Kigali Memorial Centre

Our trip was bookended by reminders of two of the world's most infamous periods of genocide.  In Amsterdam we visited the Anne Frank Museum, and in Rwanda we spent hours in the Kigali Memorial Centre.  

September 14, 2013…going home

A different experience than we thought we'd have, but a typical trip for us with many observations, questions, some answers and a great deal left to reflect on. Starting with our first day in Amsterdam--a visit to the Anne Frank house. Outside the door of the Frank residence stand two children, a boy and a younger girl.  They might have just knocked. They might be waiting for the door to open so they could ask if their friend Anna could come out to play, to wander along the canal and search out other friends. We know something these kinder may not. Their joyful days of play and careless laughter--sometimes at the expense of a friend, are numbered. As they play, a monster is growing just across the border. He will develop his theories of "us and them" at first quietly, then in writing, and finally with maniacal screaming in ever larger public venues.  His words will swiftly take root in the psyches of his audience,  there to do their intended work of kindling distrust, suspicion, and hatred strong enough to kill. 

Hitler's words will separate Ann's friends and her family's acquaintances into "us"--Juden, or "them"--the Aryan chosen, and this from a mongrel with neither blue eyes nor blond hair. To be sure there will be those whose courage and sense of decency will cause them to stand, defend, shelter, hide, care for the "other," never enough to turn the tide of hatred, but enough to show what is possible.

For now, we capture the image of the children at the door of 263 Prinzingracht.  On this September afternoon in 2013, what we know and what they too surely know is that the Frank family is gone from this place.  Only Otto, Anne's father, survived Hitler's holocaust.  He came back to Amsterdam to learn that his entire family was gone. Eventually, he found a publisher for Anne's diary, and converted his now defunct factory/hiding place into a memorial and testimony for the ages. When will we ever learn?  The answer must still be blowin' in the wind.  

The story has been repeated the world over many, too many, times. Now, on the last day of our trip, we stand outside the Genocide Memorial in Kigali, Rwanda.  There are many gardens here honoring and commemorating Rwandan women, children, culture, division, unity, and reconciliation.  Among the gardens there is a simple, raised concrete slab.  Under the slab lies the remains of 250,000 Tutsis and Hutus alike, killed in the genocide of 1994--Rwandans all.  Another mass grave in a far corner, has a glass cover.  Gray silk banners with white crosses have been draped across the coffins and remains below. New bodies are found every day and they are brought here to lie with their fellow Rwandans.  In the gardens there are elephant statues reminding us to Zahore!  Remember.  Near the fountain of coming together there is a statue of a primate with a cellphone.  He is asking us to tell the stories we learn here in hopes that the world will remember and that we will listen to the wind and find an answer.

When our neighbors are called vermin, scourge, leeches, inyenzi--cockroaches, inferior, lower than, "those people," niggers, spics, dagos, frogs, white trash--When they look like us, speak our language; when they laugh and cry with us, share a meal, marry our daughter, how then can we turn our back as they are rounded up, ghettoized, singled out by people we don't even know?  How do some of us find the courage to give our friends food, find them shelter, lead them away from harm?  How did a group of young school girls in Rwanda find the courage to defy the genocidaires who burst into their school?  "OK, Hutu to this side, Tutsi cockroaches over there."  No one moved. "Now! Or you will all die." No one moved.  The entire class died together. 

We learned of the Hutu house worker in a Tutsi home who stood helping her employer when the men with pangas came through the kitchen door, "Stand aside. Let us have the Tutsi inyenzi."  "No, I will not."  The women died together.  And the men and women of the world's undergrounds in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the United States, Britain, China, Vietnam, Cambodia--what of them all--named or unknown--who put their lives in jeopardy for others while their neighbors chanted: "Heil," "Nigger," "Faggot," "Inyenzi," and the gray ashes from the worl'd's incinerators drifted slowly down upon their shoulders like so much dandruff?  Sociologists can name the ways in which genocide is perpetrated.  They can describe those who resist, and those who comply, but simply--neighbor to neighbor, in my family, among my friends, I want to know the answer.  Would I have the courage to give my life.  I cannot be sure.  The answer is still blowin' in the wind.  Hear the voices...

