Remarkable Rwanda
Africa, October 2009
Rwanda is famous for two things – Genocide and Gorillas. So with some basic knowledge of its brutal past and filled with trepidation about meeting a Silverback, the last thing on my mind was prehistoric volcanoes and lakes; patchwork fields that cover every inch of ground; happy smiling children and not a plastic bag in sight. Before even setting eyes on a gorilla I had fallen in love with Rwanda!
To just watch the baby gorillas - who look like stuffed toys from Hamleys
Rwanda is a tiny, land-locked country in East Africa and shares the same range of volcanoes with Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Although the country is still recovering from the atrocities of 1994, the gorillas have come to the country’s economic rescue. Gorilla trekking is Rwanda’s main tourist attraction and there are 14 groups of gorillas living in the Volcanoes National Park but only seven can be visited by the public. Every day, a maximum of eight tourists spend an hour with each group and the cost for this privilege is a whopping US$500 per person.
However, by limiting the number of visitors they have not been greedy and have put the welfare of the gorillas first. In exchange for having camera lenses pointed at them for an hour, the gorillas have their own unspoilt National Park which covers 130km² and includes five volcanoes. In addition they have their own bodyguards who look after them day and night but, more importantly, for 23 hours they are left alone in their natural habitat to do what gorillas do.
Gorillas spend 12 hours a day sleeping and the rest of the time sunbathing, grooming, playing, having sex and making cocktails! Mountain gorillas don’t drink water but get all their liquids from the plants they eat. Our guide told us that the bamboo makes them drunk but rather than drinking neat bamboo, they like to mix it with wild celery, which has a minty taste and the combination is similar to a Mojito! I have to say it doesn’t sound like a bad life and makes me wonder about the 2.3% difference in our DNA – could that be the bit that makes us get up early every day, put on clothes and go to work?
The gorilla’s bodyguards, or trackers as they are called, were once poachers but now spend their lives protecting the gorillas. Every morning, they radio the location of their group to the Head Ranger at the Park’s base camp. By the time we arrive, he is already in the middle of a pow-wow allocating his smartly dressed guides a group of gorillas. However, the second his staff briefing is over he is surrounded by more than 20 very determined drivers.
Every visitor has their own driver/guide who picks them up at Kigali airport and drives them the three hours to their eco-lodges and hotels in Virunga and stays with them for the duration of their trip. Surprisingly, the majority of visitors are retired and American. Approximately 8,000 US visitors came to Rwanda to see the gorillas last year followed in second place by 3,500 from the UK. The reason - according to the Yanks we met - is the film “Gorillas in the Mist”, based on the life of the American, Dian Fossey, whose grave you can visit.
Each group of gorillas are free to roam the whole National Park but, like humans, they prefer to set up home in a particular neighbourhood. Due to a combination of age and fitness, most visitors don’t want a long and difficult hike so it’s their driver’s job to get them assigned to one of the closest groups. We had the opposite request for our driver, Sam, as we wanted an adventure and his mission was to get us to see the Susa Group, the largest and most remote group in the park.
After 30 minutes of fierce negotiating we met our guide who, with the help of a laminated A4 sheet of photos, introduced us to our gorillas. We discovered that gorillas are identified not by their fingerprints but by their noses and next to each photo was a nose print. All the gorillas have names which they are given at a special naming ceremony called Kwita Izina, held every June. This year 19 babies were born in the park so we were almost guaranteed to see at least one along with juveniles, blackbacks and of course, Silverbacks. The male gorilla’s back turns silver when it reaches 12 years of age so there can be several in one group but there is only one big boss.
Once the introductions were over, everyone jumped back into their vehicles and left the car park in convoy but before long vehicles started breaking off and heading in different directions. How far you have to drive depends on where your group of gorillas are located. On our first day we visited the Amahoro Group, who were a ½ hour drive away, but to reach the Susa Group we were bouncing along roads held together by pot holes for a bone jarring two hours.
