Gorillas in the Mist, Ruhengeri
Trip Start
Feb 20, 2007
1
17
38
Trip End
Jun 2007
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Ruhengeri,
Rwanda
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Ruhengeri is a dusty one-street town, quite unremarkable except for the impressive backdrop of the Virunga volcanoes which surround the town, looming large and green in the white haze. I found a cheap hotel and slept for most of the afternoon, as I was feeling quite unwell. As gorillas share 97% of our genetic makeup illnesses can easily be transmitted to them from tourists (a number of gorillas died from the flu a few years ago, given to them by visiting humans). For this reason I would have to postpone my visit the following day if I still felt ill, so I rested, drank tea, popped a few paracetamol and hoped I would feel better by morning.
Female gorilla
Whatever illness I felt (I thought it was the beginning of a flu) I later attributed to mild altitude sickness, Ruhengeri is a little over 3000m, so while dozing on the bus here I mustn't have noticed we climbed about 1500m metres.The next morning I rose at five, feeling much better (if a little put out by the early hour). I thought I must still be half asleep when I heard the shouting and whistling of a crowd outside on the streets. I had to walk about 500m to another hotel (from where I would get transport), and saw that indeed there was a big procession ahead of me, making what seemed like loud protesting noises. Luckily they were moving ahead of me, so I didn't have to walk through them, not wanting to meet this mysterious mob in the pre-dawn darkness. I later learned that they were a harmless group of trainee policemen, who are required to stay quiet when in their barracks, so they tend to get a bit noisy in their morning run!
After a breakfast with two Canadians and two Americans with whom I had arranged to share transport to the National Park, we set off in a wonderful red glowing light of dawn, illuminating the grey-green hazy volcanoes all around us. At the park headquarters we were broken up into groups of eight, and told which groups of gorillas each would see. I had requested to see the Susa group, which is a large family of thirty gorillas, the same one that Dian Fossey conducted her research with. They are usually a three to five hour trek away from the starting point, which is supposed to be difficult at the high altitude, but I would have loved to have gotten a trek up the side of the volcano included in the exorbitant price of $375 required to track the gorillas.
Having lunch
Unfortunately, however, we were told that the Susa group had moved too far up the volcano for us to feasibly reach them in a day, so it wouldn't be possible for anyone to see them. I did, however, get assigned to my second choice of group, Group 13, a family of twenty-one gorillas, which although very nearby, has a large number of juveniles and baby gorillas, as well as one silverback (who recently came, fought, and replaced the previous silverback). This all means that visiting this group can be quite an intimate experience, and one gets a good feeling of the bonds between the gorillas, and a sense of the group dynamic, which is harder to see in larger groups with less young gorillas.We drove off to the border of the National Park, about half an hour away, through flat, agricultural land, where the people we passed looked poorer than usual. I couldn't help but feel bad, riding high in a 4x4, paying $375 to visit a few animals, when that sum of money would probably easily feed one of those families for a year. I suppose I can take solace in the fact that my money goes to help protect the gorillas (who generate revenue for the country), and in fact most of it goes to the government to build roads, schools and hospitals. We set off on foot once the rocky path stopped, and walked for about an hour through flat, open, agricultural land, with black, greasy soil, a marked change from what is usually red earth, so that in a way it almost reminded me of peaty Irish soil on that one finds on the slopes of West Kerry mountains.
Mist rising off the Virungas
To add to this impression of being at home, most of the crops being grown were Irish potatoes, although the towering nearby volcanoes left me in no doubt as to my whereabouts.After a while we entered the actual conserved part of the park, having been in radio contact with the trackers (who always stay with the gorillas, to be able to relay their whereabouts, and also to protect them from poachers). We were told we were very close to the gorillas. We entered an incredibly dense bamboo forest, so thick that we had to crouch down and almost crawl along a path, ducking branches and vines that were everywhere. After about ten minutes we met the trackers, and left our bags with them, knowing the gorillas were only minutes away from us. My heart started to pound as we ploughed on, knowing the encounter with these gentle giants was only minutes away.
All of a sudden I saw, high up in the trees, a huge black hand, that was unmistakably that of a gorilla. I walked on a little, and came to a little clearing in the bush, where I laid eyes on a huge female gorilla, sitting on the ground eating bamboo leaves, and couldn't help but smiling in amazement and joy. I cannot begin to describe how incredible it was to see this creature in front of me, passively chomping away. I have dreamed of this moment for so long that I had feared I may have built it up too much in my mind, but to see this huge primate in front of me felt more amazing than I could have imagined. Moments later I had seen two more females and several juveniles clambering around within the trees.
