Giraffe and zebra and elephant, oh my!

Gisimba Gisimba - my lovely children were not so lovely this week! I went to teach on Monday feeling a bit under the weather, with a very stuffy nose and having been up a lot of the night sneezing and sniffling. Since Monday was my day to teach Kharim after kindergarten, I decided I would go in and see how I feel....well it was a rough day in every way. I went through all the kleenex I had brought in about 20 minutes and I still couldn't stop sneezing! I actually was using a handkerchief which i have never done in my life! So not only was the dusty dirt and the chalk dust tickling my nose, the children decided to see how much they could get away with with the muzungu :-) They were crazy...I did some teaching (mostly review of the days of the week, months of the year and letters), but after the recess break was when chaos broke loose. Three boys, one of them (Shama) being one of my favorites, started hitting on each other and beating each other up! There were no other adults in my room because the teacher from my class was in another class dealing with misbehaving 4 yer olds....So here I was, the muzungu that no kid listens to, trying to break up this fight. I tried to separate them and in doing so, started to take one of them (Gianni) outside. He was hitting and slapping my arm (sure, no prob, I can handle that...) then he started the biting! I just let go....I walked to the other class where 5 teachers were standing and just told them, hey, I cannot handle this, they won't listen to me.....my arm was all red so they asked me what happened and so I told them. They looked so shocked and were so apologetic. Inside, I honestly just thought it was hilarious how undisciplined some of these children are...Both Shama and Gianni were taken outside by the teacher and then had to come and apolgize to me. The teacher made them kneel on the floor, with tears on their face and say, "Please teacher, I am sorry." I just wanted to hug them each, they were so adorable. I told them I forgive them and it was okay. It was such a strange position to be in, but it totally reaffirmed this feeling that is it next to impossible to be upset with kids for long. Their energy and love for life is simply too addicting to view any of them in a negative light for long.

So yes, I did take Tuesday off to recover from my head cold and by now am feeling much better. The rest of the week included the first water-color painting since I have been there, which was such a joy to watch. Paint is not a norm for these kids so to see their smiles was such a delight! I also have made a point to really learn all of their names. I wrote a seating chart (even though the kids move around ever few days) and took more pictures of them to study at home. The afternoon I did this, one of the boy's uncle who comes to help in the class every so often, lined the kids up outside on a cement ledge for me to take their pictures, too :-) They were all crouched down to the ground, squeezed together, with their arms wrapped around each other. They were just full of laughter and kept knocking each other over - it was so contagious. I snapped some pictures and as I reviewed them at home I couldn't help but laugh myself. Their smiles and energy is just so incredibly addicting, even through the photos....gosh, how i love those kids! But hey, it's helping, I think I got about 5-7 more names by the end of the week to add to the 10 or so I already knew!

And so to the real animals! Yesterday was such a beautiful day. After spending a lot of time during the week arranging for a car and driver, the four of us volunteers at the house headed out for an African safari of sorts in - Rwanda style! We were on the road at 5am for a 2 1/2 hour drive to Akagera National Park in the eastern province. The vehicle we had was so perfect - one of those safari type 4x4's with the roof-top that opens and big windows on the sides. As soon as we got into the park, we immediately saw two impala. After picking up our guide, it was just moments before we found our first exciting African animal - the Masai Giraffe! They were so beautiful, surrounded by the green trees with the early morning haze floating just above the ground, wrapped around them. We soon came upon zebra, with their stripes looking as though they could have been painted on with stencils, they were so perfect! The hills too, were breathtaking in the morning haze. Rolling green, vibrant in color, spotted with trees of green and brown and ruby red....There is certainly no autumn here, these are simply their natural color, but I couldn't help but feel a little closer to home as I thought how the trees will soon be changing and I will be missing my favorite season - here was my chance to take in autumn! :-)

All along the way we found so many other animals - warthogs (which I appropriately yelled, "Pumba!" ;-) ), baboons, topi, waterbuk, cape buffalo, and so many beautiful birds including these vibrant, metallic blue colored starlings! Part of the journey led us up this incredible hill where Robert, our driver, proved his awesome maneuvering abilities as he inched his way up these very unsteady and uneven rocks. When we reached the top of this hill, we all immediately shot up from our seats...the views were breathtaking! There was a lake and marshland in the distance, across which you could see Tanzania! All in front of us were the sprawling hills, just dusted with trees. You really felt on top of the world....Ad the silence was deafening...absolute stillness in every direction, yet to know how time was still moving forward with the animals going about their business in the valleys below....to see the stillness from a distance but to know the bustle below, it was like being let in on a beautiful wild secret of mother nature.......at one point, one of the volunteers exclaimed, "Now this is Africa!" Wow - what a crazy thing to hear...this is the Africa that is sold to outsiders to welcome revenue into their country to hopefully help better the other real Africa - the impoverished communities all around....I know the comment meant no harm, but I really couldn't help but wonder what our driver or guide would be thinking when they heard that....where would they fall into this Africa? It is incredible how two very different, polar opposite, contradictory images are painted of this massive continent.....

At any rate......as we came back down, we headed to the lake to look for hippos! And goodnss did we see some hippo! Our car was so close, on multiple occasions, to herds or troops of them. Lying in the marsh, soaking up some rays, and then cooling in the lake. They disappear so quickly under the water - makes you curious to know just how many are cooling under water without our having the slightest clue.....they stare at you with their huge heads and then you see their massive jaws when they yawn, showing their enormous white teeth - it was just amazing the immensity of their presence.... We rode on then, circling the huge lake to reach the elephant we could see hanging out on the other side. Making our way around, so near to the wet marshland, a HUGE Nile Crocodile ran down the embankment into the water, just in front of our car! We apparently disturbed his slumber...Approaching the elephants I was again so impressed by how close we could get and by their incredible size and presence. The most I could count at one time was 15 but there were more. A couple young babies and some youth, too, made up the group. It so reminded us of Dumbo at first as a huge group of them were suddenly walking out from behind some trees, single file march! :-) After we had been there for some time, one other big adult came from behind a tree, looked our way, displayed his massive trunk and then the guard informed us rather nonchalant, "Oh, he's preparing to charge." After a couple brief moments, we decided it was best to head back ;-) ....I couldn't help but think of my mother while I was there, wishing so much she could be there watching them with me - her love for elephants so great!....So I got a video for you mom! ;-)

While the drive back to the main gate was very long and bumpy, it was just so incredible to look out and see all the fields spotted with animals, clear to the base of the hills. This park has done a fab job reinventing itself from after the war when numerous animals were killed while Rwandans made their way back into their country and settled in camps in the park after having escaped to Tanzania. Overall, it was a really amazing journey and probably will be my last major "adventure" from Kigali....

My fingers have had quite the work-out this afternoon, typing on this keyboard with keys that seem to be an inch high and hardly compress as they should! Ah, the luxuries of a soft easy keyboard.... ;-)