27th of February , 2018.
My plan it is to arrive at Dian Fossey’s Fund before nine o’clock, make half of the visit and then try to talk with them about the possibility of a volunteer work. I did not know anything about this place before coming in here. I did not make a research about Musanze to know how important it was. If it was not for Ken, I would might never know. So I decide that would be my chance to see the gorillas and I would try as much as I could. I am even given up already of doing the volunteer in a school to keep the focus on the gorillas.
Unfortunately coming back from Sayid’s house I get a little lost. Actually not lost: I knew exactly the way I should go, I just also knew that to hit the Fund, that way would be longer so I was trying to get a short cut. But asking for information on the street it is not working so luckily I see the church / school where I was in the other day and I knew hot to get faster from there to the Fund. Bingo!
I arrive after nine but John and Ben are not waiting for me. I do not have to be at the school before ten so I decide to take a small tour anyway.
When I finish, I ask to talk with someone responsible for the place. The receptionist tells me they are in a meeting. After I explain my intentions to her, she is pretty direct and say they would not take any volunteer. I was almost leaving when I thought that I should try harder. So I tell her I would come back next day.
At the school, I wait the whole day for the director but he does not show up. At least Ken it is there and we have a good talk for the long morning and lunch time. I have lunch in there again (yeah, I forgot to say that at the first day we three also had lunch at the headmaster’s room). He gives me some good tips about some countries he already had visited because he used to travel before, cycling and everything, pretty cool. He bought some toys for the kids and they were distributed to them. I would have watched if it was not for an accident with a small boy: a college hit him in the face and his nose started to bleed. I heard him crying when nobody else did. There was no one around and I do not know what would have happened if I was not there. I bring him to Alexandre’s office, make him put his head back, clean his clothes, hands and face and try to make him to calm down. In a few minutes he is all right and the bleeding had stopped. I am get by surprise about Alexandre’s reaction: almost nothing. He remain the same as if nothing had happened. He just ask for whom had done that with the boy and one of his friends answered. The ‘aggressor’ supposed to come and meet the headmaster. Outside, I am walking with the boy when another of his friends come to see what had happened. I explain and ask for his help to find the other one. After a few tries of this friend of him, I walk with both of them until where the aggressor was. I almost laugh at seeing his size: almost smaller than the one he hit. He was refusing to come so I took his hand and take him to Alexandre. Later, Alexandre told me it was the second time that the boy had hit someone.
I get a little disappointed with how the kids I liked so much the other day, did not come with too much enthusiasm to see me and talk to me.
In the afternoon, another accident and again with nobody seeing the kid crying. It is a little girl this time and she fell by herself and cut her lips and gum in different places. She is crying a lot and I totally understand her. I try to calm her down. She also hur her knee so I just carry her in my arms until Alexandre’s office. Her mother had just arrived to pick her up. ‘Luckily!’, I thought at the beginning. But them the way she treated the little girl make me change my mind: she barely look at her daughter or demonstrated any concern or affection. She did not even carried her to the car.
At the end of the day, after Naitan had not showed up at all, I just walk back to the town with Alexandre. I borrow his phone to called Sayid and ask if it was possible for me to stay another night with him. He say it is totally OK and we decide to meet in the same restaurant from last night. Celestine joined us and again he insisted to pay my dinner.
At Sayid’s house, we drink some tea before I go to sleep thinking in what I would do of my life.