Evolution not 'Intelligent Design'

Jeff left yesterday and I miss him already. But we did have a fantastic time together while he was visiting.

My friends in Kibungo impressed both him and I with their warm welcome. His first night here we were provided with a feast of Congolese food at a friend's home. The second night he was treated to all the traditional Rwandan foods in a dinner party organized by the friends I live and eat with at Centre St. Joseph.

They each said a little welcome speech to Jeff. As Ahmed pointed out, if we can have a Kenyan, an American, an Egyptian, a Rwandan, and two Canadians in rural Rwanda sharing food in peace while laughing and discussing, there is a way for the countries of this world to acheive the same thing on a larger scale.

The staff at PAM also welcomed Jeff by taking us out into the field for a personal tour of the region.

Then we paid an exorbitant amount to visit some of the world's last remaining mountain gorillas. It's true what people say - it's worth the money. Everyone who denies evolution should take a trip to look these large mammals in the eyes. Watching them in their daily activities, you feel like you are watching your relatives. Humans are actually not as closely related to gorillas as we are to chimpanzees, but when you meet a gorilla you know that somewhere in time we shared a common ancestor.

Plus, I don't know if I've seen anything as cute as a 3-month old baby gorilla with a gorilla hair fro! Jeff told me that he would pay not to see the gorillas, but to be there to see me see the gorillas.. photos on the way...

We recovered from all that excitement on the shores of Kivu Lake in Gisenyi, and celebrated Jeff's birthday. The spectacle we made swimming with locals distracted us from the possibility of being killed by methane gas bubbles in the lake. How likely death by methane in the lake is we never quite figured out as everyone gave us a different answer. We took our chances.

Now Jeff is on his way home, and I'm celebrating Easter Monday with my first day of work as 'Monitoring and Evaluation Consultant'. Lunch time now! More bananas!