To celebrate our last night in Ruhengeri, almost everyone went out to a Karaoke bar where our foreigner (and for some of us, Muzungu a.k.a. white) status was quite obvious in our screaming excitement when Jessica got a hold of the microphone and our incessant dancing throughout non-danceable slow songs. The next morning, we tiredly boarded the bus for a long ride toward Karambo, located right on Lake Kivu. On our way, we were to have a quick pit stop in the Gishwati National Forest, where some Chimpanzee researchers Seth and Hilary knew were to take us on a short two-hour stroll to stretch our legs. Two-hour stroll became four-hour hike, stretched legs became sore-for-days-after legs, and many of us touched some painful plants, nearly twisted our ankles, and slipped in the mud. Yet, it was the most beautiful hike I have ever been on. Some of us are still not convinced that we didn’t teleport into the movie Avatar (the one with the blue people) for a day – every tree looked like the Tree of Life. No chimpanzees were seen, but some were heard from far away, and many half-eaten fruits were found. Plus we stopped at a cool waterfall halfway through! Magically, everyone made it back alive, and in just a few hours, we were passing a foggy Lake Kivu and pulling into the entrance of our next home.

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In Karambo, our first few days were off, and many sports were played. 7am was prime basketball time for Dido, Innocent, and I (later in the week moved to 6pm at a slightly further location where more teammates were found and Hilary showed everyone up). Several rounds of Capture the Flag were played, where Chimene guarded the jail like her life depended on it and Hilary’s flag-hiding skills turned out to be a little too good. The following days included some great soccer and sporadic tree-climbing in between class with Seth and data-mining using the statistical software SPSS. Perhaps all the sports were to get everyone hyped for the FIFA World Cup Final, but although we had an exciting outdoors TV viewing session, Croatia still lost…

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Karambo also featured some interesting wildlife: the cats living outside our windows were rather grumpy and continually arguing (loudly!), and Madeleine and I watched two Black Kites (birds of prey found all over Rwanda) mate – unfortunately we have no videos but there are some on YouTube. Also, Alexcia and Leilani made friends with people who had caught chameleons!