I'm going to let my picasso album do the lion's share. No need for a long string of words.

The Leopard is Illusive...

...so illusive. They blend into their surroundings. Mother and cubs nestled at the bottom of a large rock formation. But for the twitch of her tail and leopard-cub-tumble rustling the grass, you couldn't tell they were there. I didn't really get a good picture of the mother and cubs, even though they weren't 20 meters away.

The leopard spotted a day later in the tree was much further, but you could clearly see the outline of it's spotted form...and she climbed down the tree for me. The next day, I say her in a different tree, just ten meters behind the tree from the day before. In a closer tree, the carcass of an impala was hanging. (Can you spot it?) Leopards are selfish. They don't finish eating their kill, but they pull it up in the tree so no one else can scavenge - not jackals, hyenas or vultures. (Vultures only eat on the ground. If they were intelligent, I would think that maybe they might learn to eat in the tree. Some things are just be beyond me, like vultures. Back to the leopard.)

While the lion and cheetah give chase to their pray, the leopard pounces. Like lions, leopards have territories. Cats don't cross territories. If they do and the weaker is found out, they are chased off the land by the stronger (Lion-leopard-cheetah pecking order). While lions may move their cubs around at a young age, bringing the cubs to the kill to feast, a leopard never moves her cubs before three months. Leopard cubs have a greater chance of surviving because lion cubs get lost in the grasses when traveling with mama to get lunch.

Around 1 and a half to 2 years a litter of cubs will separate. The brothers will together. Like me, the leopardess goes off on her own. Quite solitary. (Now the parallel ends.) A male may follow a female who catches his attention. Eventually, a fight for reproductive rights may take place. She then goes off to raise the cubs on her own. I videoed the leopard descending it's perch, but, as usual, I'm having upload issues. In the movie, I mistakenly called the leopard "cheetah". More on cheetahs later. I saw 8. Hunting. Eating. Wandering. Resting. Running. Staking. Too many good pictures to sort out...too many stories to tell.

Serengeti

Well, the past twelve days bring far too many adventures to cram into one post…or at least one readable post. It would be so long and I probably wouldn’t finish writing until Christmas. By then, everyone would have lost interest in my stagnant blog. So, stories and photos will come piecemeal. I’ll start by trying to give you a master guide to help assemble all my pieces, so I don’t leave you in utter confusion. If something’s doesn’t seem to fit, please ask. I know I specialize in leaving out major details when I tell a story, leaving my listener befuddled and often messing up the stories punchline.

The first six days of my travels were spent on safari in Northern Tanzania. Night one – Lake Manyara, the land of little birds, mosquitoes and tree-climbing lions.
The next three nights were in Seregeti: "the endless space of endless plain" (by far my favorite). You'll here stories about hyena's sniffing round my tent. The fifth night was at Simba campsite, on the rim of Ngorongoro Crater. A zebra accidentally rammed itself into my tent that night. Day 6 we decended into the Crater. The seventh day involved transport from Arusha in Northern Tanzania to Stone Town, in Zanzibar, off Tanzania’s western cost. The last five days were spent in Zanzibar – first in Stone Town and then at a beach resort on the Indian Ocean. The last night (before flying back on 22 October), I stayed in Dar-Es-Salaam. So, yes. I got around a bit.

On Safari

At Kilimanjaro airport I was met by my green safari car, my guide, my cook and the travel agent who planned my trip. We stopped by Wonder of Creations offices...I'll tell you about that later. Chislon (pronounced Kis-lon), the travel agent, told me that I had Wonder’s of Creation’s best guide and cook. At the time, I thought Chislon was full of just flattery…or (if I may use the term I believe slightly more fitting) bullshit. However, the soup Alex served me that first night convinced me he really was their best cook.

When my guide introduced himself to me, he watched me face baulk at the jumble of letters that made up his name. I tried to recover by politely requesting that he write done his name for me, so I could properly pronounce it. Two days later, I realized this had never happened and I didn’t have a clue what his name was…so I managed to go all six days without calling him by name. Really, though. I couldn’t have been more blessed with my guide. I later learned that he was the guide that trained all the other guides for Wonders of Creation. He even helped to train guides for other companies. Hukurma had this saying “Let us be fisherman” and, while other drivers would phone or sms (text) each other and rush in crowds to different big 5 sightings, we would watch and wait in one location. I saw all the big 5 (elephant, lion, leopard, buffalo and black rhino). But more than that – I saw life unfold on the plains. My guide knew animals. He’d explain their little dramas. I watched, entranced. Young male gazelles fighting. Leopard cubs playing. Vultures and jackels lining up to scavange the cheetah's breakfast remains. The male elephant trying to figure out which female in the herd was in heat. The zebra's realize they'd walked right into a lion.

