Merry Christmas Day!

On Christmas Eve I received 4 packages!!!! It really felt like Christmas as I opened each one, and thought of the friends and family who sent them. Thank you all soooo much!

Bob, Sara and Taylor included stockings in my package for me, Chewy, Danny and Fox! (I didn't have Ama yet when they sent the package). There were many, many ornaments (THANK YOU PEG!!!) - I didn't have a tree so I cut a branch off an avocado tree an decorated that!


There were also wheat thins and other great snacks that are unavailable here. I spent part of the afternoon organizing my food into boxes of sweet, salty and meals - I am now an official food hoarder...


I was instructed NOT to open the stocking until Christmas morning so this morning I ran to the green couch where the stockings had been "hung" with care - and low and behold Santa brought me a thermos, a pine Yankee Candle, a flashlight and a Santa pez dispenser! Each of the dogs got a great chew toy too! Although Fox didn't really know what to do with his, so Ama took it...



Kris, my favorite middle cousin, sent these great ornaments with pictures of everyone in the centers - a GREAT reminder of our Christmas's together! I especially liked the picture of Jay asleep!


Lisa Tucker sent me a package with a WONDERFUL bound book of photos from last summer's MWL mini-reunion in Three Lakes. Feels like you guys are here with me now!By the way, when are you coming to deepest darkest Africa for a visit???!!!

There were all manner of goodies in Lisa's package - I stocked my larder! She also sent the first 2 seasons of "Weeds" (watched the first 2 episodes with my friend Jeff from Imbabazi). Hilarious!

Gail Hall sent puppy treats and clickers for Ama (Gail, she learned "sit" in 2 tries!!!). Ama was a little frightened of the squeak toy at first, but now it is one of her favorites. If there were sound on this blog you could hear the squeaks just now!

Gail also sent packages of nice SOFT Kleenex (Yay!), many wonderful snacks including tuna, some fun reading material, and a picture of Vignir that is now on my bulletin board!

The rest of the morning I spent preparing my contribution to the Christmas dinner I was attending at Katie and Glen's house (Katie is the director of Karisoke Research Center). I had a cake mix I brought from when I was home in October, so I mixed that up and put it in the oven along with the oven thermometer I brought back. It was hard to keep the oven at 350, but I did my best.

While the cake was baking, I began to prepare artichoke dip with fresh artichokes I got last week. Finding the heart in a fresh artichoke is hard work (I googled food network for advice)! I had 5 artichokes and after 30 minutes of cutting and pulling off the outer leaves and another 30 minutes of boiling.... I had 4 bites of artichoke.... which I enjoyed.... but no dip for the party!

Back to the cake. I had 2 round cakepans, and one of the cakes got a bit burned on the bottom, but I didn't let this lessen my determination. I scraped off the burned part, and started in on the icing. Last week in Kigali I found "icing sugar" and thought I was home free (I bought 2 different kinds just to be safe)! Sugar, milk, vanilla and butter - what could go wrong? Well.... let me tell you. First batch was very granular - it wasn't really powdered sugar.... I set that aside and made another batch with the other package. This batch ended up too thin, but not too granular... Hmm. I decided to mix the two batches, thinking that the thick, granular batch would thicken the thin batch. I was out of sugar now so this HAD to work. Alas, it was still too runny and now the whole thing was a little gritty with sugar granules. At this point I decided to just try to ice the cake with a "drizzle. A good thought, but when I put the top layer on the bottom layer, with "drizzle" in between, it slid off and crashed on the plate. Yikes. Thinking quickly I grabbed a toothpick and tried to tooth-pick the top layer to the bottom layer. That seemed to be working, so I drizzled some more icing over the top. It was looking okay! I thought I might actually end up with a nice cake, when the top layer started sliding again, ripping a hole in the top layer where the toothpick was... Ugh. Now what to do???? I have repaired cakes with icing at home, but this batch was too thin... hmmmm. I thought, maybe if I cook it the icing will thicken. Bad idea. It turned into crystalized candyish goop. I tried to repair the cake with the goop anyway, but alas, it only made matters worse.

Here's the aftermath of my culinary attempts:


Here's the "finished" product...

