Today we decided to go to tangiere and Manayara with Abu, a good friend of Moshi’s, who is an expert in wildlife. We rented a vehicle with a driver and headed out at 8 in the morning passing through masari villages, The wildlife is abundant and when we entered that park saw zebra, elephants, mpalas and that was just the first 10 minutes. After about an hour of driving Abu spotted something in the hole of a tree and looked through his binoculars. It was the feet of a cevat hanging out so Abu thought there must be an animal nearby that put it there and was waiting to eat it. Sure enough a few minutes later we saw a leopard crawling down the tree (Moshi thinks to go to the bathroom) and then go back up pull the cevat out of the hole and start eating it. The afternoon was a magical safari experience.
That evening, after the sun went down, we got into Kigali and met with Richard, a friend of Moshi’s who is also doing cultural tours and focuses on environmental projects. Moshi wanted to look at what he was doing so that he could bring some of the ideas back to his village. I was so tired and wanted to lay on the bed and close my eyes but we went out to a little place in the village, It was dark as we walked down the streets because there are no street lamps and we couldn’t really see much but we arrived at a small restaurant and sat down at a little plastic table. We all ordered Ugali and when it came I was not too sure what to do. Uglai is dowey bread made out of cornmeal that you tear of in pieces and dip into a stew. You eat it all with your fingers. The night was special, talking about ideas and projects that Richard is involved with in his community while dipping our fingers into the warm bowl of stew. We planned to meet up the next morning to see some of the things he was talking about.
We all headed back to the hotel and as soon as my head hit the pillow I was sleeping.