Mr Silverback
I had to restrain myself from taking too many photos, eagerly trying to capture these experiences forever, and instead stop, and actually watch, in wonder, at the incredible beauty of these creatures.The gorillas were all around us, and I could move here and there to spend time watching different ones. On one occasion I moved off to see another gorilla, and was lucky enough to see the silverback crawl powerfully towards us, his enormous grey-haired back in full view. Whenever these creatures moved towards me I felt very afraid, so large and powerful they are. When the silverback approached my heart pounded with fear and excitement; he was huge, so powerful that with his massive arms he could strike me dead easily, if he so chose.
I sat for about twenty minutes watching the closely grouped trio of the silverback, an adult female, and a four-month old baby. The two adults disinterestedly chewed on leaves, while the baby practiced his climbing, clambering up on his mother's head, then tentatively grabbing nearby branches, and trying to climb up, usually ending in a comical fall. This baby was one of the most adorable things I have ever seen, with soft fuzzy black fur, huge innocent brown eyes, and a wonderful mixture of human-like expressions, ranging from curiosity to innocence to looks of absolute terror when he tried his climbing. It was incredible to see a silverback sitting next to a female, as it demonstrated how much bigger and broader he was, even his head was much, much larger.
Peek-a-boo!
On one occasion he stood up to tear down a bamboo tree so he could eat it, something he did with great ease, showing off his terrifying power and strength.I was heartbroken when we were told our time with these animals was over. I tried to take as many mental pictures as I could before leaving, so that I may relish memories of this day forever. I can say, without exaggeration, that the hour spent with those mountain gorillas was one of the most incredible experiences of my entire life.
That afternoon I decided to do a little investigative work in town. I have been seeing Tianshi (the Chinese pyramid scheme under the guise of being a herbal drug company - see the second Jinga, Uganda entry for details) offices all over Rwanda, and there were two in Ruhengeri itself. I called into one, pretending to have heard a little about them, and that I was perhaps interested in joining, so that I could learn a little more about them. The Rwandan owner was a little suspicious of me at first, but once he sensed that I might actually be interested in joining he started to show me documentation about the company. I learned that opening a shop is just another step up from being a successful customer. He bought stock (from his own pocket), which he then sold on in his shop at a high commission, putting him in a position to further pressurize locals into using these herbal medicines instead of proper chemical ones - the incentive, as always, being to get rich quick.
I asked him about prices of the drugs, and they were (even by his own admission) very expensive, ranging from $10 to $30 and upwards. He showed me a booklet which gave lists of illnesses that these drugs can cure. I jotted down a few that seemed a little suspect: fear, feeble mindedness, dyslexia, baldness, cancer, anorexia, impotence, hepatitis, mental block, smoking (effects of), sports (body building) and stress. All this further confirmed to me that this company is a horrible scam, profiting on African poverty, to the detriment of their already failing health services. The owner encouraged me to join, telling me I was lucky if there were no Tianshi (or Tiens, as they appear to be officially called) stores in Ireland, as I could stand to make huge profits by being at he top of the Irish pyramid. I told him I would consider it, thanked him for his time, and left. You can read official information about this big company on their website, http://www.tiens.com.
As mentioned in the Kabale, Uganda, entry, I have developed a bit of an interest in the microfinance industry in Africa after an email I received from my sister on the subject. They work like banks, in that they give loans, but are supposed to be more accessible to the likes of a small farmer, giving small amounts, and with lower rates of interest than commercial banks. I had seen one, Vision Finance, which had an office in Ruhengeri, and decided to drop in. I asked at the counter if I could speak to the manager, and a few minutes later I was ushered into the back office, where I met this man. I think he only agreed to meet me out of sheer curiosity, as he wasn't of much help to me in answering my questions. He repeatedly told me I should call to the main office in Kigali to get information, in the form of pamphlets etc.
What I did manage to glean from our ten minutes talking was this. Vision Finance are a subsidiary of the huge Christian NGO, World Vision. They currently only finance commercial agents, such as shopkeepers and the like. They plan to extend this to farmers in the near future, although it will only include farmers who primarily own livestock (i.e. the rich ones). Loans are granted only to those who can put up some form of a guarantee, typically of at least twice the value of the amount requested, and usually in the form of a house, or, say, a banana plantation. I didn't really learn much from this visit, but it has further roused my interest in this type of operation, so I intend to visit more of them on my journey south.