Not horrible, and will likely taste good, but not attractive enough for a dinner party! I think I'll cut it up and we'll eat it here at the office next week...

Here's what I brought instead:


Dinner at Katie and Glen's was great - we had good conversation, watched 18 month old Anabel enjoy her new toys, drank mulled wine, ate turkey, stuffing, potatoes, sausage, beans, Christmas pudding with cream, cheese and chocolate! I'm still not hungry this morning!

When I got home last night I skyped with Bob and the kids, Peg and Jim and Mary Ann while they were opening presents at Jim's. I talked to Anna Lynn and Linda, and left messages for Leigh Ellen and the Jores (I'll try again tonight!).

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday, and that your cakes turned out well, and you enjoyed time with family and friends.

Amakuru!

Office Party, Rwanda style!

Yesterday we had our MGVP Christmas Party complete with spaghetti dinner ala Leon, decorations put up by Noel and Jose, and background traditional Christmas music I put on my I-pod when I was home in October. We played the "white elephant" gift game! It was quite new to most of the group, and great fun. Poor Noel had 2 of his gifts stolen (one by me!), but he ended up with a GREAT gorilla painting by Eric, one of the artists who works with Julie at Art of Conservation.

Here are some pictures of our day:


Noel and Joselyn putting up the decorations.


The finished product!


Leon and Felician preparing the feast!


The Christmas feast.


Ama with her Christmas decoration!


And Ama eating her Christmas decoration...


Here's the MGVP team enjoying dinner.


Opening gifts was fun.


Here we are with our gifts. Me (obvious, I know), Innocent (from Art of Conservation), Felician (one of our guards), Clementine (former administrative assistant now at university in Kigali), Schadrack (current administrative assistant), Leon, Eric's wife, Eric (from Art of Conservatin), Noel (lab technician), Joselyn (data entry for MGVP) and Joseph (our porter for the forest). Great team!

At the end of the day, after almost everyone had gone home, Felicien, Leon and I washed the dishes and put the house back in order. There was little conversation, because my French and Kinyarwanda is so bad, but it was a comfortable, familiar, post holiday activity. I am so thankful for my Rwandan friends; my family away from home! But I miss you all!

Christmas Shopping

Going to Kigali today to drop John off at the airport and to do some last minute Christmas shopping - chocolate for the staff!

Christmas in Rwanda

This is the first time I've spent Christmas away from my family. And it is a little surreal to me that Christmas is less than a week away. The weather doesn't change much day to day, or month to month for that matter, and there are no Christmas tree lots, few lights and decorations, and no seasonal songs playing in Musanze town. BUT, I have 2 poinsettia trees - one in my front yard and one outside my bedroom window, and they both have beautiful red leaves, just in time for Christmas! The sunbirds and firefinches perch there regularly and look like ornaments. I put up decorations in my livingroom. And I'm going to have a little MGVP Christmas party next week, and introduce the "white elephant" Christmas present game to the staff! I'm having Christmas dinner at a friend's house - they have an 18 month old daughter so I'll get to watch her open a gift or two! And I'll let Ama open a new bone on Christmas morning. I'm playing Pachelbel's Canon as I write this. So I'm trying to get into the Christmas spirit. But I'll miss you all, and chilly Christmas morning opening the stocking gifts, and looking at the tree at night, and the endless Christmas songs, and Sara and Taylor relaxing after finals. Send me pictures.

Bob said he wanted to see more pictures of my house so here they are!


Here's the poinsettia outside my bedroom window.


I just planted some flower seeds in the backyard.


Here's the door to my office from the courtyard.


Chewy and the poinsettia outside my front door.


My vegetable garden.


Here's the inside of my office.


We have this calendar board for all MGVP scheduled activities.


Here's my nick-nack shelf (yes, I'm collecting even more nick-nacks Bob!)


I have these flowers outside my office. The begonia makes me think of Mom.


Here's my bulletin board with some pictures that are probably familiar to many of you!


These next few are my decorations - pretty festive!









Here's my dresser with photos to remind me of friends and family.


Immaculee, a friend here in town, gave me this plaque for Christmas. I love it!


