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Everything about
Rwanda
was a surprise to me. Like
most visitors to
Rwanda,
I went for the gorillas. There you
can stand within a few feet of these majestic
cousins of ours in the wild, you can look into
their eyes and establish a contact that is
something so familiar and yet entirely
different.
This is why
I came, for that hour of intimacy with the
gorillas that left me in awe. But I also
left
Rwanda
deeply moved by the stunning beauty of the
landscape and by the people, who are a testimony
to our ability to cope with tragedy and move
forward.
Rwanda
is a compact country of roughly ten million
people.
It is part of the East African Community
and shares borders with
Kenya,
Uganda
and
Burundi. The
capital,
Kigali,
is a quiet city of some 800,000 people. The
cleanliness of
Kigali
and
Rwanda
as a whole is outstanding. There is
almost no trash seen on the streets and in the
countryside.
When I asked our guide about it, he told me
that Rwanda’s President, Paul Kagame, has declared
the first Saturday of each month to be the
“national clean-up day” in which every citizen is
expected to tidy their environments.
As I was leaving the airport, I
saw a billboard featuring two lovely juvenile
Gorillas titled “Kwita Izina” meaning “The Naming
Ceremony”.
On June 21st the entire country,
along with members of the international community,
celebrated the baby gorillas born this year by
naming them. From
my experience, it is uncommon for wildlife to be
given the limelight in such an important way and
for the nationals of a country to be engaged in
what is essentially a large scale conservation
public relations effort.
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Rwanda
is called the country of 1,000 hills. Perhaps
influenced by my flat homeland of North Central
Florida, I’ve never been particularly drawn to
mountains, but I discovered in
Rwanda
that I love the look of hills. Everywhere
there are hills as far as the eye can see, like
waves of land that provide a sense of infinity
much like the ocean. The hills
are somehow just the right size; big enough to
hold mystery but small enough to be on a human
scale.
And covering every inch of the hills is a
patchwork of agricultural plots with potatoes,
cabbages, cassava, and banana trees. In the
steep areas, as I have seen in the
Andes, there are terraces
with crops.
As we drove along the roads we
passed villages, farms, and the people walking or
biking.
I marveled at the beauty of the women in
traditional African dress; fabrics of the most
vibrant colors and patterns wrapped around
them.
They carried baskets that were teeming with
fruit, or buckets or jugs; everything perfectly
balanced on their heads. Many of
the women also carried a baby on their back, tied
with another wrap that knotted in the front of
their clothes.
The words sustainability and
conservation in rural
Rwanda
have little tangible relation to our sense of
these words.
Here, economic and other factors create an
environment that is almost entirely conservative
of resources; transportation consists almost
exclusively of walking or riding bicycles. Along the
highway I saw men pushing their bicycles up hills
loaded with crops, a cargo easily over 50 lbs,
jammed into bags that are threadbare from
use.
From every home rises a plume of smoke from
the hearth for cooking. These
homes do not have running water, so locals are
constantly carrying water in ubiquitous yellow
jugs.
No electricity at home also means no
television.
It is hard to imagine a generation of youth
today growing up with almost no exposure to
television, yet Rwandan rural life is like
this.
To see the gorillas we traveled
two and a half hours north of
Kigali
on good roads until we reached the Virunga
mountain range. This
beautiful cluster of volcanoes covered by forests
straddles the borders of
Rwanda,
the Democratic Republic of Congo, and
Uganda. The
parks of these three nations contain the roughly
720 gorillas that survive today. On the
Rwandan side of the mountain range, in
Volcanoes
National
Park, there are 7
habituated groups of gorillas. Gorilla
groups consist of at least one leader known as a
silverback, due to the saddle of grey hair that
appear as the male matures, and his female harem
with their offspring. At times,
larger groups
will have more
than one male, but there is always one silverback
that leads the group. Trackers
from the park are sent out very early in the
morning to locate the groups, so the rangers
accompanying the visitors are almost certain to
encounter the designated family.
