Recently, I returned from a trip to Africa with my daughter, Gretchen, and my granddaughter, Avery, 12.  Gretchen had founded the nonprofit Global Grassroots in 2004 to help women in developing countries start their own social entrepreneurships in their communities.  She was first inspired to work with marginalized women as a young girl when we lived in the Philippines.

After 20 years of working with women in Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya, Gretchen was getting ready for a final celebration of Global Grassroots’ accomplishments and would be turning over the organization to African women to run.  They would continue Global Grassroots’ legacy and would emerge with a new name – Umurage Growth.  (Umurage means “legacy” in Kinyarwandan).

Our trip was also an opportunity for Avery to learn about her mom’s work and gain an understanding of the poverty and challenges faced in a developing world.

They were traveling from Seattle, and I was traveling from Boston.  We met in Amsterdam for breakfast (there is one café at the airport that makes the most delicious salmon toast) and boarded our flight to Kigali.  Upon arrival, we spent the first night at Hotel des Mille Collines (hotel of a thousand hills) which was the real hotel featured in the movie “Hotel Rwanda.”  Being able to relax around the pool helped us adjust to the time change and catch up on our sleep. 

That afternoon, our driver picked us up and we drove 3 hours west of Kigali to Volcanoes National Park in the Virunga Mountains. There are five dormant volcanoes in the park.  Rwanda is very lush and green with mountains and valleys dotted with metal roofed stucco or mud brick buildings.  The hillsides are terraced with hand-plowed gardens growing bananas, sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, onions, pineapples, mangoes, casava, plantains, and papayas. The villages with markets were buzzing with people and activity.  Los of people walking or biking along the side of the road, many carrying jerrycans of water, huge bags of potatoes, animal feed, charcoal or giant bunches of bananas on their heads.

We stayed a Tiloreza Ecolodge that night in a family cottage surrounded by sumptuous flower gardens. The next morning, I went gorilla trekking. You have to be 15 years or older to go, and since Avery was just turning 12, she and her mom went instead to see the golden monkeys and to the Diane Fosey Center to learn about her research with primates.

The gorilla trek started with a walk through farm fields of rough furrows of mostly potatoes and chrysanthemums that are grown for making pyrethrum, which is a natural insecticide (permethrin is the chemical equivalent with dangerous side effects). I was part of a group of 8 people led by a park ranger and accompanied by porters and trackers. Our guide taught us about harvesting potatoes, manufacturing pyrethrum and making charcoal from eucalyptus trees.

Once we finished walking along the borders of the farm fields, we crossed a rugged stile into the jungle and started a steep uphill climb. The trackers directed the guide to the group of gorillas to which we’d been assigned for the day, while using a machete to cut a path through the jungle. The porters carried our backpacks and water and helped us get through the ankle-deep mud hat sucked at our feet. Altogether, we hiked 4.3 miles uphill and spent 3 hours in the jungle, of which one hour was spent with the gorillas.  We saw about 20 different gorillas including two huge silverbacks.  The guide and trackers used “gorilla speak” noises to let the gorillas know that we were there and not to bother us.  They also explained what to do if a gorilla approached out of curiosity or made a noise which warned it was upset – we were to kneel and stare at the ground! It was truly an amazing experience to be 4-10 feet from such majestic creatures.

That afternoon we returned to Kigali and the next day we visited a Women’s Center in a Kigali neighborhood, had an African cooking class and visited the Kigali Genocide Memorial. At the Women’s Center, women are taught literacy classes as well as how to sew or work in a hair salon.          We were taken on a tour of the center and then through the neighborhood.  We got to watch a woman in a hair salon do long braided hair extensions on one client.  She paused just long enough to braid a strip of my granddaughter Avery’s hair too. We were also shown a section where streets had been closed to traffic to allow children to safely play or restaurant diners to enjoy their meals.

Our cooking instructor purchased vegetables for the class – tiny green eggplants, celery shoots, green bell peppers, the ripest tomatoes, dodo (amaranth leaves – like spinach), tiny carrots, red onions, cassava, sweet potatoes and plantains.  Then we went to a “kitchen” in a courtyard that had a long worktable and 6 charcoal burners.  We did a lot of prep work and then combined different ingredients to produce 6 dishes plus rice.