Fox and Ama relaxing in the living room.


Ama has doubled in size since she came to me 2 weeks ago!

That's it for now! By the way, I darted my first wild gorilla Friday. She had a snare on her wrist. Amazing experience. I'll write about it on the gorilladoctors blog in January!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Like any other Sunday

It was Sunday morning. I’d slept in a bit, dinked around in the garden, and I had been invited to Fabien’s wedding today. He’s one of the 2 head gorilla orphan caregivers in Kinigi, and I was so very honored to be invited - I was beginning to be part of the community! I’d picked out the skirt and blouse I was going to wear, and was in the process of ironing when I got the first call. There was a professor from Princeton trekking gorillas today, and I was to have lunch with him at one of the resorts. What a dilemma. I did some quick calculating and figured I could go to the wedding but slip out early in time to make it to this lunch. It would work out just fine.

Then I got the second call. There was a silverback gorilla who was still in his night nest at 10am. NOT a good sign at all. Now all bets were off. No wedding, no lunch with the professor from Princeton. I was so sad to miss Fabien’s wedding, but I knew he would understand. He was a gorilla caregiver after all. I prepared to go to the forest to assess this silverback.

As I put my raingear, camera and fleece in my backpack, I had a million questions going through my head – had he been in a fight with another silverback? Did he fall? Was he coughing? Others sick? Will this require anesthesia?

I climbed in the truck and drove to pick up the tracker and porter who accompanied me. We then drove down a long, curvy lava strewn “road” to the “parking” area. It must have been a market day because I passed bag after bag of potatoes along the way, piled outside a small shop, on people’s heads, and 3-4 huge bags on bicycles that strong men were pushing up steep hills. We parked the truck outside a small village and started up the slope. It was about 60 degrees, overcast and windy as we headed up the slope to the edge of the park – I have a feeling my nose was bright red as it dripped steadily in the wind... And it was MUDDY. I was priding myself in how well I was keeping up with the tracker when I slipped and fell in the mud on the way up – sorta embarrassing. It took us only 30 minutes to get to the park edge. We were following the Susa River on the way up. I couldn’t see it, but I could hear it rushing down the hillside. Then we came to the falls - absolutely beautiful. I still can’t quite believe I get to work here!

I had to take a pee at the wall at the edge of the park (too much coffee that morning). The trackers are used to this, but I was a little embarrassed. I said in my best English “I have to go have a pee…” and point to the bushes. The tracker said “Number one?” and I thought, did he just ask me that??!! I said, “Yes, number one - the short call.” And he somberly nodded his approval. I wondered what he would have said it was number two… I found a bush that is nicely situated to provide me with privacy from the trackers, but I imagine the whole valley could probably see my glowing white bum. Yikes.

It was another 30 minutes through the forest until we got to the group. As soon as we entered the forest the wind stopped and everything was quiet. We were in a bamboo area and there was moss hanging from bamboo, and bamboo going every which way making the path a little difficult to navigate, not to mention the ankle deep mud. But we kept going, and it wasn’t far until we came upon the silverback, laying on his side with 3 juvenile gorillas playing around him. He lifted his head to acknowledge me, but then laid back down. I was a worried. The tracker and I moved off to look at the rest of the group, and in about 15 minutes we saw the silverback moving in our direction. He was limping a little, but sat and ate well while we watched several others in the area. What a relief. We watched the group for about an hour, and once the tracker and I were both satisfied that he was okay, we headed back out of the park. We both thought he had probably fallen and hurt his leg, but not seriously. I learned later that he was back to normal the next day. Phew!

I’m doing a lot better with the altitude – still very slow as we climb, but this time we were at around 8800 feet and I kept up pretty well! The mood was light as we walked down the mountain. When we got back to the falls I stopped and told Joseph the porter I needed to be a tourist for a moment and took a picture. Joseph and the tracker laughed. And I practiced my Kinyarwanda on them. I now know to say “nitwa Jan” when the kids call me Mzungu (my name is Jan). I can say “muramutse”, which means "good morning". And respond with “yego”, meaning "yes, it is a good morning". Or to say “Amakuru” in greeting (Peace) to which one responds “Nimeza”, meaning "and also to you". Joseph and the tracker seemed to get a kick out of my trying to learn Kinyarwanda, and they tried to teach me so many words! I know I won’t remember them because I can’t write them down as we walk – the words are still so foreign to me. But it was fun. I told them about Amahirwe and they laughed at the name (it took me a while to get across the concept that I have a puppy with that name, but we eventually got there between my bad French, their a little better English, and pantomiming!). I told them that some days she is Amahane, and they busted a gut.

