Today was a once-in-lifetime kind of day. One of those days that make you stop, take a deep breath, and say “take this in, you are not going to experience something like this ever, ever again.”

Spending an hour 10 feet from a family of mountain gorillas, will do that to you. It was utterly magnificent. They are so much like us… A baby was annoying an adult female, she yelled at him, he cried and ran back to his mother who scooped him up in her arms and comforted him. Then she gave her friend a dirty look. (ok , not really, the dirty look was actually from me).

A few other cool Rwanda experiences…

Seeing a dead hog flopped over the back seat of a moving bicycle, looking in awe as woman carries 25 lbs of water on her head with no hands, taking pictures of laughing children, feeling impressed that the entire country of Rwanda can ban plastic bags but Los Angeles can’t, eating a new delicious fruit called a tree tomato, and spotting a gecko that I swear was really a Gungan from the planet of Naboo.

I am sad to be leaving this country. There is still so much I want to see and do. I want to connect more with the people, make friends with someone who can teach me how to carry a bag of potatoes on my head, walk barefoot through my own plot of farmland, and carry a baby on my back wrapped in Batik. Hmmm…looks like my next move is dropping everything joining the Peace Core. I already asked Peter… he said no. I’ll keep asking.

The first gorilla we spotted. So close!

our guide Ignatious