story 2 of the last week

yesterday javid, danny and i tagged along with george to the volcanoes. george was doing the gorilla trek and we were going to do the dian fossey and gorilla graveyard trek...but when we got there we found the prices had changed quite a bit. so javid, danny and i decided to hike around the villages while we waited for george. it turned out to be a fabulous time. we hadn't even walked 10 minutes when we had a set of 4 kids following us and talking with us. one of the boys spoke english quite well and translated what the others were saying. one of the boys was so clever he had a strip of film negatives as sunglasses. he had a string tied to each end and then tied around his head...the boys followed us for a bit and told us of their school and football. then some older boys came and asked us a lot of questions and pointed different areas of the village and surroundings out to us and then asked us if they wanted them to show us around. it was fabulous. they took us to the edge of the mountains through diffrent farms through the village and all over. the views were absolutely spectacular. and the weather was perfect. as we trekked all over we were met by lots and lots of kids and goats, cows and sheep. there were a few young young kids that were terrified of us...especially danny because i assuming because he is the whitest of all of us...so we caused some heavy screaming and crying and even a couple kids to run away in terror. we also met adults who were so friendly and excited when we spoke kinyarwandan to them. the most bizarre experience was danny or javid had taken a picture toward the mtn area and then we heard outrageous screaming from some women...she started toward us and when she met us she started dancing and yelling and singing and it was quite initmidating to say the least. the boys we were with explained she wanted money for a picture and we think she was dancing and such to give us a type of action shot or something...she even got down on all fours and was dancing and it was quite akward. danny was the only one who had change so he gave it to her and we moved on...we were told by one of the boys that her and her family were pygmies but i am not sure if we understood correctly because they were not small. anyways, so after that we were a bit nervous to take any photos and it was funny to watch us look around and be cautious of who may be watching when before we didn't have a care in the world. at the end of the trek the boys brought us to their village and we met one of the boys little brothers and his little sister...so cute...we stopped at one of the drinking holes ( a tiny room) which sold sodas, beer and cigarettes and that was it...we had a fanta and as we sat down goerge texted us that she was on her way back so everything worked out perfectly that day. george had an amazing time gorilla trekking and her pics were unbelievable...she saw a family of 7 gorillas and one was a baby. at one point they were about a meter away from one of the males and she said it was incredible. i definitely will be doing the trek next time i am here. i was going to do it this trip but decided i need to save some to do stuff for next time :)
on the way home from the mtns we all fell asleep in the car...we were all so tired. we got back and ate and napped. danny left to go back to the eastern provence where he works during the week. in the evening we went for dinner at flamingos the local chinese restaurant and had a great time. we took motorbikes and they decided to race to the restaurant andit was a bit crazy but at this point i am pretty much adapted to the crazy motorbike driving and like it in a weird crazy adrenaline sort of way..