That's just the skeleton of some of my Safari adventures. What would you like to hear about first? Lions? Cheetahs? Giraffs? Animal kingdom making love? Leopards? Elephants?

I just finished reading a book by a South African, Rian Malan. (Papa...this will be sent to you shortly. It's going to be another of those "father-daughter" books. I'm confidently you'll find it intriguing). To make the long story short (and it really is a long story...350 pages of murder and brutality), the Malan family was key in the construction of South Africa's apartheid policy. That is keeping the races "separate but equal"...but not really equal. Well, Rian is a journalist during the fall of apartheid. He loaths the racism of his fellow white men, but at the same time he is afraid of what the blacks will do to him and his family because of their skin color. His book, My Traitor's Heart: a South African Exile Returns to Face His Country, His Tribe and His Conscience, is really Rian's journay to resolve this conflict within him. I'm going to give away what he resolves in the end. It actually resonates quite strongly with me, for different reasons:

[Quoting a character named Creina. Her husband was murdered by Zulu's he helped]...I felt utterly betrayed by loving. All the things I had ever been told about love just weren't true. It was all full of false promises. I understood that love was
safety and protection, and that if you loved you would be rewarded by someone
loving you back, or at least not wanting to damage you. But is wasn't
true, any of it. I knew that if I stayed [in a Zulu territory in South Africa],
this was how it was going to be: it would never get any better; it would stay
the same, or get worse. I thought, if you're really going to live in
Africa, you have to be able to look at is and say, This is the way of love, down
this road: Look at it hard. This is where it is going to lead you.

I think you will know what I mean if I tell you love is worth nothing until
it has been tested by its own defeat. I felt I was being asked to try to
love enough not to be afraid of consequences. I realize that love, even if
it ends in defeat, gives you a kind of honor; but without love, you have no
honor at all. I think that is what I have misunderstood all my life.
Love is to enable yoiu to transcend defeat.

You said one could be deformed by this country, and yet it seems to me one
can only be deformed by the things one does to oneself. It's not the outside
things that deform you, it's the choices you make. To live anywhere in the
world, you must know how to live in Africa. The only think you can do is
love, because it is the only thing that leaves light inside you, instead of the
total, obliterating darkness."

Grace's Conclusion...
Do you have the Beatle's song "all you need is love" ringing in your head too after reading that? Of course, this analysis of love does not parallel the way God loves. His love is perfect. Man's love for man, though, is not. So, I believe, there really can be no expectations or certainty in loving man. Doesn't mean you shouldn't. It's just painfully hard sometimes. Sometimes it seems impossible.

Well. Tomorrow I hope to add a fourth African stamp to my passport - Tanzania. Tanzania boarders Rwanda to the east and, in turn, the country is boardered by the Indian Ocean. Tanzania and Dr. Livingstone were personally aquainted.

There may be no new posts from 10 October to 22 October. I will be on private safari around the Serengeti, Ngorongono Crater, and Kilimanjaro. Upon my return, expect photos of big game - lions, hippos, rhinos, leopards, elephants. Herds of zebra and antelope rooming the African plain. Then the safari company will fly me to Zanzibar, for a beach holiday. That will hopefully involve scuba diving...and more suntan.

Ruff I know. My life in Africa. I love it. The smells of Africa. The Sky. The hammer of an African rain. A Cook. Day Guard. Night guard. Garden. Fresh chicken. Private safaris. Gorillas. Pristine world class beaches. Massages and pedicures for 1/5th the price of D.C. Gifts from the Rwandan high school boys who shout after me "you're beautiful" when I walk down the street. Spicy discussions with Melissa. Shelagh and Matt too. Archie's stories from all over the world. A steady stream of "as you wish, Princess" from Tom, who has made it his business to make sure I'm cared for in a protective, fatherly way.