I am feeling settled in. I've learned to always expect the unexpected. I love this place and the people, and of course the gorillas.



Ugenda feeling stiff and sore.


Other family members enjoying lunch.


Susa falls.

Amahane

So, Amahirwe means Chance, or Luck.
Amahane means Trouble!
Either way she's Ama...
Needless to say, she feels MUCH better now, and is a normal, troublesome puppy!! I've given her my slippers in order to save everything else she chews on!

Here she is with Eric, a friend from Art of Conservation. Molly took this picture.

Updates

My friends Molly and John and climbing Sabinyo today - over 12000 feet!!! Maybe next year for me...

MGVP sponsored a training workshop for about 20 community people (including a Batwa group) on how to use a press that makes fuel briquettes out of discarded paper, rice hulls, etc. These briquettes will be used in place of charcoal so tons of benefit - reduced charcoal use, recycled paper use, a business for the people who own the presses and the people they employ! We brought over the first press from Congo to Rwanda. Very exciting! Pix soon.

I'm putting up Christmas decorations this evening - I can't believe it is already 2 weeks until Christmas!

Ama weighs 7 pounds already! Chewy has forgiven me, but only if Ama is not present (when I tried to introduce them he snarled fiercely and ran away, and didn't let me touch him for 2 days. He is a very sensitive boy). Fox is beginning to tolerate Ama; a very good sign! Dan hasn't met her yet (I worry that his cart will run her over!).

I was supposed to be on a live California Public Radio broadcast on Tuesday, but just as we were going on air I lost the internet connection (not uncommon here, unfortunately). But they decided to reschedule for next week. Fingers crossed for the connection!

New post at gorilladoctorsblog about Ndeze and Ndakasi. They are doing so well!

And Bob, I am wearing my new sunglasses at appropriate times!

Amahirwe

She weighs four pounds and is as big as my boot. She's covered in lice, full of worms and about 7 weeks old. Tan, black muzzle, little white soul patch, and a Biafra belly. I've had her for 4 days and I'm already in love. She's sleeping in my lap as I write this.



Amahirwe. It means "chance" or "luck" in Kinyarwanda. I call her Ama for short.

I was in Kinigi visiting the gorilla orphans and she cowering in the bushes outside the compound. At fist I thought she was a cat, then she scurried across the path into a brush pile. It took some coaxing, but we got her to come out and I scooped her into my arms, lice and all. She was trembling, her hair was matted and her skin scabby. She needed me!

Here she is getting her first bath - the lice scattered!














Chewy and Fox don't think much of her, but Magda's and Julie's dogs are interested and playful. I'll need to give Fox, Dan and Chewy extra attention so they don't get too jealous.













She was very quite the first 2 days, but now that she is dewormed, deloused, has some groceries in her belly, a warm bed and a little love, she's a spitfire! There is no Purina Dog Chow here so I have to make her food. She gets these dried little fishes that we feed the other dogs, and rice. I also bought some bones from the butcher and boiled them up and mixed them with rice. Looked so much like a good dish that Mike had a plate the other day - he said it was a little bland! I haven't had a puppy for a long time - she's keeping me on my toes!

Amahirwe. I'm taking a chance with her.

Press Release!

Here's our press release about the orphan move - pretty exciting!


December 2, 2009

Orphaned Mountain Gorilla Babies Return Home to Congo National Park

On Dec. 1, more than two years after being evacuated following the 2007 killings of their mothers, mountain gorilla babies Ndakasi and Ndeze returned home to the Democratic Republic of Congo, moving into a new custom-built forest sanctuary.

