The Kids Came Back!
Trip Start
Apr 21, 2008
1
30
225
Trip End
Apr 20, 2009
Kinigi,
Rwanda
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
So I woke up this morning and headed off to the national park headquarters to see if I could organize a trek up one of the volcanoes. I arrived at the park office at about 7 am and there were already about 50 people getting briefed on their upcoming visit to see the gorillas. This is the place in Rwanda where everyone starts their journey to see the gorillas. Rwanda is one of the few places in the world where you can actually see them. You could sense that everyone was pretty psyched about seeing them. However, $500 is too steep for me. Especially considering you only see the gorillas for 1 hour. Maybe next time. I can't do it all on this trip. If I saw the gorillas, I would have to think about not climbing Kilimanjaro or not doing a safari through the Serengeti. I wasn't going to give any of those activities up.
Anyhow, I approached a man at the front desk and asked if I could do a trek up the Bisoke mountain. He said it wouldn't be a problem. I just needed to fork over $75 dollars. I thought this was a good enough deal for a 4 hour guided trek. As I was sorting through my money belt to get the money, I was asked about my car. My car? I told him I didnt have a car and this is when he said I wouldn't be able to do a trek without my own car. They did not have any vehicles going to the volcanoes and I would therefore need to arrange my own transportation. He did state that I could arrange for a local to drive me for another $75 but I thought that was too much for a 40 minute drive. So I decided to wait around to see if anyone else would show up with their own vehicle who was planning on going to trek up one of the volcanoes. While waiting, I saw the young 'chef' I met a day earlier. This is the guy who proudly said that he was responsible for making all of the coffee and tea for the gorilla amd volcano trekkers. He asked if I tried his tea. I said no. He was eager that I try some. So of course I did and it was good. I gave him the approving smile and the big thumbs up. He returned a big smile in return. You could see that he was really proud of his tea and coffee. What a great kid. There is something amazing about how simple the people are over here.
After waiting around for an hour and alone at the park office, I realized no one was showing up to do a trek up the volcanoes. I would try again tomorrow. If I didn?t meet anyone who was interested in doing a trek, it wouldn't be the end of the world. I would be able to do this later on my trip in New Zealand.
When I got back to my guesthouse, I met an American girl, Collette, who was about to visit a nearby primary and secondary school to donate text books she brought along. Suddenly having a lot of time on my hands, I asked if I could join her and she said yes. I wanted to see if I would run into the kids I met the previous day. I was hoping my appearance would make them a bit nervous, perhaps thinking I would tell the teachers about my 'donation' to the soccer team. Of course I wasn?t going to say anything. I would enjoy them getting nervous though :).
Along the way to the school, it was absolutely pouring rain. It pretty much rained all day which made my decision of not going to do the trek a good one. It would have been miserable walking up the volcano.
When we got to the school, all the students were in their classrooms. The school itself looked like a series of long and narrow barns which surrounded a schoolyard which was really a dirt square with weeds everywhere. As we walked across the schoolyard, the kids in each of the classrooms noticed us. All of a sudden, you could hear excited screams from every corner. Kids were pointing and screaming in our direction. Some of the school teachers came out and introduced themselves. It was quite amazing at how excited everyone was to see us - including the teachers. One of them asked to visit their class which had about 50-60 excited grade 3 students. When I walked in, I noticed that there was no lighting. Because of the bad weather, you could hardly make out what was on the chalk board. The classroom only had benches - no desks. I noticed the kids would place their notebooks on their laps and write slowly. Without the benches, the room would have been completely empty. Just a concrete floor. I took a peak at some of the text books. Some were in French while others were in English and the local language. I was told that they use whatever they could get their hands on. I guess you could see how poor some of these rural towns are. What?s amazing is that you have tourists coming here every day to pay $500 to see the gorillas. Makes you wonder how much of that money goes to the local community. Not much I am guessing.
Slowly, other teachers came to see us. We had about 4-5 teachers come to see us at one point. All were interested in learning about what the teaching profession was like back home. I apologized for the distraction we created as the students were suddenly without any teachers. But then it was explained that they don?t teach when it rains. When I asked why, they said that the rain created too much noise when it hit against the school?s metal roof. The students are not able to hear the teachers when it rains so they don?t teach until the rain stops. Such a different world!
I did end up seeing some of the kids I met yesterday. They were quite happy to see me actually. I was happy about their reaction.
We hung around the school for about 90 minutes and then took off. I was glad I went. It was a nice experience. It was too bad I wasn?t allowed to take photos.
While walking back to my guesthouse, I came across one of the kids I met yesterday. I asked him why he wasn?t
at school. He explained that his dad didn?t have enough money for a notebook so he had to wait until he could get one. I told him he should use the money I gave yesterday towards the soccer ball but somehow that didn?t seem like a good idea to him. At that age, I can?t say I blame him. I remembered seeing the notebooks. They all had no more than 10 loose leaf pages in them. Had I thought of it, I should have just ripped 10 pages from my travel journal and gave it to him.
There was a surprise when I got back to my guesthouse. Lyndsay, the English girl I met in Uganda, had just
checked. She was there to see the gorillas. It?s funny how I keep running into the same people.
Another surprise was when Daniel, the captain of the soccer team, came running to se me at 2 pm. The previous day, I had told him that I would be back from my volcano trek at around this time and that he should let me know if they were going to play a pick up game of soccer later in the day. He actually left his class to tell me that his teacher wasn?t going to be giving homework so they wouldn?t have to stay late at school and therefore would be playing soccer at a nearby field at 4:30. He came to invite me to play. What a great kid. He kept his word! I could see why he is the captain.
SO I had 2.5 hours to kill. I walked around the town and it was quite funny seeing the kids reactions when
they saw me. Some would run like lightning towards me when they spotted me. Sometimes, I would have a crowd
of 20-30 kids following me. When it became too much, I would sneak back into my guesthouse and wait for them
to leave. Then I would continue my walk. I had to return to my guesthouse 3 times.
At 4:30, I went down to the field and played a fun game of soccer with the kids. It was a really bumpy field but the surroundings made up for it. In the backdrop, you had beautiful trees and of course the 7 volcanoes. It was amazing. Lots of fun playing with the kids but I had to stop because of continuing issues with my knee. At the end of the game, they asked if I could take more pictures of them and of course I did. They asked if I could send them actual copies of the pictures I took (in addition to emailing them). I promised I would. They gave me the address of the school. I?ll have to take care of that when I come back home. They also pushed their luck and asked if I could send them new uniforms. I told them I couldn?t promise them that.
In the end, I was happy to meet these kids. They made my visit worth it. They were quite the characters. Such a great group of young men.
At night time, I watched a major soccer game on TV between Mancester United and Chelsea. It was the final of some major tournament. Soccer is popular here so this game was talked about all day. About 15-20 local men came to the guesthouse as I am assuming it is one of the few places that has a TV in the town. It was fun watching the game with the local guys. They were really into it. One thing I noticed is that not one of them had an alcoholic drink during the whole match. It was good to see. They didn?t waste their money.
Before going to bed, I made the decision not to bother trekking the volcano the next day. I wanted my memory
of this place to be the group of kids I met and played soccer with and nothing else.