I'm not sure anyone will be able to stand me when I get back to the States, including myself. I'm not sure I'll be able to stand being in the States.

The other day Melissa and I chatted about how there are certain things we do to keep a hold on reality. We both do our own food shopping. And cooking. That's why I make effort to be with Rwandan colleagues at Urwego Opportunity or spend a half hour each night with Ingas, helping him improve his English. It's why I talk to the few street beggars that approach me (even though I never give money). That's why I like riding moto taxis and haggling to get the proper price. Getting screamed at by Nyanja's mother, Josephine, equals a reality check. So does trying to cook on a charcoal stove.

The reality checks make me realize I'm going to miss Africa even more. I love Africa. I don't want to leave in 18 days.

Chantal has told me so many stories about her family and her children, that I really wanted to make a point of meeting them before my all too immenient return to the States...(I really don't want to come back).

After Saturday's chicken adventure, I cleaned myself up and collected some gifts (soccer ball, truck, chocolate, two picture books and a baby doll). Tom dropped Chantal and I off at her home. It's a beautiful home with a really heartwarming story behind it. Chantal and her husband Claude moved from Uganda to Rwanda. They had very little and no place to live but one of Claude's brothers had this house. Dumpy, but at least it was a roof over their heads. For years, Chantal and Claude poured love and blood and sweat into that place, fixing it up into a proper home. They began to build a family in that home.

Well, Claude's brother declared that he was selling the house. Chantal, Claude and their children would be back out on the street. At that time Chantal was cook for the prior Urwego CEO's family - the Brogden's. Jessica loved Chantal...which I can completely understand. I do too. She's honest. I trust her with my money, to shop. She is committed, hardworking and loving. She even raised money in her neighborhood for the Brogden's to help with the cost of airfare for their children.

Well, Jessica went to bat for Chantal in the states and raised enough money from Little Rock Arkansas to buy Chantal and Claude a home.

Do you see why I just had to visit Chantal, to be in her new home and meet her children? Of course, I also had to I come bearing gifts for the children.



Enoch is 6. His name is pronounced the French way. Rebecca is 2 and always doing something adorable like cooking or cleaning. Hoshea (also pronounced the French way) is 9.

The children loved their gifts. In fact, Chantal told me that Rebecca slept with her baby doll that night and the children all woke up at 5;30 Sunday morning so they could play with their toys.

For to make chicken soup

Tom has been sick. I told him he needed chicken soup. So, Friday, he sent Chantal to the market to purchase two live chickens. I was to cook them with Chantal "as I wished". A rooster and I hen, he told me. Great, I said. The hen would be gang raped by the morning. Well, Saturday morning came. The cock made sure everyone knew morning was coming, had arrived, and continued to remain. About 6:30 I heard Tom up and about, so I stumbled out to tell him "The rooster gets killed first." Then I went back to hiding my head under my pillow...not that it helped.

After the morning rains subsided, Chantal arrived. She generally doesn't come Saturdays, but this was special. We have two extra houseguests. Also, I was to teach Chantal to make chicken soup with dumplings. I had no idea what to do with chicken prior to the recipe part. Thankfully, our three servants did...particularly Anastas, who fills in for Damasene whenever Damasene takes a day or a half-day off. Anastas is a professional chicken killer. Even Rwandans call him to execute and dress their chicken. He's masterful.

Remembering my lovely alarm clock, I made it quite clear I wanted the rooster killed. Chantal looked at me. They’re both roosters. Grown. (Never trust an L.A. lawyer when it comes to knowing something 'bout a chicken's gender.) But don't worry, Grace, Chantal said. We'll kill the one that talks. Thankfully, the cock was talking. So we picked the right one.

How to kill, pluck and dress a chicken Step One: Catch the Chicken
Damasene caught the rooster. This part can be rather tricky. If you've never caught a chicken before, my experience is that the easiest way is to catch them off guard in the coop. The important thing to remember is not to let the chicken go, because it’s going to be really hard to catch it again now that it’s on its guard.

Step two: Kill the Chicken
There are two methods to kill a chicken. One is to simply lie the chicken on a chopping block and cut off its head. This can be rather bloody, but it’s a sure way to be positive that the chicken is dead.

