Genocide. That pretty well sums up my thoughts when my wife suggested we go to Uganda via a flight to Kigali, Rwanda. After all, the flights were cheaper into Rwanda, and the drive to our destination in Uganda would be half the distance. In case you are not aware, in 1994 Rwanda experienced a horrible 100 days of genocide, in which millions of people were brutally murdered at a rate faster than that of the holocaust. At the government’s bidding, neighbors took up machetes against their friends and community members, raping and slaughtering those who were not of their own ancestral tribe in a one sided massacre. But that was in the 90’s, it’s a new century now. So we figured what the hell, what could possibly go wrong for a young, white, American couple in the middle of Africa? Well, for starters your flight can get canceled, which is precisely what happened to us when, “The pilot’s screen went blank as he was landing.” Just when we thought we had made it out of South Africa without incident, we were made privy to that tidbit of information, and sent back through security to collect our checked baggage. Then rest of the night we spent in the airport trying to figure out how or even if we could still make it to Uganda. After witnessing a near riot thanks to Kenya Airways having no clue how to deal with the situation, we eventually booked a flight on a different airline for the following afternoon, and checked into a hotel in the middle of Johannesburg as the sun rose, precisely where everyone had told us not to go.
When we finally arrived in Rwanda, we were greeted warmly by Allan, who would drive us the five hours to Karungi Camp in Uganda. Allan is the kind of person that makes you feel welcome and safe immediately upon the first handshake. Having just spent a few weeks in South Africa, where the feeling of racial tension and divide was prevalent, it was refreshing to feel that someone was happy we were there. After an overnight stay in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, Allan drove us a few hours to the Rwanda/Uganda border. There we had our passports stamped and continued on our way a few hours further north, near the border of The Democratic Republic of the Congo. All along the way we witnessed people hard at work. These are poor countries, and without the luxury of machinery, everything is done by man power. Everywhere you looked someone was hoeing a field, making bricks by hand with clay and water, harvesting crops, or carrying corn, bananas, potatoes, and even vats of cows milk either upon their heads or stacked high on their bikes.
A few thoughts dominated my mind as we passed through the country. The first was that in the westernized world, the average person is so reliant upon machines and other people to do everything for them, that most of us wouldn’t know where to begin if we were forced to be self sufficient. At home and in most of the “developed” world, when you need food you go to the store. Of course, some people have gardens, but how many people do you know that don’t grocery shop at least weekly? And yes, there are farmers at home, but there are no tractors here to till the fields, plant and harvest the crops, or spread fertilizers and insecticides. Would you like a house to live in? Well go fetch some water from a nearby stream, mix it with some clay you dug from the earth, and pour the mixture into a small wooden mold to form bricks. Once all of your bricks are formed and dried, then stack them into a chimney so that you can light a fire underneath in order to cook and harden them. Now you can disassemble the chimney and start on your house. I admired how hard the people were working, but also couldn’t help but notice how beaten down many of them looked. And why wouldn’t you be? Day after day, year after year of back breaking labor. We are very fortunate to come from where we do and have the luxury of leisure time, a grocery store, and enough wealth to go on vacation. I spoke previously of living in a bubble, where it is easy to forget the outside world even though we are aware of it. At home I have it so easy and get so wrapped up in myself that I worry about things like, “When will the surf get good?”, and, “Damn, I have to go to work again.”, rather than, “I have to make bricks and build a house.”, or, “If I don’t grow some corn and beans my family will starve.” Not that we are without our issues, but make no mistake, it is truly a life of luxury that we live.
Another thing that stood out prominently was the destructive power and nature of man kind, even without the aid of modern tools and technology. Everywhere we looked it was plainly evident. The entire landscape had been transformed for the purpose of mostly subsistence farming. We drove for hours through what was once dense rain forest full of life, including endangered Mountain Gorillas, forest elephants, tree climbing lions, and chimpanzees. Now few trees were left standing, and every hill side was terraced and cultivated. A remarkable accomplishment of human ingenuity and willpower considering it was all done by hand and manpower, while simultaneously a tragic loss of biodiversity.
Most stirring of all though, I couldn’t shake from my mind this thought while we were passing through Rwanda: how old is that machete, and did the man wielding it, or someone else, use it to commit unspeakable deeds a little over two decades ago? It’s a morbid thought, but sadly and shockingly a reasonable one none the less. You start to realize as you look around that many of the people you see were old enough to at least know what was happening during those wretched months, and may have even contributed. The things that happened in my own country like slavery, the Civil War, even segregation and the civil rights movement were before I was born, and seem like ancient history in some ways. For me these are things you read about in a text book. Of course, some of the effects still linger, and we have a long way to go in many ways when it comes to true and tangible equality. But the fact remains that we’ve never experienced anything at home like what we felt in South Africa or Rwanda, knowing people our age were alive during the apartheid and genocide, and people our parents’ age could have been active participants.