"If you knew me, and if you really knew yourself, you would not have killed me."  Felicien Ntagengwa

Pictures for this blog entry:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/mtnpostpics/sets/

Mzungu in the Mist

Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda and the Virunga Massif, a volcanic range that straddles Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo is home to the world’s two populations of mountain gorillas.   Most are found on the slopes of three of the dormant volcanoes: Karisimbi, Mikeno, and Visoke.  The vegetation is very dense at the bottom of the mountains, becoming more sparse at higher elevations.  The forests where the mountain gorillas live are often cloudy, misty and cold.  It is this climatic condition that gave Diane Fossey the name for her book on mountain gorillas:  Gorillas in the Mist.  It has also become a play on words that vendors screen on the backs of souvenir t shirts:  Mzungu in the Mist.  When we asked what this meant, one fellow hesitantly told us, “It means white people in the mist.”

The mountain gorilla is primarily a gentle, non aggressive herbivore.   The majority of its diet consists of leaves, shoots and stems.  Adult males eat 65 -75 pounds of vegetation a day.  Females consume  30 - 40 pounds.  This means that a good deal of each gorilla day is spent in moving from place to place, foraging for food.  Finding a group is no easy task, which is why former poachers are now employed as gorilla trackers.  A salaried tracker can enough to feed and care for his own families and reduces, but does not eliminate, threats to gorillas from poachers.  It is these trackers who stay with a particular group all day long.  At sunset, the trackers put a GPS device on the ground where they leave the gorillas for the night, and then before sunrise, they begin tracking the group from their last known location.  This system makes it possible for national park guides and trackers to bring visitors to the gorillas as they rest from their early morning foraging before moving off in an hour or two to resume eating.   

We arrived at Parc des Volcans, Rwanda and were anxiously awaiting our gorilla group assignment.On the first day, we were assigned Amahoro Group.  They live on the forested slopes between Visoke Volcano and Sabinyo.  We met with our park guide Edward, who told us a bit about Amahoro.  He explained how we should behave with the gorillas (no talking, do not try to touch them, if you are touched or grabbed be very still and do not react) and said would need to hike about two to two and a half hours to reach them.  We grabbed our packs, got in our vehicle, and drove about 30 minutes to the trail head.  

As of late 2008, there were 14 habituated family groups of gorillas in the park.  Only 7 of these are available for tracking by the public.  A $750.00 permit buys the trekker one hour with the gorillas.  The group will be visited only one time during the day.

Indeed treks to reach our assigned groups were as strenuous as advertised.   From a trail head at the end of a village, we hiked up through terraced fields of wheat, barley, squash and pyrethrum until we reached the park boundary.  There, we were met by two trackers assigned to take us to the gorillas.  In our trip literature we understood we would be allowed no closer than 7 m (22 feet) to the gorillas.  Pam brought binoculars on our first hike, and I was confident in the zoom on our video camera.  Reaching the Amahoro group required us to hike first up one mountain, then through a bamboo forest, down the other side of the mountain through jungle filled with stinging nettles.  From a valley we hiked up another mountain and half way down to where the group was resting. We were instructed to leave our packs with our porters (men from the local village we hired to carry our packs) and follow Edward our guide.  

We walked into a junglish clearing and were immediately face to face with our gorillas.  Five feet away from one of the young males, we watched in awe as he sat calmly stripping and eating wild celery.  We were stunned.  I mean stunned like hardly breathing; like tearing up; like speechless, shaking.  The gorillas are beautiful.  They are magnificent and majestic.  The young ones--3 to 6 years old act just like little kids.  They spend much of their time chasing one another, playing, and climbing on trees and adults.  The dominant silverback (head of the group) is generally calm and spends most of his time sleeping or eating.  He can be a fierce defender of his family, but never fights just to defend territory.  The females with babies are loving, gentle, and devoted mothers.  Forget the binoculars! For the next hour we were maneuvered into viewing positions as close as 7-10 feet from various individuals. 

Amahoro group has 18 members:  3 silverbacks (only 1 is dominant, and 1, Kajoliti is one-handed due to being caught in a poacher’s snare), 2 blackbacks (males who haven’t reached sexual maturity), 5 adult females, 2 subadult males, 2 juveniles and 5 babies.  Our alloted hour was so otherworldly that I felt suspended in time.  We stood and moved about on a floor three or four feet deep in springy jungle vines and branches.  Strangely, I never felt unstable.  At one point as we intently watched a group of juveniles, one of the trackers called, “Watch out! Move back” and the silverback pushed through the group brushing against several of us.  When time was up the trackers called to us and we filed reverently back to our waiting porters.  

Reality set in as we trudged back up the steep trail and slowly worked our way toward the terraced fields and finally, our vehicle.  I had to admit to Pam that night that I was sore and tired.  She said, “I’m sure we will have an easier go tomorrow.  Our hike will have to be shorter because of our drive to Kigali.”  But a shorter hike was not in the cards.  In the morning we were assigned Susa group.  They tend to inhabit altitudes of 9,000-10,000 feet on the middle-level slopes of the largest volcano--Karisimbi (14,787').  This group is considered the most strenuous to track. 

