Happy Birthday Taylor!!!! Wish I was there. Have fun, be safe.
And happy birthday to Kari too!!!!
Miss you both.
I'm headed to Congo for the next 4 days - training for the gorilla census that is to begin Monday. Camping on the edge of the forest - should be fun, if it doesn't rain....
BTW, new post at gorilladoctors.org
http://www.gorilladoctorsblog.org/field-blog/2010/2/24/group-13.html
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Sisters
Happy Birthday to Linda and Anna Lynn, my two youngest sisters. Wish I could be with you!!!
You guys have no idea how much you mean to me.
You guys have no idea how much you mean to me.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Akagara
Last weekend Bob and I went to Akagara, a national game park in the south east of Rwanda. The park is huge, and borders Tanzania. We camped under a full moon, heard buffalo and hyenas near our tent. An amazing experience. Here are some of our pictures, but they can't begin to capture the beauty of this place.
We went for a boat ride and saw these fishermen bailing their boat.
Bob, Fulgence and our boat driver.
He was keeping an eye on our boat.
There is a crocodile in this picture!
African fish eagle.
Kingfisher.
Vervet monkey.
Thick knee at the edge of the lake.
Crock juvenile. I didn't see the bird until we downloaded the photo.
Can't remember what he is called, but sure is pretty.
Marabou storks.
Baboon baby riding jockey style.
Rolling zebra that looks like Tom!
Impala
Zebra and Topi baby.
Boon on a rock.
We saw him across the lake. Can't believe I saw a wild elephant!
Bee-eater.
Hornbill
Topi.
Buffalo - the most dangerous animals in the park!
Waterbuck.
Bob and Fulgence looking for hippos.
Ankole cows we saw on the way out of the park. Check out the horns!
Look at the dog guarding the calves.
Friday we went to Congo. I really wanted Bob to see where I work so he wouldn't be so nervous. Here's Bob looking out at the volcanoes.
Bob went home yesterday - back to work for me.
We went for a boat ride and saw these fishermen bailing their boat.
Bob, Fulgence and our boat driver.
He was keeping an eye on our boat.
There is a crocodile in this picture!
African fish eagle.
Kingfisher.
Vervet monkey.
Thick knee at the edge of the lake.
Crock juvenile. I didn't see the bird until we downloaded the photo.
Can't remember what he is called, but sure is pretty.
Marabou storks.
Baboon baby riding jockey style.
Rolling zebra that looks like Tom!
Impala
Zebra and Topi baby.
Boon on a rock.
We saw him across the lake. Can't believe I saw a wild elephant!
Bee-eater.
Hornbill
Topi.
Buffalo - the most dangerous animals in the park!
Waterbuck.
Bob and Fulgence looking for hippos.
Ankole cows we saw on the way out of the park. Check out the horns!
Look at the dog guarding the calves.
Friday we went to Congo. I really wanted Bob to see where I work so he wouldn't be so nervous. Here's Bob looking out at the volcanoes.
Bob went home yesterday - back to work for me.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Live life deliberately...
Today Bob and I visited the original site of Karisoke Research Station - where Dian Fossey lived her life in Rwanda, a life lived deliberately and with purpose. Where she is buried, next to Digit, Titus and other of the gorillas she fought so hard to protect. We walked for about 2 hours up through the beautifully cultivated fields of pyrethrin and vegetables. Our guide "D", who was wonderful at pointing out the plants and birds.
I found a hatchling chameleon - I rescued him from the ground and put him back in the tree. "D" said finding a chameleon was good luck.
We saw Hygenia trees that were huge, and must have known Dian Fossey. We saw lobelias that were 15 feet tall. We saw tree hyrax (a first for both of us!), and lovely sunbirds flitting through the trees. The hike up was hard but well worth it.
When we got to the site of the original research station I recognized the spot where the cabin stood when I stayed there 25 years ago. Nothing is left but foundations now, and the graves of Dian Fossey, Digit, and even Titus, the silverback I met when I first arrived, but died shortly after. I spent some quiet time at his grave.
One surprising find was the volleyball area! Candi, stop laughing - there really was a volleyball court on the slopes of the volcano, this picture is proof!
We spent about an hour wandering around, touching trees, sitting at the graves, then turned to walk back down through the beautiful, pristine forest. It was magical. A place I would like to bring all my friends.
Last night I learned that my dear, dear friend Maureen Kouwe (we all called her Tody) passed away. She was on a skiing trip with her brother and sister-in-law, doing what she loved, and died in the arms of her family. An aneurism. She was 53 (soon to be 54 - our birthdays are 13 days apart). She was planning a trip to visit Rwanda, and I was going to bring her to this magical place. The whole time Bob and I were there today I thought of Tody. We've been friends for 32 years. Tody LIVED her life. Deliberately. With great love for her family and friends, and with great passion and faith. Today while I was in that enchanted place she was with me. I could hear her laughter, hear her blowing out her breath through pursed lips at the beauty of the place. I could see her smiling face as I reminisced about my meeting Dian Fossey 25 years ago. Tody WAS there with me. And will always be with all of us who loved her. May we all live as deliberately as she did. Here's to you Tody.
