Agashya Rwanda

The flight was empty, an oddity we only noticed later. Perhaps the expense of a holiday to Rwanda was the reason. Perhaps it was the Easter Weekend. Whatever the reason, it is too bad there weren’t more visitors because Rwanda . . . Is . . . Spectacular.

The life in Kigali was one of peaceful chaos. Chaos anyway for a resident of the empty lands of Namibia. Peaceful anyway for place with such a recent emotional print on the world. Being ignorant travellers we knew little of the timing of our visit . . . the Mourning Period . . . 18 years to the day since the main thrust of the Genocide.

Friends held hands; men with men, women with women, men with women, boys and girls, friends, family. They bustled at week’s end, on a Friday, filling the sidewalks thick until they’d spill over into the path of our transport. William was our driver, a friendly man with a respectable gravitational pull. He had a habit of exhaling comfort to the van.

“And how was the flight?”

“Easy. Quick. Empty. Comfortable.”

“Ehhhhhh . . . . . .”

He gave us a quick drive around the engorged streets, pointing out markets, restaurants and the governmental buildings sprayed with bullet holes, a reminder of the terrible recent past. We took a walk that first night, doused in a jerry can of mosquito repellent, forgoing the anti-Malarials on the trip. We ate bad local pizza and drank good local beer and slept well in preparation for the bucket list trip to the gorillas. 

The morning roads in Kigali were quiet on the Saturday we left, though at least five times fuller than Namibia’s capital on the weekend. Driving out of the city, William followed a muddy river that was busy chewing away the hillsides. Climbing out of Kigali provided for views of the complicated valleys and a distant sight of the city.

Higher and farther, we entered the hidden density of the countryside.  Though the land of 1000 hills fanned out in river eroded valleys, it remained fully dense with population.  It was a strange sensation, staring up to a terraced hillside, resting our eyes long enough to count the hundreds of villagers moving within the greenery.  No land was un-worked.  Imagine the entire of the Smokey Mountains parcelled into 100 foot squares, terraced and farmed. With the highest population density in sub-Saharan Africa, the math tells you that there is a person behind just about every tree.  The roads through the smaller towns acted as walkways cluttered with women balancing water jugs on their heads, bicycles hauling 50 pound bags of potatoes, and bicycle taxis carrying locals on makeshift seats above the back tire.

Our lodge sat upon a high hilltop along Lake Burera, observing the thatch work farm fields below.  In the shadows of the seven volcanoes, the green landscape had the sound of life.  Bleating cows, goats and the hum of voices drifted up where we watched, having the effect of an organic white noise.  Green, lush, dense life.  It was like bizarro Namibia.

“And how was the evening?”

“Serene. Cool. Wonderful.”

“Ehhhhhhh . . . . . ."

As William drove us to the Gorilla Park, he told us stories of driving around Sigourney Weaver and Don Cheadle.  He liked the celebrities more than the characters they played and explained to us the missing realism behind the movies.  Dianne Fossey (Gorillas in the Mist) was very much disliked by the local population.  Paul Rusesabagina (Hotel Rwanda) is wanted for war crimes.

Once at the park, it felt a little bit like being picked for kickball on the schoolyard as we waited around while the guides decided our groups.  We had informed William that we wanted to do a medium intensity hike and see baby gorillas.

“Ohhhhhh………..”

He did our bidding and got us into the Agashya group, along with a yappy high maintenance teacher and her boyfriend and another group that gave off a vibe of Eastern European mercenaries.  We were driven to our starting point at the edge of a farm field and walked into a landscape that looked like pictures of Vietnam countryside.  Women and children were scattered about the folds with hoes for working the rows, and sticks for pushing the animals.  The soil was so impossibly rich looking and smelling that one can imagine spitting a watermelon seed at breakfast and picking watermelons for lunch.

After a half hour in the open fields, we climbed a rock wall and moved into the jungle.  The hiking was awkward.  Much of the path was a single track of mud trekked with shoes that grew in weight with each step until we had Frankenstein feet.  It wandered through calm, quiet, cool bamboo forests then into non-canopied ground growth thick with stinging nettles.  At once flat, then up a mudslide.  But after another hour with our walking sticks, our guides told us to take only what was necessary the rest of the way.  Gorillas.

Agashya translates to “Special” in Kinyarwanda.  We were told the group was special because it is reigned by a single huge Silverback who has seven wives and fifteen children. We almost stepped on big daddy on our way in, who was the size of a giant grizzly but with a face so human that one could compare it directly to other people, like “Holy crap, that gorilla looks just like my cousin.”

We watched two adolescent gorillas pounding on each other until one fell through the canopy to the forest floor below. We watched a mother eating bugs off its child while communicating with finger gestures about how she felt about the voyeurs. We saw three toddlers playfully skirmishing on a forest slope and rolling down as a single fur ball locked like fighting brothers. It was unbelievable.

Later, driving again with William, he told us stories of the lengths and costs people went to for the experience.  On numerous occasions he had witnessed very elderly people carried through the jungle on stretchers by porters, and then planted down for an hour to watch.  One woman from the states was stretchered through the jungle every year.   The story had a kind of romance to it. 

Less romantic were the stories of the very large people that were also carried through the jungle at a high price. Four or five porters are paid a hefty sum to carry very obese (and mostly American) men through the jungle along the muddy single track, sometimes very steep paths, to be plopped for a moment with their closest living relatives.  The image rings of some old black and white B monster movie from the 50’s like The Pork King of the Avacado Jungle. According to William, the porters love when the big boys come, because it’s like winning the lottery.  The banana beer flows.