Susa is the largest of the tourist groups with 36 members at the time of our visit.   It is the only group to claim two sets of twins.  Twins are normally too stressful for a mother to manage and generally one of the pair is abandoned.  The drive to the trail head that second day took a full hour.  The trek to get to the gorillas was three hours one way, but we had “only” to go up one mountain and half down another rather than the up and down, up and down of the day before.  There were few stinging nettles this time which was a relief.  Once again we left our packs with the porters and followed the trackers into an area dense with vines and trees.  We stopped, I looked down and discovered we were right in front of a mother and her tiny, ten week old baby.  Such affection and tenderness was expressed between the two, our hearts were in our throats.  Although big silverbacks seem to be a large draw for most trekkers, Pam and I were mesmerized by the mother and her baby.  We could have stayed with her for hours.  Two juveniles directly above us were playing “king of the hill.”  They wrestled and mouthed one another, rolling, and pushing, and chasing.  Finally, one guy gave the other a large shove which sent the loser somersaulting down a hill.  The winner watched, stood tall, and slapped his chest three or four times with resounding smacks.  When our hour was up and we were filing past a young gorilla, he suddenly picked up a bunch of leaves, waved them around, and put them on his head like feathers... almost as if he was showing us how clever and cute he was.  Indeed.

Again the trek back to our vehicle was long and arduous.  By afternoon, the jungle trails seem to get more slippery and rocky.  This is probably more a function of how tired  we were than of an actual change in trail conditions.  In three hours we were back at the trailhead.  We thanked and paid our porters, said good-bye to our guide, and rumbled off for the long drive to Kigali. 

In a few hours it began to rain which made the mountain road more slick and rutted than ever.  I wondered how long each vehicle could go before breaking down.  I got my answer as our vehicle came to a grinding halt about 40 k from Kigali.  After removing a front tire and probing the front transmission, it was decided that the vehicle was inoperable and a tow truck was summoned from Kigali.  We arrived in the city about 8 o'clock--tired and hungry.  We got checked in and moved to our rooms.  Linda and Paul arranged for a table for our dinner.  We had wine, toasted, ate, and then crawled off to bed.  The next day all of us were scheduled for afternoon departures for the USA (or in Kathy’s case for Kenya).  In the morning we had  a scheduled visit to the Kigali Memorial Centre and Genocide Museum.

You will find gorilla pictures here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/mtnpostpics/sets/

In Uganda

Happy Thanksgiving!

We have so much to be thankful for, not the least of which are our friends and patient followers of this blog.

After promising to blog along as we traveled through Uganda and Rwanda, I found that was impossible on several levels.  Most of you know the story of what happened in our travels to impact my writing, and you know the saga of our return to Colorado after an historic 500 year flood devastated our Little Valley, our town, and the surrounding canyons and towns.  The next few blogs are an attempt to fulfill my promise of an account of our travels.  Rather than the usual interest most travelers generate from family and friends, what we experienced were questions:  WHERE are you going?  Why there?  Do you have to go now?  Are you afraid?  To which we answered:  Uganda and Rwanda.  Mostly to see Mountain Gorillas.  We're not getting any younger and the hiking is strenuous. No, we are not afraid.  We've waited for three years and this seems like an OK time to go.  So we went.

Let me begin by comparing this trip with our other two trips to Africa (South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe the first trip; Zambia on the second trip).  Uganda and Rwanda are relatively new to wild life tourism.  The infrastructure is not as developed or sophisticated as we experienced on our other two trips.  Camps are not as luxurious; animals are not as habituated to human visitors (after a few minutes of nervous gawking, they often run out onto the savanna…gorillas would be an exception), nor are they as plentiful; transportation from camp to camp is by safari vehicle, not by bush planes or helicopters.  However, this last fact gave us an intimate view of village and town life as we traveled from camp to camp with drives often lasting 4-5 hours.  From the start we had two guide/drivers--Sula (head guide) and Deo.  We got to know both men fairly well and learned that their expertise was more as drivers than as safari guides.  Our best guides were those native to the national parks and forests.  The guides and trackers in Parc des Volcans, Rwanda (our gorilla guides) were some of the best we've ever experienced.

There are three sets of pictures to accompany the next three blogs:  In Uganda, which contains images from our experiences outside of gorilla trekking, Mzungu in the Mist--images of gorillas and trekking to find them, and Kigali Memorial Centre…a look at the memorial to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.  Here, I will start with "In Uganda."