The move was coordinated by the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project, which has been providing veterinary care for the orphans since they were rescued. The Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project is a partner with the UC Davis Wildlife Health Center in the Mountain Gorilla One Health Program, established at UC Davis in April with funding from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

"The move was a great success thanks to the tremendous effort of the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project staff, and the caretakers and staff from the Congolese wildlife authorities," said wildlife veterinarian Mike Cranfield, who is the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project's executive director and co-director of the Mountain Gorilla One Health Program.

"The orphans will now have the chance to grow up in a safe, healthy environment that is very similar to their natural habitat and close to their surviving family members."

UC Davis wildlife veterinarian Kirsten Gilardi, co-director of the Mountain Gorilla One Health Program, said it is too soon to know whether the orphans might ever live free. These two young females and two other orphans are the only mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei) in captivity in the world.

"Whether or not Ndeze and Ndakasi can be returned to the wild will be the decision of the Congolese wildlife and park authorities, and will depend on the gorillası development over the next several years," Gilardi said. "Moving them to this new, much more naturalistic setting is certainly a step in the right direction, and a vast improvement for their current well-being."

Since the 2007 gorilla massacres, the orphans had been living with caretakers in the city of Goma in a makeshift facility run by the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International. While the orphans received excellent care at the Goma facility, its location in the middle of a hot, dusty city directly behind a busy hotel was far from ideal. A rebel invasion of Virunga National Park delayed the construction of the sanctuary until this year. The area has now been deemed safe for the gorillas to return.

The orphans' new home is Senkwekwe Center, built near Virunga National Park headquarters in Rumangabo. The facility was constructed by the Congolese wildlife authorities (known locally as the ICCN, for Institut Congolais pour la Conservacion de la Nature) in part with significant donations from the non-profit group Canadian Friends of the MVGP.

Named after Ndeze's silverback father, who was also killed in 2007, the sanctuary encloses 2.5 acres of natural forest and includes a 1,600-square-yard interior holding facility where the babies are currently staying. Under round-the-clock care by ICCN staffers, Ndakasi and Ndeze will be able to explore an environment filled with trees they can climb and planted with native foods they can eat.

"The orphans seemed to adjust to their new surroundings right away," said Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project regional veterinary manager Jan Ramer. "Within 15 minutes they had pulled down a banana tree and started eating
it.²

"While itıs a tragedy that gorillas are not able to live in the forest with their families, this facility allows them to live at the right altitude, in the right climate, and among the right vegetation for wild mountain gorillas. Itıs the best place for them right now," she added.

One of the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project's veterinarians in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eddy Kambale, will stay with the orphans at Senkwekwe Center for a week to make sure they continue to adjust well to their surroundings, and he and fellow Congolese MGVP veterinarian Jacques Iyanya will also follow up with regular health checks.



About the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project
Founded in 1986 shortly after the death of Dian Fossey, the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project provides veterinary care to the approximately 750 mountain gorillas living in Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It monitors the health of wild mountain gorillas, treats trauma and illness, researches significant issues in gorilla health, and develops protocols and partnerships to support the Mountain Gorilla One Health Program in the Virungas and environs. It works in close partnership with the governments of Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and other gorilla conservation organizations to achieve mutual goals, and its work is shared to strengthen wildlife conservation efforts around the
world. The MGVP depends upon grants and donations to conduct its operations.
More information: www.gorilladoctors.org


About the Mountain Gorilla One Health Program
As a partnership between the MGVP and the UC Davis Wildlife Health Center, the Mountain Gorilla One Health Program investigates the disease threats facing mountain gorillas, helps expand medical care for the humans working in and around the gorilla parks, and improves the health and well-being of livestock to benefit the families who depend on them for nutrition and income. The program was established in April 2009 with a leadership gift from the Packard Foundation, and involves some of the worldıs leading great ape scientists and conservationists. Utilizing both public and private support, the program is a model for the One Health approach to conservation.