 I liked the dodo with onions, bell peppers, tomatoes and crushed peanuts over rice the best.  My granddaughter liked the diced cabbage with tomatoes, onions and bell peppers.

In the afternoon we visited the Kigali Genocide Memorial which, like the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, is an excellent historical presentation, but is also extremely disturbing and intense. You leave with sadness in your heart and even greater respect and compassion for the Rwandan people.

The following morning was an emotional day for me when we visited water projects funded by Global Grassroots in villages on the outskirts of Kigali. Our driver took us on deeply rutted and heavily pockmarked red dirt roads where we were able to view the new water tanks that had been installed.  We walked down to the bottom of a steep hill to the slow-moving creek where the community used to collect water for their jerrycans one small scoop at a time. Did you know that a jerrycan weighs 48 pounds when full of water? And we see graceful African women balancing them on their heads as they walk uphill! The woman who oversees the water project reached out to Global Grassroots when she realized that clean water would address a lot of health issues in their community.  When Covid hit, the community started making soap for sanitation.  And this same woman and her husband adopted a boy who was left at the town meeting site by his family who had “rejected” him because he did not talk. She is truly an angel. You should have seen the little boy’s face when one of the women in our group gave him a matchbox car!

After lunch we went to a second water project in another village and then to a school where we were enthusiastically welcomed by the children who performed a traditional dance program for us.  We had brought lots of gifts for the children including soccer balls.  I think I spent the entire day on the verge of tears – it was so moving!

Our visit to Kigali would not have been complete without a visit to the expansive local market where everything from hardware and clothing to produce and meat is sold.  We were focusing primarily on woven goods and the beautiful bright patterned fabrics from which the women made long skirts, colorful bags and aprons.  We also went to a craft market where we saw carved wooden bowls, beaded jewelry, stoneware and jewelry made from recycled brass and steel padlocks.

The next day we left our hotel early and drove 3 hours east to Akageera National Park for a safari.  Along the way we saw rice paddies, tilapia fish farms where rabbits in hutches were kept.  Their droppings fell through the bottom of the hutches to feed the fish!  Also, there were men who walked around with long poles with trailing cloths attached to them.  Our driver explained that they were keeping the birds away from the rice & we realized they were human scarecrows!  People along the shoulder of the road walked or rode bicycles carrying heavy loads – firewood, huge cloth bags of charcoal, potatoes, onions, giant stalks of freshly-cut bananas, or several jerrycans of water.

When we reached the park, we registered, paid our fees and were introduced to the man who would be our guide the next day.  He gave us a briefing on what to expect from the safari and said we were to meet him at the Visitor’s Center at 6:30AM.  We would be driving through the savannah for 5-6 hours.  The park had lions, leopards, elephants, rhinos, giraffes, crocodiles, zebra, water buffalo. wildebeests, impala and more!  As we climbed back into our vehicle and drove towards the Lodge, three graceful giraffes suddenly crossed the road in front of us and Avery was so excited!!

The Lodge was gorgeous – lots of stone and graceful architecture.  In order to accommodate a lot of guests at the same time, the room rate included a buffet breakfast. Our server told us they could pack us a lunch to take with us on the safari the next morning too. (There had been one spot on the map of the park our guide had shown us that was marked as a “picnic spot.”  At the time I was wondering – a picnic spot for whom?  Us or the lion?)

We slept well and awoke to a spectacular sunrise.  After breakfast we loaded into our vehicle (much like an oversized Landrover Defender with a roof that telescopes upward to leave an open-air gap for viewing animals), picked up our guide and headed out. We saw everything except lions and leopards.  One of the other groups staying at the lodge had seen a lion, but the leopards are nocturnal and were not out and about. We did see lots of elephants and learned that the African elephant (as opposed to the Asian elephant) has ears shaped like the continent of Africa, 40,000 muscles in his trunk and lives to be 120 years old!

It was a great trip.