That first night in Entebbe, I set the alarm on my iPhone to leave us plenty of time to show up for breakfast and our 8 o'clock a.m. meeting.  Unfortunately Amsterdam is one hour later than Entebbe, and my phone didn't change times until noon.  Needless to say, we were late for our meeting.  That said (not a great way to begin), after leaving Entebbe we traveled cross country for several hours, stopping on the way for a picnic lunch where we got to know fellow travelers and spend some time trading backgrounds.  We really enjoyed our group.  This was not the first African trip for any of us.  In all we were:  Ed and Ceci from Minnesota, Cindy and Tom from Denver, Paul and Linda--Atlanta, Holly--Connecticut, Laura, Washington, D.C., and Kathy from Barrington, IL.  One could not have asked for easier more congenial people to be with.  

Our first destination was Kibale Forest National Park.  We stayed at Primate Lodge, and our two days here were spent viewing chimpanzees and other forest primates.  Our first night we did a night walk looking for elusive bushbabies.  We found 11 and our guide said that was the most he'd found in one walk.  It's weird to be walking in the jungle at night following a flashlight beam, surrounded by jungle sounds (hoots, hollers, grunts, and frogs croaking).  Mostly what we saw of the bush babies were their huge eyes glowing back at us in the beam of a flashlight.  I was able to shoot some video, but none of our digital cameras could capture pictures.  The next morning we walked for about 4-5 hours in Kibale Forest with a guide.  In the morning, chimpanzees screech and scream to one another (an unnerving racket) as a way of bringing troop members together after sleeping.  We did indeed see chimpanzees, but except for one large male, they stayed in the tree tops.  In addition to the chimpanzees, we saw many colobus monkeys, both black and red, baboons, and gray cheeked mangabeys.  

As we walked out of the jungle into swampland, we encountered two young boys.  Alfred was a very serious businessman about 10 years of age.  Taking clay from the swamp banks, he sculpted chimpanzee figures.  These he offered for sale to hikers.  We, of course, bought one of these and because it was still damp, carried it very carefully from camp to camp until it dried.  The other boy was just full of smiles.  As Alfred carefully explained about his wares, smiley boy waved a small catfish he had just caught barehanded from the swamp.  We did not buy the fish!  From Primate Lodge we drove to our next camp in Queen Elizabeth National Park--Jacana Lodge.

On the way we were silent witnesses to life in the villages, towns, and farms we passed.  People going about their daily lives (of course)--carrying water and firewood, going to the store, tending fields and cattle, cooking, washing clothes, visiting, and coming and going from all manner of businesses. Children were going to and from school, playing together, doing family chores, or being carried on their mother's backs.  This part of life was something we had never experienced and we found it everlastingly interesting.  

Once we crossed into Queen Elizabeth National Park we had our first game drive, after which we arrived at Jacana Lodge.  This lodge was set on the edge of Uganda's largest crater lake--Lake Nyamusingire.  Our living quarters were individual chalets overlooking the lake.  That first night Pam and I were serenaded by a hippo mom and her baby who stayed half submerged just off our living room window.  Under the circumstances, I found their songs comforting.  The travel description of our time in QE National Park said:  

      With 2,000 square miles of deep jungle, volcanoes, crater lakes, and open savannas, this diverse 
       landscape is home to a similarly broad array of wildlife, including nearly 100 mammal species and 
       606 species of birds spotted (so far).  We will delve into the varied landscape and waterways of the 
       park in search of elephants, leopards, waterbucks, topis, and horned kobs, to name a few of the 
       regularly sighted species. In addition to game drives, we’ll take an exciting launch trip on the Kazinga  
       Channel that connects Lake Edward with smaller Lake George.

Part of the problem with the game drives is that we left our lodgings around 9 or 9:30 and stayed out until 3, 4, or 5 in the afternoon.  Neither of our guides were the best informants about animals and animal behavior.  The biggest issue however, is that animals are normally active from about 6 or 7 am until 10:30 or 11:00.  They sleep or find shade from noon until about 4 when the sun begins to cool down.  At that time, they come out again to prowl about or graze.  We were driving around during the heat of the day and consequently did not see all that many animals.  We were able to spot several species of birds, a few elephants, waterbucks, topis, and kobs.  The latter three being the ubiquitous antelopes of Uganda.