After an hour of watching rolling fur balls and the feasting of body bugs, we started back down the path.  Shortly on the way out, the jungle began crashing around us.  Big Daddy was suddenly sitting ahead on the path, toying with us.  Not even the mercenaries tried to get past.  We let the King of the Jungle make fun of us until he lost interest.  We smiled all the way home.

“And how were the Gorillas?”

“Amazing.  Life changing.  Indescribable.”

“Ehhhhhh . . . . .. “

The next morning we were wrestling with some remorse for choosing the comparatively unpopular Golden Monkeys instead of seeing another Gorilla group.  With such little draw, it was just us and the guide and a porter who followed us un-requested.  Trackers had been in the woods all morning trying to find the monkeys, but had been alluded, giving us time to simply sit and watch the fields full of the living noise.  Our guide was nervous that we would go off on him, as it had been his experience when he couldn’t produce the wild animals on command.  We liked the rest, but were excited when we finally got word they had been found.

After a short off-path walk, we found ourselves coming out of the shadows of a bamboo forest, when the canopy around us came alive.  There had to have been hundreds of the little golden backed monkeys.  In one tree, a mother groomed her two babies.  In another, a fur ball ran across a branch.  Behind, an entire tree was shaking with unseen bodies.  Then, as if having tryouts, monkey after monkey climbed to an edge of a branch in front of us and jumped across the sky, then swung tree to tree for about fifty feet.  Our guide informed us they were following the big male.

We too, followed the big male into a dense bamboo forest where the monkeys had taken to the ground, scurrying around us in all directions like gremlins.  Our guide explained to us that they were after the bamboo shoots that were growing from the jungle floor, and that they were literally drunk from the alcohol.  Being sauced made them playful, swinging above our heads, running past our feet and literally shaking the forest.

“And how were the Monkeys?”

“Funny.  Adorable.  Drunk.”

“Haaaaaaaa . . . . . . .”

Our wildlife tour was over, fulfilling every expectation.  We dare say though, that it may not have been the trip highlight.  Just as amazing as the wildlife, were the people we met.

It’s probably accurate to assume that people will always be wonderful at a nice lodge because their jobs depend on it. However, during a walk from a lodge into the hillside villages we experienced genuine interest and warmth. Every single child would yell something to the effect, "Hello teacher how are you!?" Then they would cluster and follow steps behind you laughing and giggling for a half hour until they were too far from home. The older boys would stay next to you always asking the exact same 5 questions.

1. "Hello how are you?"

"I am fine how are you?"

"I am fine."

2. "What is your name?"

"My name is Luke, what is your name?"

"My name is John."

3. "Where are you from?"

"America."

4. "When did you arrive?"

"Last week."

5. "How do you find our country?"

"We love it."

Some boys would hang longer and we would get into deeper topics.

6. "Are you married?"

"Yes that is my wife Krysta."

"She is very nice." (said with a bashful laugh and a huge smile)

7. "What do you pray?"

"What do I pray?"

8. "Um, yes, what um . . . do you pray?"

"I'm sorry, I don't understand, do I pray?"

9. "Ahh, yes, when, um what do you pray?

"O.k., well, I pray at night."

"I pray football." (said with a confused look from my response)

10. "What is your rerigion?"

"Lutheran."

"I am Anglican."

The other amazing thing about the people was the way they acknowledged and lived within their grief.  The day we landed was the 18 year anniversary of the day the main genocide began when around 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutu were killed. Other smaller genocides were carried out in the 60's and 70's but the biggest was in the 90's, beginning in 1990 but intensely carried out over 100 days beginning in April of 94. During the mourning period, meetings are held every day from 12:00 onward in small village centres all the way up to city football stadiums to teach the youth what happened, to share witness and to discuss where to continue to search for the bodies of victims.

Mass graves are uncovered every year while other remains are pulled from drop toilets where victims were dumped. Many of the remains end up at the mass graves of the genocide memorial museum in Kigali where we also visited. It was a very intense experience where we learned of the causes, how it was carried out and the lack of response from the rest of the world during the time. The museum visit drove home the stories we had heard while staying out by the volcanoes; the annual hospitalization of survivors traumatized by unearthing the subject and experiences; the story of a lodge staff member of escaping the machetes; William, our Tutsi driver pointing out mass graves off the roadside and walls where women slammed babies until dead.

What was most moving however was not the pain, but the joy and the forgiveness of the people. According to those we met, everyone once more considers themselves Rwandan and the ethnic groups are beginning to live together once more. Those jailed for their participation in the genocide are given reduced sentences if they provide details and locations of where murders were carried out. Those brought to justice for crimes against humanity are given life in prison without the death penalty. Retribution killing did not become a policy of the government in the aftermath.

Lastly, on the Village walk, one old woman who survived the Genocide rattled off impassioned words in Kinyarwanda. Weary of what her impression might be of the muzungus walking through the Village, we stood silently waiting for our guide to translate. What she said was beautiful:

"She is saying, 'We are happy to see these visitors from a far country. Praise God, I am happy, I am alive.'"

At the end of our trip, William drove us to the airport at four in the morning, weary eyed and dressed down. The streets were empty, the city asleep and at peace. 

“And how was the Holiday?” 

“Ehhhhhhh . . . . . William. Ehhhhh . . . . . . . . .” 

“Ehhhhhhh . . . . . . . .”