About the UC Davis Wildlife Health Center
The UC Davis Wildlife Health Center, home of the Mountain Gorilla One Health Program, is a Center of Excellence within the School of Veterinary Medicine, comprised of 13 epidemiologists, disease ecologists and ecosystem health clinicians and their staff working at the cutting edge of pathogen emergence and disease-tracking in ecosystems. It benefits from the expertise of 50 other participating UC Davis faculty members from many disciplines who are involved in the discovery and synthesis of information about emerging zoonotic diseases (those transmitted between people and animals) and ecosystem health. Its mission is to balance the needs of people, wildlife and the environment through research, education and service.
More information: www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu.whc


About UC Davis
For 100 years, UC Davis has engaged in teaching, research and public service that matter to California and transform the world. Located close to the state capital, UC Davis has 31,000 students, an annual research budget that exceeds $500 million, a comprehensive health system and 13 specialized research centers. The university offers interdisciplinary graduate study and more than 100 undergraduate majors in four colleges -- Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering, and Letters and Science -- and advanced degrees from six professional schools -- Education, Law, Management, Medicine, Veterinary Medicine and the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing.
More information: www.ucdavis.edu



Ndeze and Ndakasi eating a banana tree in their new yard!


Andre and the girls.

Alive and Kicking...

I can't believe it has been 20 days since my last confession... wait a minute, I mean my last blog...
I know I am sounding like a broken record, but geez it has been crazy here! Here's the run down:

A veterinary pathologist from Canada and a vet tech from Baltimore visited over the past 2 weeks. They were helping with the capacity building portion of the project - helping train our lab manager and technician, going over protocols, etc. A GREAT two weeks, and we got a lot accomplished.

We worked on Thanksgiving day (go figure, it is not a holiday here!) but had a great Thanksgiving meal with one of the other NGOs in town that evening - complete with turkey and dressing! I skyped the whole family that night and managed to talk to almost everyone, which was nice. Then last Saturday we had a Thanksgiving celebration here at our house. We had 4 chickens instead of turkey, and stove top stuffing, cranberry sauce (the kind I love that comes out looking just like the can - I brought it back from the states just for this occasion!), mashed potatoes, and about 15 friends. It was great fun - Julie brought her Egypt garb again, which is why John and Mike are in dresses! Here we are at the table in our conference room (pay no attention to the many Primus bottles on the table...).


BBC continues to film - here they are shooting our truck going in and out of the gate half a dozen times, but they got the shot! Stay tuned for a 3 part series on Mountain Gorillas sometime next year.

Through our partnership with a group called Project Rwanda we were involved in the donation of a cargo bicycle to one of the sector veterinarians. We even did a press release! Here she is thanking John Huston, who she worked with a lot when he was doing a survey of families involved in the "one cow per poor family" national project.

You might be interested to know that Pacifique, who I wrote about on gorilladoctorsblog.org, has also been given a bicycle, and it has changed his life. Justin, one of our farm partners in Uganda has a bicycle on the way too, thanks to another generous friend!

I finally got to go see gorillas last sunday - there was a blackback that was moving slowly and needed to be checked. I'll write about that soon - remember that all gorilla content must now be posted on the gorilladoctors blog so stay tuned there too!

We also just moved the 2 mountain gorilla orphans from Goma in DRC to a wonderful new facility in Rumangabo - more on that next week!

Thanks to everyone who has been sending messages - I AM still here, alive and kicking! In the next 2 weeks just about everyone I know is leaving for holiday, so I'll have LOTS more time for writing. You'll be sick of hearing from me. Hopefully it won't be another 20 days until my next blog...

Busy times!

It has been sooooo busy since I got back last week! Mike is here, along with a visiting pathologist from Toronto Zoo. The technician from Maryland Zoo arrived yesterday and is doing some great teaching to our lab folks. There have been meetings and meetings about BBC, mask use in the face of H1N1. The monkey with the broken arm is now back in her big enclosure and doing well! It is the rainy season and it is RAINING!!! And I feel like I haven't had time to catch my breath!
So this will be a very short post!

There is a new post on www.gorilladoctorsblog.org so be sure to check that out.

I am out of "quarantine" on Monday and can't wait to get back into the mountains to see the gorillas again!

Back Home Again

Sorry it has been so long since I've written! When I last wrote I was in Ethiopia on my way to Tulsa, Oklahoma. After 36 hours of travel and one missed flight I arrived in Tulsa at 7pm on a Friday night just in time for my first meeting! I was at the annual conference of the American Association of Zoo Veterinarians. The conference went well, and it was so fun to see everyone! But at the end of the week I was exhausted...and ready to go home.