Our group consisted of my
colleague
Pelin
Karaca and me, from
Gainesville,
three ladies from
Australia,
and a couple from
Singapore. We were
assigned the “Lucky” group. The name
suited our gorilla family extremely well; we were
told there were several baby gorillas in the
family.
The park was cool and moist, filled with
bamboo and moss; a place that seemed as likely to
have gorillas as fairies. After a
rather muddy, but not overly strenuous hike of
about 1 ½ hours, we finally reached our
group.
The excitement was palpable. The time
was at hand and for several in our group this was
a moment they had dreamed about all their
lives.
Slowly and quietly we approached them
during a moment of rest. My first
feeling upon seeing them was my surprise at how
large the silverback was; his chest was probably
four times the volume or size of a man’s. I
was also struck by how close we were to them. We were no
more than 10 feet away from one of the mothers
resting with her baby.
What a scene of
domesticity.
They had finished their morning meal and
were resting together. The
silverback was carefully grooming a female that
the park rangers told us had recently been brought
from the Democratic Republic of Congo. She lay in
total abandon on her back, one arm thrown lazily
over her head, as he went over her carefully. Close by
were two other females that were part of his
group, with babies cuddled on them. For
the most part, though it was clear they were aware
of our presence, they were unconcerned. At times
the quiet scene was punctuated by a series of
special grunts from our rangers, sounds they said
reassure the gorillas that all is well.
We had one hour with them, a
time limit which is dictated by park rules. The hour
sped by rapidly as we documented the scene with
videos and still images. During
this time, they started to rouse. I wondered
if they would have dozed longer had we not
intruded.
One of the babies was more curious about us
and held our gaze for long moments. I think
that put the mother on the alert. Eventually
the young ones began to play near the silverback
and his female, and he pushed one away to stop
their interfering romping.
I realized while watching them,
how their presence and behavior is so similar to
our own.
That affinity coupled with their awesome
size and contrasting gentle quality makes for an
incredible encounter.
Considering what a threat we pose to the
gorillas, it was a great privilege to be allowed
to witness their private family moments.
After our gorilla trek, we
drove 45 minutes away to Virunga Lodge. We wound
our way up a Rwandan hill, through little villages
and around, always climbing. I wondered
what could possibly be worth driving all the way
here for.
But when we arrived I understood
clearly.
I beheld the most beautiful view I have
ever been privileged to see. The
evening light shone through the valley flanked by
the volcanoes where our encounter with the
gorillas had taken place; and the lakes below us
also conspired to create a picture of tremendous
beauty.
Each of the
cottages sprinkled over the hill has a porch
overlooking the lakes and volcanoes. The
bathrooms have bucket showers and composting
toilets.
The delicious meals, warm drinks around the
fire, and the lovely, comfortable style of the
lodge make this a very special
property.
I felt awkward knowing in
advance of my trip that I would see
Rwanda’s
genocide memorial. How
can this atrocity be a point of interest for a
traveler?
But for many reasons it must be
seen by visitors to
Rwanda. And if it
were possible, it should be seen by people from
all over the world. The
memorial is a tribute to the victims of the
tragedy that happened only 14 years ago; an event
which cannot be ignored or avoided. It
connects the genocide that happened in
Rwanda
with those that have happened throughout the
20th century all over the world and
raises our awareness about the recognizable
conditions and environments that precede these
tragedies.
My three hour visit to the Memorial was
very difficult. I don’t
believe that many could go through that center and
come out unchanged. I was
informed that Rwandans also go to the Memorial and
it has become part of Rwandans’ life. It is not
a thing apart, for foreign visitors or UN
officials, but a constant reminder to the people
of
Rwanda
and international visitors of both tragedy and the
healing that follows it
Knowing about this past from
the memorial and from my meetings with the people,
I found the country’s current state to be nothing
short of a miracle. Rwandans
are rebuilding from the inside out. There were
signs of growth everywhere. The roads
are in good condition, the economy is developing
at an incredibly fast clip, democratically elected
President Kagame is well regarded, and everywhere
there is construction and infrastructure moving
forward.
I left
Rwanda
feeling that I
will return and
hopefully bring others to visit this amazing
country.
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