Oh Tannenbaum

Christmas again and finally I have got to know the meaning of x-mas (thanks Dennis, how many of your new elitist friends actually knew it?).
While everyone else has left town already I am still holding out and try to actually work. At least the weather is creating a bit of an "end-of-the-year" mood, its grey, rainy and cool.

could you try to ignore my underwear sticking out and marvel at the falling rose leaves instead, please...





But to show you that we are not left completely without light and warmth in the dark heart of Africa I have a small collection of Kigalis "best of" X-mas decoration for you.

I will go to Butare in the south of Rwanda where I am invited to the family of my colleague Evangéline. Apparantly though, Christmas is not the same big family affair as in Europe, here New Year is much bigger. And thank God they are not much into presents either. Still have to find a decent present for Evas mother, la chef de famille.

here is Eva (left) with one of our cleaners, Marthe, at our office christmas party








Butare is a former capital of Rwanda and used to be the intellectual stronghold with Rwandas National University.It still kind of is but more and more people and schools move to Kigali. But they do have the National Museum which I am hoping to see as well, finally. And then I was planning on heading further South to Bujumbura, capital of Burundi. Its only another 3 hours drive from Butare and supposed to be quite nice and totally different from Kigali.

So let me wish you all Bonne Fête, Meilleurs Voeux, Joyeux Noël or as they say here
Noheri Iyziza N'umwaka mushya Muhire!!

Gorillas in the rain

A new entry on the day of St. Nicolas (Nikolausi) who has taken the trouble to make his way even to the country of the 1000 hills. But this is not what I want to share with you as obviously what you see on the left is not St. Nicolas but the silverback (le vieux la) of group 13 up in the mountains of the Virunga National Park. The silverback is the leading male in any given group and has - surprise surprise - a silver back, please marvel at the silver chest as well. Apparently all male get that some time but not every one has his own group. Like back in the old days they still fight for their women and for power among themselves and the loser has to go.


But otherwise they are really peaceful as you see here with the youngest member of the group. She is about 2 months old and still a bit scared hence hides in mummy's arms. It was amazing how close we got to them, about 2m, and still how normal they proceeded with their daily routine which comprises eating, playing, eating, sleeping, shagging (nope, we didn't get to see it but according to the guards they normally don't mind visitors at all) , eating and so on. They told us that they eat up to 30kg of green stuff, they are 100% vegetarian, and that really takes up most of their time. More or less quite an easy and cheerful way of life, I certainly wouldn't mind.
But then there wasn't just the gorillas but also the jungle and the walk itself was again a little adventure although we resisted the temptation to walk 4 hours (and 3 back) to the furthest, biggest and most popular group. We thought 1h of mud up to your knees and stingy plants was just about fine. But honestly, it was well worth it - apart from our annoying guard - the smell, the sounds and the views...ok ok, it was quite foggy and rainy, but still.

And hey, who am I to complain, at least my shoes remained intact and I had dry feet. Unlike Alexandra who borrowed boots from a friend and lost both soles half way up - I totally could have died on this mountain, suffocating from eating and laughing so hard at the same time as I was walking right behind her and saw her soles go flop, flop, flop. Alex, by the way, I share my office with temporalily as she was relocated from Kinshasa during the election in the DR Congo.


I just realised going through the pictures that many are, hmm, how do you say 'flu' in english, I mean, not THE flu but when they are not sharp? And we have tons of the old guy. But thats ok, he was quite impressive showing us also every now and then who was the boss by standing up and running towards us to scare us away or just beating his chest.


All in all we spent about an hour with them and if it didn't cost so much I would love to go and see them again. Maybe not with 8 people again and having to shoot 1000s of pictures but really just to observe a bit more in peace.
To say goodbye the silverback sat there quite majestically as if he wanted to indicate that the audience was over...and so it was.













To finish, pictures from Lake Muhazi, about an hour eastwards from Kigali, an ideal place for lazy sundays and parties the saturday night before. Even the president has a house here!







And one from Laura, who I just bought my first original piece of art from. Its called "lick"- see and judge for yourselves!

















And hey, the last one I just found, its from a party at Laura's that was supposed to be a Halloween party aka Congo theme aka whatever you felt like. (Katrin, Liz, Andrea, Laura)