Bob surprised me by driving to Tulsa so I didn't have to fly another leg - we had more time together that way too! I had a week in Indianapolis, and got to visit with almost everyone, at least briefly. It was so wonderful to be back home again. Fred, Misty and Dave seemed very happy to see me - within 5 minutes of crawling into bed that first night they had all joined me! Bob said they NEVER do that when I'm not there! I wish I could bring them with me. At least Bob gets to come visit in January. Here's me, Bob and Fred.



The day I left Ruhengeri 2 of our farm partners, Pacifique and Emmacule, gave me gifts to bring back to my family. I was so touched! Here are Sara and Taylor with the gorilla key chain for Taylor and bird mobile for Sara.



Here's Bob and I with our gifts from Pacifique and Emmacule (I sent them these photos too because they wanted to see my family.)
And part of the family with baskets I brought back for everyone. They were made by a small women's co-op here in town.


During the week I gave a talk at Taylor's Fraternity, Lambda Chi, which was fun - one of his fraternity brothers came dressed as a gorilla! And I gave a talk at the zoo too. Strangely, I was pretty nervous about that talk. I think I really, really wanted it to be good, because the zoo has been so supportive of my work with MGVP. I was thinking about this as I entered the education building, and the first thing I saw was this GREAT cake!!!
Do you recognize me on the top of the cake??!! Even the gray hair!!! I saved her in our freezer at home - don't throw her out Bob! This cake was a gift from Jennifer Conour and her children. She a zoo member who, along with her son and daughter, sent wonderful packages to me here in Rwanda filled with much needed (and yummy!) items for MGVP.

I launched into my talk, and in the end I think it went well because I was talking about something in which I so totally believe. It was great fun to see everyone at the zoo! I just didn't have enough time. At the zoo or at home.

Before I knew it my 7 days had flown by and Bob was dropping me off at the airport for another grueling 34 hour travel stint. Minneapolis, London, Nairobi, Kigali, with varying hours worth of layovers in each airport - I lost track of days and time. In Nairobi I was utterly exhausted. The airport there is small, crowded and hot. Not to mention dark and confusing. As I sat waiting for my last flight, I wondered just what I was doing spending 2 years in Africa. It is hard work, hard to be away from family, hard financially, hard to travel. I slept at bit on that 40 minute flight (didn't sleep at all on the 8 hour flight from London to Nairobi, which likely affected my mood...). We landed in Kigali and I breezed through immigration because I have a resident visa. As I waited for my bags I could see Jean-Felix waiting for me - he smiled and waived, and I returned the gesture, genuinely happy to see him. Jean-Felix and I caught up on all the gorilla and human drama I'd missed during my 2 weeks away as we drove the 2 hours back to MGVP headquarters. The road from Kigali to Ruhengeri was so familiar to me. Everything was GREEN this trip - we are now fully into the rainy season and the crops had grown by leaps and bounds while I was away!!! Kids smiled and waived as we passed yelling "Boujour Mzungu!!" and I smiled and waived back. As we rounded the corner and I saw the MGVP sign, heard Chewy barking, and heard the creaking of the gate as Faustin opened it, and I felt myself relax. As I climbed out of the Land Cruiser Chewy smiled and wagged, I got hugs all around, I ate a wonderful Leon lunch. It felt good to be back home again in Ruhengeri - my home away from home.

I have to stay away from the wild gorillas for 2 weeks again, because I've been traveling, which means re-acclimation to the altitude and climbing - yikes! Since I got back Monday afternoon I've tried to catch up on emails. We went to Rumangabo in Congo on Wednesday to do a final inspection on the gorilla orphan facility there. We met with BBC at Park Headquarters here in Rwanda. They are doing a 3 part special on Mountain Gorillas and part of the story is MGVP. Should air next year. We met with ORTPN to talk about how to mitigate the risk of H1N1, which finally found its way to Rwanda. And I had beers at Muhubura. Life is good here in Rwanda!