The second method is to wring the chicken's neck. If this is done correctly it's a lot less messy. You take your chicken by the legs (you are still holding it right?). In your other hand pull down on the neck and then bend it upward very quickly. If you've done it correctly, then you will feel a snap, and the chicken will reflexively begin to flap its wings. At this point one would drop the chicken and let it run around the yard until its body finished dying. (Hence the term run around like chickens with their heads cut off).

Anastas cut the head off. I watched with morbid curiosity. You can too, if you want. (See you tube video.)

Step Three: Pluck the Chicken
This can be quite time consuming, if you don't do it the Rwandan way. Boil water. Put the chicken in a bucket. Pour boiled water over the chicken. Pluck.


Step Four: Dressing the Chicken (This step is not for the weak of stomach)
It was better than any biology lab could ever be. This is were Anatas displayed his true mastery.

Step Five: Make chicken soup.
Most of you are familiar with the process of making chicken soup, so I won't belabor the cooking. I'll only mention that I didn't like any of the online recipes, so I made up my own chicken and dumpling soup. That was relatively easy until coming to the dumpling part. We have a family recipe, which I couldn't recall. So, I did the dumplings from memory/sight. It was Chantal's first time making dumplings. The soup turned out perfectly, including the dumplings to my relief. (I'd forgotten a key ingredient.)

We thought the adventure was over. I went to my room to change. Next thing I knew everyone was in a flurry. Rooster number 2 was in the house, Damasene insisted. Tom, Chantal and I searched the house three times over. Declared it was not inside...only to find the live chicken hiding in our billionaire guest's closet. (I've nixed the concept of marrying for money. These billionaires are similarly uninteresting. This billionaire managed to get married, fortunate for him.)

At 4:30 this morning (Sunday) I wasn't woken by a cock-a-doodle-du. Our guest billionaire talking on his cell phone very loudly served as my wake up call. I'm going to have to give him a talking too...maybe suggest that he learn a lesson from the chicken soup.

After trekking through "ebeyondo" (mud) and stinging nettles in pursuit of gorillas, I figured it was time for more refined adventures.
So, upon my return to Ruhengheri, I hopped on the next Virunga bus to Gisenyi. Gisenyi is a resort town...or, more correctly, has a resort area on the shores of Lake Kivu. Kivu boarders Congo and Rwanda, at Rwanda's western end. The lake hosts a collection of lovely spots. I was determined to find one such spot for my book, my barbeque and myself.

To that end, Ross, the bank's COO, had given me a list of rather fine guest houses. He even sent one of UOB's Gisenyi loan officers to make reservations for me at Lakeview, where he takes his family, in Gisenyi. I felt a tad colonial sending a Rwandan on such an errand for me. I only succumbed to Ross' suggestion after trying to call myself to make reservations. My prepaid airtime ran out as the "can I reserve" conversation went on forever. By the end, I wasn't sure whether I'd properly communicated anything or what I needed to do next. So, I behaved like one of those colonists - sent the Gisenyi loan officer.

Friday afternoon, Ross brushed by my office corner to confirm that my reservations at Lakeview had been made. Matt looked at me. (We share an office. Remember.) Grace, you don't want to stay at Lakeview. You should let me make reservations for you at the Serena. You'll enjoy it much more. It's on the water. I can get you a special deal. It will be 20 USD more, but it will include food and a private beach. Being stubborn and sort of frustrated with the recent results of other people's plans, I insisted on doing my thing. I should have listened to Matt. When it comes to what Melissa and Grace would like, Matt generally knows best. First, he knows Rwanda. Second, he's pretty good at measuring people. Being stubborn was my loss.

Anyways, back to the Virunga bus. The older Rwandan woman next to me didn't speak a lick of English, but she managed to take quite a liking to me. She bought a package of peanuts and shared half of them. She told me the name of every city as we passed. She directed my attention to horrific things happening in the movie being shown at the front of the Virunga bus. I figured out where she was from and where her family lived, how many babies she had, etc. I showed her pictures of my family. At Gisenyi, we said goodbye. She went her way. I found a moto to take me to Lakeview. When I arrived at the guesthouse, I was sorely disappointed. There really wasn't a lake view. In fact, it was quite far from the Lake. The bathrooms weren't nice and (worst of all), the bed didn't have a mosquito net. The mosquitoes were rather pesky. Between the buzzing, I didn't sleep a wink that night. Still, I really have to say, he who "did the cuisine" greeted me with the upmost graciousness. His English was limited. Very limited. Yet, Valence sat with me through dinner. I learned that he has three "junior sisters" (i.e. sisters of a relative he was to take care of. His mom had died in 1997. His father was alive. One of his real sisters had died. Her daughters were his "junior sisters".) He made 700 RWF a day...that is $1.27. He asked what time I wanted breakfast. 8:00 am, said I. At 8:30 pm, a second dinner arrived at my door. I was still stuffed from the first dinner, three hours earlier, so I had to turn him away. Hopefully, Valence was able to eat the food he made for me.