One night as we sat around the fire and spoke with our new friends, they passed along a chilling conviction: they were in agreement that the genocide could and absolutely would occur again in Rwanda. They also warned us not to speak of it while in Rwanda if we didn’t wish to be thrown in jail. As sickening as it was to learn more about the genocide, it was even worse to think that the Rwandan people, and we as human beings, are failing yet again to learn our lesson and to accept those that are not like us. As we encountered different people during our travels I couldn’t help but wonder what was their life experience? What things did they know or not know? And what could urge someone to do such horrible things to their neighbors? If I grew up under the same circumstances and had the same experiences, could I be persuaded to do similar things? I would like to think the answer to that last question is no. I think it’s good to remember though that every person has a different human experience. Some are similar to your own, and some are light years apart. You never know what a person has been through. I also couldn’t help but think of my own country, and some of the political dissension we face at present. There are times when things are black and white, right and wrong, but most issues are some shade of gray. People are never going to agree on everything, or even on many things, and that’s just the way it is. But we ought to be careful what we say about those we disagree with, because terrible events in history begin with bad feelings and words. When you spew hatred, whether on social media, in private, or in public, you may be unwittingly helping to sew the seeds of human tragedy and societal failure.We can only hope as time slips into the future that the inequalities we see in our own country and abroad will eventually seem as archaic and unbelievable to all people as some of the things we have witnessed and heard about here in Africa seem to us.
As we grew closer to our destination we turned off the main highway onto smaller dirt roads. Uganda and Rwanda are two of the most densely populated places in the world, so everywhere you go there are people working, resting, or in transit (mostly on foot and bicycles). And there are tons of children. From this point on it seemed everywhere we went children ran out to greet us, or stood where they were, smiling and waving, and often shouting excitedly, “Muzungu!” That, we learned, is their word for white person. When we arrived at Karungi Camp we were received graciously, and after a glass of fresh passion fruit juice, given a brief rundown. Some time during our orientation, our host informed us that there would be armed guards on the premises at night. After all, the infamously dangerous Congo was only a few kilometers away. He said there was nothing to worry about though, and laughed as he told us they had never had anyone go into a guest’s room and shoot them. Good enough for me. We would stay there for a few days and on one of them be guided into the remaining rainforest, Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, to visit a family of mountain gorillas. That was the main reason we had come to Uganda.
There are numerous families of gorillas that have been “habituated,” which means they have been slowly introduced to the presence of humans over the course of a few years, to the point that small groups of people are permitted to visit them for an hour a day, watching from a distance of only a few meters. Only about 800 mountain gorillas remain in the wild, and of those approximately half are in Uganda. The others are in small sections of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. On our second day in Uganda, we were guided into the rainforest along with four other tourists, a porter each to carry our things (which was totally unnecessary, but hiring one for the day is encouraged as it helps support the local village), and two men armed with machine guns in case we were attacked by any sort of wild animal, or perhaps something far more sinister, men straying across the border from the Congo. The gorillas are always on the move, so several hours before you begin your trek, two trackers go ahead to find them. They begin where they left them the day before, then follow the signs of disturbed vegetation and gorilla droppings until the family is located. As we climbed down the dirt path towards the jungle that morning, it was striking to see the change in the landscape. Looking down the valley we were descending into, one side was dense rainforest, and the other clear cut and terraced for subsistence farming. How and why the human front was halted there, saving what remained of the rainforest for the apes I do not know. There were a few tiny shacks along the steep hill where families had carved out a living at the edge of the jungle. I will never forget passing by one such dwelling where a man and woman were hoeing the steep, rocky hillside, and realizing the woman had an infant strapped to her back as she worked. I guess there’s no maternity leave in subsistence farming.
Humans and mountain gorillas share 98.4% of their DNA. Sitting mere feet away from a massive 27 year old silverback in the prime of his life and looking into his eyes, it was easy to see the connection. While the rest of the family went about their business of chewing on leaves and bark seemingly unconcerned by our presence, the silverback sat on his haunches, arms crossed, and surveyed our group skeptically. Tasked with the protection of his family, he couldn’t be too lenient with this latest group of humans who had come to visit. I wondered what he thought of us. Was he aware of the destructive nature of humans? Does he have even the slightest clue how precarious the position of his species is? Could he possibly understand on some level that we were a necessary annoyance to help ensure their survival? I can only assume it heavily depends on people having enough interest to trek through the jungle to see them. Without that influx of money, the local people would have little incentive to not go into the forest and deplete every resource they could find. But no amount of gold, oil, diamonds, or timber could ever be worth the ecological treasure that is the mountain gorilla. What a magnificent beast he was. It was clear that at any moment, if he so desired, he could get up, take a few strides towards us and rip us in half. He was quite intimidating, but his eyes were thoughtful, and at no time did he threaten us in any way. His three year old son did beat his chest as he ran by, though. Typical young male bravado. Our allotted hour flew by, and before we knew it we had to retreat back out of the jungle and leave the gorillas in peace. It was a remarkable experience to sit in such close proximity to these amazing creatures, one that we will certainly never forget.
We spent one more day at Karungi camp, and then it was time for our new friend Allan to drive us back to the airport in Rwanda. We actually wished we had a bit more time to spend there to see some of the other natural wonders on offer and also mingle with the people a bit more. Nowhere I have ever traveled to has stirred quite the same thoughts and emotions in me as these countries did. Of course the terrible events of the 1994 occurred in Rwanda, but aside from the make believe line that is the border, it was difficult to tell the two countries apart. Even knowing that history, and the fact that we stood out so much children could see us coming in a car from several hundred yards away, we felt safe and never threatened in any way while we were there. In fact, almost everyone we came in contact with was very welcoming to us, and we made some friends in our short time there that we will never forget. Still, the knowledge of what happened and the fact that people can turn on each other in such a violent and ruthless manner never strays far from your mind. We had come to Uganda to see gorillas in the wild, but came away with more than we had bargained for in the form of insight and lessons about our own species.