I found a hatchling chameleon - I rescued him from the ground and put him back in the tree. "D" said finding a chameleon was good luck.
We saw Hygenia trees that were huge, and must have known Dian Fossey. We saw lobelias that were 15 feet tall. We saw tree hyrax (a first for both of us!), and lovely sunbirds flitting through the trees. The hike up was hard but well worth it.
When we got to the site of the original research station I recognized the spot where the cabin stood when I stayed there 25 years ago. Nothing is left but foundations now, and the graves of Dian Fossey, Digit, and even Titus, the silverback I met when I first arrived, but died shortly after. I spent some quiet time at his grave.
One surprising find was the volleyball area! Candi, stop laughing - there really was a volleyball court on the slopes of the volcano, this picture is proof!
We spent about an hour wandering around, touching trees, sitting at the graves, then turned to walk back down through the beautiful, pristine forest. It was magical. A place I would like to bring all my friends.
Last night I learned that my dear, dear friend Maureen Kouwe (we all called her Tody) passed away. She was on a skiing trip with her brother and sister-in-law, doing what she loved, and died in the arms of her family. An aneurism. She was 53 (soon to be 54 - our birthdays are 13 days apart). She was planning a trip to visit Rwanda, and I was going to bring her to this magical place. The whole time Bob and I were there today I thought of Tody. We've been friends for 32 years. Tody LIVED her life. Deliberately. With great love for her family and friends, and with great passion and faith. Today while I was in that enchanted place she was with me. I could hear her laughter, hear her blowing out her breath through pursed lips at the beauty of the place. I could see her smiling face as I reminisced about my meeting Dian Fossey 25 years ago. Tody WAS there with me. And will always be with all of us who loved her. May we all live as deliberately as she did. Here's to you Tody.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Bob in Rwanda!
Traditional Rwandan house
Bob arrived last Saturday and we've been pretty busy seeing the sites.
Bob's post follows:
We passed this house last week on a hike to a waterfall in the foothills of Bisoke, one of the six extinct Virunga volcanoes. Jan tells me that when she visited Rwanda in 1985 on a side trip to meet Diane Fossey and to see the Mountain Gorillas, houses like this one were still commonly seen in rural areas. These days they are scarce, at least in this fine condition, replaced by more conventional (to western eyes) structures made of brick or adobe-like block and mortared over, with metal roofs. The next two pictures were taken on the same walk. Coming down from the waterfall, we stepped along narrow paths within the patchwork of small cultivated fields that cover the foothills, hills, mountains and valleys (here, right up to the very edge of the Volcanoes National Park boundary) of, virtually, the entire country. Just remarkable. The soil here in the north and west, I am told, is rich and up to three feet deep in the valleys. It is the product of thousands of years of erosion of the volcanic rock and the decay of the lush vegetation that blanketed the area. Near the pictured house, we met a young woman in the terraced mounded rows of a potato field just harvested, using a hoe to prepare the ground for the next crop. Because so much of the land here is hilly and mountainous, and there are so many mouths to feed, these Rwandans have perfected the art of growing their food in these hand cultivated terraces. I have not seen a one horse, mule, or tractor in this country.
Contemplating volcanoes.
This is me, staring dumbly at extinct volcanoes. The picture doesn't show it well, but between this spot and the volcanoes, the land drops off several hundred feet; almost every square foot of it in cultivation.
Walking through the farm fields. That's Jan and two friends.
Nyiragongo with steam plume.
This Virunga chain volcano is in the DRC (Democratice Republic of Congo) and is active. The city of Goma was evacuated in 2002 when Nyiragongo erupted and killed 50 people. The glow of the lava pool is visible above the peak against the night sky.
Boys hamming it up near Rugongo Lake.
These guys and four or five others came over to look at us and we took some pictures. They had a good time of it, and so did we.
Rosamond Carr's home ("Mugongo") at Imbabaze in the Rwandan foothills of Karisimbe, the tallest of the Virunga volcanoes at 4507 meters (what is that, about 14,500 feet?). For fifty years she lived here and managed a flower plantation. In 1967 Dian Fossey, forced to leave the Congo and her Mountain Gorilla study, contacted Carr about setting up a base for continuing her gorilla work from Carr's plantation. They remained friends until Fossey's death in 1985. (Carr and her home show up in the movie "Gorillas in the Mist"). In 1994 Rosamond Carr established an orphanage here for victims of the genocide. She died two or three years ago and is buried in her flower garden. Her memoir "Land of a Thousand Hills" is very interesting reading. Jan and I had a lovely lunch and chat with the couple who now run the orphanage and whom Jan became familiar through her work here. (This is Jan, chiming in on Bob's post - I'm a new member of the Board of Directors for the Foundation now running Imbabazi, the orphanage Roz Carr started when she adopted over 100 children orphaned by the genocide. Those kids still live at Imbabazi.)
Gardens at Mugongo.
Beautiful place.
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