The next morning I arouse with the light and the lull in mosquitoes. Determined, I walked down to the lake. What should I find on Lake Kivu but "Lakeview Hotel and Apartments". Curious, I went in. Beautiful mosaic tile floors; sheeshy flat screen televisions; pristine modern furniture. Lovely garden and lake views. I found reception. Was my name on the book? Please check for "Grace Reidy". Yes, it had been there for last night. They had to move my room to the front. They could put me up now. No, the moto taxi had taken me to the wrong guesthouse. I'd already slept somewhere else. My bags were there, at the "Lakeview Guest House". I looked at the email from Ross later. It definitely called the place a "guest house". I should have listened to Matt.

Frustrated, I headed back for breakfast. This time the guesthouse manager, Immanuel, sat with me through the meal. His English was a little bit better. He was studying "specification of product" at a Kigali university branch in Gisenyi. He had two living sisters, both married. He had three nephews and nieces. He made $2.99 a day.

I decided to treat myself after breakfast. I moto-taxied down to the Serena, marched up to the front desk, booked a coffee scrub massage for noon and then asked if I could wait on the beach. Technically, it's supposed to be a private beach, for guests with rooms only. They looked at each other. I looked at them and pleaded, "Please. I don't want to be the only muzungo female on the beach." They smiled and succumbed. While I wasn't the only Caucasian woman, I still felt a tad uncomfortable being bikini clad, so the full tank top stayed on. I picked a nice quite spot by the water, with a palm tree to my right and the Serena's sail boats to my left. I opened my book and sipped sparkling water. Everything was beautiful and peaceful...until a swarm of Indian and Muslim men showed up. Probably UN workers from Goma. Then cameras started clicking. Every time I looked up, they were clicking in a parallel direction...unless I looked up quickly enough. I was pissed. One of the Indians even dared to come up and ask if he could take his picture with me. No, I said coldly and firmly. These men had been away from their woman too long. I am not a thing to be displayed. I have too much pride for that. Nor did I have any desire to be a picture found by their wives and, consequently, a point of marital contention. I was sure this had to be in violation of something in the Koran. After I my icy response, the clicking dwindled. I finished the book Melissa had lent me, Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight. It was time for my massage...which...I learned to my surprise, was a full body massage. While the fully body part was Slightly awkward, it was quite good. My legs still had itchy patches from the stinging nettles. The coffee scrub helped.

Then back to Lakeview Guesthouse, gobble a quick lunch (which was kindly served and poorly cooked), tipped Immanuel and (accidentally) tipped someone who looked like Valence but wasn't. I rode the moto to the Virunga station. (In Gisenyi they carry helmets but don't make you wear them.) The moto taxi driver (who spoke no English) decided to park his moto, escort me into the ticket counter and proceed to explain to everyone exactly where I needed to go and how I should get there. (How he did that in the first place with no English, I am not sure.) He ensured that I was properly ticketed and crammed into a bus before leaving me. I sat in the second row. Only the driver and a honeymooning couple sat in front of me. I'm certain they were honeymooning. The man looked viral with love and I hadn't seen so much PDA (public display of affection) since coming to Rwanda. It was amusing. Rwandans are on the more reserved end. This outright PDA seemed to be a cultural anomaly. Thankfully, my bus did end up in Kigali. I made it home.

I'm so glad I traveled alone in Rwanda. This trip let me experience how friendly and hospitable the Rwandan people are. It could be that a party of one is more approachable. It may be that the Rwandan's respect someone who is obviously different, but has the courage to travel with the common people...not just as a muzungo elite. But a lot of it is just them.