly what they would say if we shared a language. It was incredible to visit them in their natural environment.

"What shall I have for lunch?"

After trekking back down the volcano, we travelled straight to a town called Gisenyi which is on the shores of one of Africa’s great lakes – Lake Kivu. Here we had a well deserved rest and enjoyed the beautiful location. There was Rwandan Intore Dancing around a fire in the evening and my parents really enjoyed meeting some of the local children, who were on their way to church when we went for a walk by the lake.

Before returning home, my parents wanted to visit a primary school, so they could get a better idea of my job out here. We went to a school called Kabare 1 Primary School, close to where I live. The Headteacher there, Suzanne, had been very kind to me since I arrived in Rwanda. The children were very excited to see not one, not even two, but three visitors, two of whom were brand new faces!

Having my parents in Rwanda and being able to share some of the experiences I am having here with them meant an awful lot to me. They knew how much I wanted to have an opportunity to do something like this and I feel so lucky that they are happy that I am having such a fantastic time working with schools here. I hope their visit also made them realise that as much as I want to share my ideas and offer up my skills to teachers and children while I am here, I am going to come home with so many new ideas and skills that the people of Rwanda have given me.