At the nearest village to the park’s boundary we met our trackers, porters and two armed soldiers. Our party of eight had more than doubled in size as we headed across fields planted with Irish potatoes. After a 30 minute uphill walk we arrived at a stone wall where we were given a lecture on “what to do and not do” once we entered the park. Soon we were in the middle of a bamboo forest trying to simultaneously watch where we put our feet and look where we were going so we didn't smack our heads on low branches.
On the other side of the bamboo, the terrain turned Scottish complete with thistles, stinging nettles and sticky willow. We were glad we were wearing the recommended gardening gloves, long sleeved shirts and thick cotton combats or we would have been stung and scratched even more than we were. Thankfully, unlike Scotland, our waterproof jackets were only required for a very brief downpour.
Although we didn’t need a porter on the trek to the Amahoro Group, we were extremely glad we hired two local villagers to wear our backpacks – containing our packed lunch and waterproofs - as it left us free to crawl, climb and clamber our way through the forest. The complimentary walking sticks we were given back at the village also came in very handy as it was uphill all the way.
Two hours later, just before encountering the gorillas, our trackers made a clearing with their machetes and we were told to leave everything apart from our cameras. At this point all I could hear and feel was the thumping of my heart as I double checked for the 100th time that my camera’s flash wouldn’t go off. Walking in single file and trying not to stand on a noisy twig, I had absolutely no idea what to expect and when to expect it – the suspense was almost unbearable.
Every gorilla encounter is a unique experience. The gorillas are constantly moving and, like humans, they don’t always like sitting in the same room as each other. One minute we would be standing in a line watching a couple of juveniles rolling around play fighting and then, a short walk later, we would be kneeling in stinging nettles watching a Silverback - until he got fed up of posing for our cameras and disappeared into the thicket.
Everyone gets up with the sun so we weren’t the only ones being woken at 5am.
One of the strictest rules is to keep five metres away from the gorillas although, depending on the terrain, that isn’t always possible. The other problem is that the gorillas don’t seem to know about this rule so it’s the guide’s main job to constantly manoeuvre his bunch of star struck groupies whilst the trackers reassuringly spoke “gorilla”. However, what was more frightening than an advancing Silverback, was the person at the front of the line deciding to bring our hasty retreat to a standstill so he could capture the moment on video.
Before our trip I had read a great piece of advice - not to spend the whole hour looking at the gorillas through your camera. To just watch the baby gorillas - who look like stuffed toys from Hamleys - climb up vines and beat their little chests like Tarzan or one of the Silverbacks - who looked like a man dressed in a gorilla suit - scratch his nose and yawn is magical. No words can explain what it is like to be so close to such magnificent creatures but, what made it so unforgettable was seeing them in their natural habitat.
If our time with the gorillas wasn’t moving enough, when we stepped back across the boundary wall, our guide asked us to gather around. The last thing we expected him to say to us was “thank you”. It was a very humbling experience to be thanked so emotionally for visiting Rwanda and helping protect the gorillas. We were also told that we were now one of the Rwanda’s ambassadors and that it was up to us to tell everyone back home about our visit. It was an eye watering end to an incredible day.
The drives to and from the gorilla treks were equally emotional. The only vehicles in the remote villages of Northern Rwanda are those transporting tourists. We were therefore the daily entertainment for the children and they would stop playing hoopla with old bicycle tyres or abandon their home-made stilts and run to the side of the road to wave and smile at us.
There were so many children we could be waving for four hours a day which, may sound easy but trust me it isn’t. I now know how the Queen feels. As well as waving, the kids loved having their photos taken and watching themselves on video. If they weren’t playing, working in the fields or collecting water they were at school. There are so many pupils that the schools have two shifts and it’s also now against the Law for a family to have any more than two children.
We were told that 5% of the money from the gorilla permits goes to the local communities which explained all the brand new schools we saw. The children, dressed in smart school uniforms, couldn’t wait to show off their excellent English and sing us a song about what they will be when they grow up “thanks to Education”. The older kids we met wanted to be businessmen, airline pilots and teachers. At the moment 80% of Rwandans are subsistence farmers, so it will be interesting to see the effect on the country when the children grow up and want to fulfil their ambitions.