Arriving at Jacana Lodge after a disappointing afternoon of game viewing, we were assigned to our chalets and had to hurry to shower to get to dinner on time.  The shower felt fine after a day in the heat, but as I stepped out onto a shellacked shower board my foot whipped out from under me and I landed on my butt and right hand with a splat.  As a result, I broke my wrist.  Pam and I wrapped it in an ace bandage and we went to dinner and then to bed.  In the morning I asked Holly, an EMT in "real life," and Cindy, a former occupational therapist, to look at my wrist.  "Almost surely broken," they said, "but not displaced."  So we raided the first aid kit in our vehicle.  We found a masonite board to use as a splint, another ace bandage, and a triangular bandage made from some gossamer material with which Holly created a sling.  She picked up a napkin off the breakfast table to pad the splint, wrapped me, and I was good to go.  One couldn't have asked for better assistance than I got!

The broken wrist posed only this problem:  I am the family photographer and Pam generally doesn't use my digital camera, but she stepped in like a trooper, learned quickly, and got some great shots of the rest of our travels.  The video camera was easier for me to operate, so that was my sole job.

Our launch trip on the Kazinga Channel was truly spectacular.  The river guide was outstanding and we got to see a huge variety of birds, hippos (in and out of the water), elephants, crocs, cape buffalo, and assorted antelope.  When we finished our trip, all of us were complimenting the guide and saying how much we had enjoyed our time with him.  He smiled and said, "Tomorrow, on this water I shall guide the president of our country…Yoweri Museveni."  We knew the president was in the area because we had been forced to pull to the side of the road on our way down to Kazinga Channel while a long line of troop carriers, anti-aircraft guns, soldiers in trucks and jeeps, and long black limos drove past raising clouds of dust.  "Our president is traveling to see his people," explained our driver, Deo.

From Jacana we traveled to the far end of QE Park to our favorite lodge:  Ishasha.  Built on the curve of a river, our suite of airy rooms looked out into the rising sun.  Ishasha is famous for its tree climbing lions.  Lions are not natural tree climbers, but these felines seek out fig and acacia trees in the heat of the day.  They climb out onto stout, bare limbs and drape and wedge themselves in for an afternoon nap.  "I have seen such lions," said Deo, "sleeping like this.  One day, a large male who was sound asleep,  fell right off onto the ground.  He was surprised."  On one of our lengthy (in the heat of the day) game drives, we stopped at the home of some local people and were treated to a traditional meal.  The eldest son first explained about a greeting custom that involved chewing coffee beans.  After the greeting ceremony, the boy served our food (cooked in a distant kitchen by his mother and sisters) and explained the significance of each dish.  It was a great experience after which we struck out again into the heat of the day looking for game.  

Our afternoon was cooled by a quick thunder shower followed by a beautiful rainbow stretching across the horizon.  The rainbow must have been a good omen because we found lions in a tree shortly thereafter. One of the things we appreciated as we went from place to place was that in QE Park, twenty percent of our entrance fees helped support the local communities surrounding the park, including funding schools and medical clinics.  This would be true also of the fee we paid for two days of gorilla trekking.  One can see the differences in villages close to these two parks.  Water pumps and holding towers are obvious.  Children are in school uniforms, school buildings and homes are generally of better quality than elsewhere, and most roads are paved with stones (this is NOT, as we were to experience, necessarily a good thing for vehicles).

From Ishasha we drove through the region known as “the Switzerland of East Africa” for its awe-inspiring mountains. Our vehicles climbed the mountains on rough dirt roads made slick and boggy by rain.  We passed through Kanaba Gap, one of East Africa’s most scenic areas, before arriving in Kisoro, surrounded by volcanoes—Sabinyo (11,923'), Mgahinga (11,397'), and Muhabura (13,540'). Our border crossing into Rwanda was memorable for several reasons.  First, it was raining sheets and the government building was so small supplicants had to stand outside.  Next, presenting papers and having our passports stamped took at least an hour because computers were down.  The government officials were…well, government officials.  Last, as I came finally to the window to speak to the heretofore crabby and cantankerous official he looked out at me with great concern.  "Oh.  You are broken.  Did you do that in my country?"  "Yes," I replied.  "Oh.  I am so sorry."  He stamped my passport and returned it with a smile.  


From the border crossing we continued through volcanic uplands to Kinigi, headquarters of Parc National des Volcans (Volcanoes National Park). There we moved into the simple comforts of Gorilla Mountain View Lodge, our base for gorilla trekking in the Parc National des Volcans.  That evening we enjoyed red wine with our feet propped on the lip of a warm fire.  Tomorrow we would see the gorillas.

Here is a link to pictures of our time in Uganda:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/mtnpostpics/sets/ 

When you land on the Flickr page, you will see the first three sets which correspond to the trip blogs:  In Uganda, Mzungu in the Mist, and Kigali memorial Centre.