Inema, Volcanoes, and a Little Leopard

Get ready to read about another action-packed week in Rwanda! Without further ado....drum roll, please....here's what has happened since the last time you heard from me:

• On Tuesday, we went to the Inema Arts Center. We were invited by our friend Emmanuel, who founded the center with his brother, Innocent. Inema doubles as A) a studio for up and coming Rwandan artists to hone their artistic skills and B) an after-school activity center for Rwandan orphans. Check out their website: Click here! It is an incredible place. They are doing big things for the people of Rwanda. Here are a few pictures from our visit.

• This past weekend we traveled to Volcanoes National Park, the ONLY area in the world where mountain gorillas exist in the wild (FYI, the park where you can see gorillas in Uganda is part of the same area, located just across the Rwanda-Uganda border). For the semi-unreasonable price of a $750 permit, you can hike (with an armed battalion) into the park and see the gorillas. As much as I would’ve liked to do it, the price was a little too high for me.

• Still, we heard the area was nice, so we decided to check it out. The first day we hired a Land Cruiser to take us up to an area overlooking the Twin Lakes. The view was incredible. Easily one of the top 10 views I’ve had in my life. Beautiful blue lakes to our right and left. Volcanoes behind us. Green hill after green hill extending as far as the eye could see on either side. The pictures just don’t do it justice. Here are a few to give you an idea of what it was like, though.

 

• After a staying the night at a hostel in a tiny town called Kinigi (located close to the volcanoes), Dibya, Valentina, and I went to a little “cultural village" just outside the park. Think, “Rwandan Williamsburg.” It was a little touristy (whatever that means in Rwanda), but definitely a good time. We got to watch a traditional healer mix medicinal herbs, help a blacksmith pump his bellows, shoot a bow and arrow, stone grind sorghum into flour, witness a customary marriage processional, and dress up as a tribal king/queen. Don’t tell PETA, but I think I look pretty debonair in leopard.

 

• So, as hard as this is to believe considering my incessant gallivanting, I actually do get some work done occasionally. In fact, this week was the busiest yet in the research department. After dozens of emails, well over 10,000 lines of Excel data (not kidding or exaggerating on that number), and a few Skype conferences, I finally completed and submitted my abstract to research conferences!!! I should hear back in August or September. And now that my abstract is finished, I can begin my paper! Here’s a little appetizer for you. It looks like real science, huh? I can hardly believe it. I almost feel like a real scientist! haha:

 

• Alright, people. That does it for this week. Thanks for tuning in!