The farmers all live in identical huts made from mud bricks and corrugated iron roofs which are surrounded by bamboo fences, interlaced with banana leaves and flowering vines. Each hut sits in the middle of miniature fields that grow everything the family needs, although the government is trying to encourage cash crops such as coffee and plants that make insecticide. The earth is a rich volcanic red and extremely fertile and these patchwork quilt fields cover every inch of ground, from the edge of the lakes and rivers to the top of every hill and Rwanda is not called “the land of a thousand hills” for nothing.
Our eco-lodge was located on one of these hills and the views in every direction were breathtaking. Not only were the volcanoes just a short distance away but there were two enormous lakes - Ruhondo and Bulera – on either side of us. Although there were islands on the lakes we were told the water was too deep for fish so they were eerily boat-less and appeared pre-historic.
Most of the villages don’t have electricity so its pitch dark at night and in the morning, as the sun rises, the rays reflect off all the metal roofs and the valley floor appears covered in mirrors. Everyone gets up with the sun so we weren’t the only ones being woken at 5am and by the time we headed to the base camp the fields were already a hive of activity.
It didn’t take long to notice that there were no tractors or machinery – everything is done by hand. The roads are equally busy but not with vehicles. Everyone is either walking carrying something on their head, or pushing pedal bikes overloaded with produce. The women still wear traditional dress although their long colourful skirts with matching headscarfs are worn with second hand shirts and t-shirts. In contrast, the older men wear suit jackets and Fedora hats and look very smart, despite their Wellington boots.
Rwanda is the most beautiful country I have ever visited and a lot of that has to do with the ban of plastic bags. The only plastic you will see, are the five gallon yellow containers used to collect drinking water – or beer. We were told that you could tell it was beer if the container was swollen due to the yeast. Yet despite having to collect water from the local well, there is a lot we could learn from Rwanda.
Sam told us that everyone, including the President, has to spend an hour once a week cleaning the front of their house which helps explain why everywhere is spotlessly clean. Another policy, which is also simple yet ingenious, is with regard to prisoners. Six months before they are due to be released, they are sent out to build new terraces for crops. They wear bright orange overalls and are paid but if they are caught attempting to escape they have to repeat their entire prison sentence.
Everyone is either walking carrying something on their head, or pushing pedal bikes
The Government also has an ambitious plan to transform the country into a middle income economy by 2020 and education and technology is the key to its success. Another interesting statistic is that Rwanda has the highest number of female MPs in the world which, to me, was not surprising as everywhere you looked it was the women who were working the hardest!
It would be wrong not to mention the genocide and to pretend the after effects are not obvious. As you pass through villages, what once were mass graves are now concrete memorials. One million people were killed in 100 days and there is an obvious lack of men and women in their 40’s and 50’s and very few old people. Anyone older than 15 in Rwanda will have been affected in some way by what happened and we could see the wariness and betrayal in their eyes as we drove through villages feeling very white and wealthy.
You can’t leave Rwanda without visiting the genocide memorial in Kigali. It will not only have you in tears but will make you want to find out more about why the genocide happened. An incredible book, well worth reading, is Shake Hands with the Devil by General Roméo Dallaire which, despite being about a horrific war, you will find difficult to put down.
Sadly, Rwanda will always be famous for the 1994 genocide but with the help of its equally famous mountain gorillas, I hope more people will visit this remarkable country and see for themselves just how beautiful it is. They will not just be over-awed by how close they get to a Silverback but, by the courage, strength and optimism of the Rwandan people.
NB All proceeds from this article will be donated to www.wishforrwanda.com - a charity based in Scotland, whose aim is to raise £1 for every person killed in the Genocide and to deliver projects that will bring comfort and aid to the widows, widowers and orphans of the tragic events of 1994.