Ode to Goats

The world's most annoying goat outside of Jim's house.

On behalf of Claire, I would like to write an ode to the greatness of goats. 

This all started when Claire came to visit me here in East Africa over the holidays. She flew into Kigali, Rwanda, a good place to start for anyone visiting Africa for the first time. We first travelled 4 hours north to the Ugandan border, to the Virunga volcanoes, home of the last of the mountain gorillas. We climbed Mt. Muhavura (4107m) and had a pretty heavy dose of getting our butts kicked. The conditions were hard on the volcano, believe it or not we even got caught in a hail storm on the way down. We climbed with Jim and his friend Curt, out visiting from Boulder, CO. The boys made it to the way, but Claire and I stopped before the second hut to retain some shreds of dignity. Claire also suffered from altitude sickness since Kisoro is over 2000m high, but as for me, I have no excuse as to why the climb was so hard! 

The following day we all traveled back to Kigali to see off Curt and to celebrate New Years Eve. Jim, Claire and I had a fabulous time, hitting up a bar in central Kigali and rocking out to 90s hits such as "How Will I Know" by Whitney Houston and "I Saw the Sign" by Ace of Base. It was low-key, but still fabulous. Especially lip-syncing to Mariah Carey greatness.

After New Years, we hired a car out to western Rwanda to Kibuye on Lake Kivu, a relaxing lakeside little town. We enjoyed its magnificent views and chill atmosphere, and met our brethren, Peace Corps Rwanda volunteers. We stayed at Saint Jean guesthouse, which is perched on a peninsula in the lake for a few quiet, relaxing days and then went back to Kigali to pick up the rest of the Lingham gang. 

We had time to list off all the reasons why goats are the best: 

-They make great friends and great pets

-They're adorable 

-They have giblets that give them power

- They love climbing things and always being the king of the hill

-They can climb almost anything, like that dam in Italy when they're standing on little pegs

-They can hike

-Make delicious meats

-Pellets for poop is easy clean up

-"Bahhh!" is a ridiculous way to get attention! 

-Most of them don't really believe that they're really goats 

Making new friends