here come the muzungus



erin's new boyfriend



‘here come the m’zungus’

One thinks only Dianne Fossey and a few select others walk amongst the mountain gorillas. Embarking on a gorilla tracking expedition conjures images of fleeting glimpses or distant viewing at best. Rwanda may have the most reliable and secure mountain gorilla tours in Africa, an easy statement to back-up since Uganda’s tours are known to be less than 100% successful (one gorilla family simply moved out of the Impenetrable Forest National Park – really, that’s its name, bespeaking difficulty – into the DRC, or Congo; further, Congo is really unavailable to the average tourist except via the Rwanda border, thus the gorillas are far less available, and perhaps uncounted). With only 700 or so mountain gorillas remaining and more than 350 of them in Rwanda’s Volcano National Park, Rwanda is the safest bet. But there is more.

land adjacent to park

First, the plight of the mountain gorilla is unlike that of its kin the lowland gorilla. Estimates of 100,000 of the latter type were made just a couple of years ago in the Congo Basin and speak of a separate specie altogether. Thus, gorillas are unlikely to disappear anytime soon. The mountain gorilla, however, faces peril from all directions: Rwanda has the highest human population density on the continent; and, looking across the border to Uganda the landscape is pretty much the same; alas, the Congo border has an additional population issue with ex-pat Rwandans. People have been cutting down the forest to create arable land for many years, even at an accelerated rate in the past two decades. The crops have been grown ever-higher and the parkland has shrunk. Efforts have been made to stop this shrinkage. Reports abound of some one million people volunteering to build a wall made of volcanic rock to permanently demark the Volcano National Park boundary.

And there is one reason for this community, nay, national, effort: gorillas are big business. While few Rwandans pay to track gorillas, fifty-six non-Rwandans pay to see them every day. At $500 per person (less for certain individuals with green cards or some other government connection) the number of jobs created far exceeds the value of more tennis court size farm plots. Each group of seven trackers, as we’re called, is lead by a guide and escorted by an armed security person (elephants and water buffalo seem to like the park as well). After an hour* of climbing through farm plots the volcanic rock wall is reached and the guide gets serious about the rules: no loud vocalizations, no bathroom breaks, no walking sticks or backpacks or quick movements once a group is within 100 meters of the first gorilla. The guide has a short conversation on a two-way radio and we start moving further up the mountain. Fifteen minutes into the park we step over some steaming scat. I ask the guide, ‘water buffalo?’ and he shakes his head, ‘gorilla.’ Hmm, I hadn’t really thought about that.

We stop when we run into another group of armed men, the men who spend their days following the gorilla family, protecting them from poachers and keeping track of their position. This is a business, after all, and the jobs start to add up: five employees in the field for each group of seven plus the park management and ancillary posts. At this point we drop our gear and step off the freshly macheted trail into the bush. We were just on the other side of a knob from a gorilla because when we walked 50 meters and stepped around a tree and there sat eating, two meters away, the first gorilla, not even raising an eyebrow at our presence (I might be making up gorillas actually having eyebrows). A couple of ‘wows’ and digitally produced shutter snaps and the realization that there’s a gorilla down the hill to the right, another in a tree, another above that one and another up the hill to the left starts to sink in. The clock starts ticking.



13 day old twins born to the Susa group



Socialization means a lot of things. Dogs can be socialized. Humans can be socialized. Both should be in order to get along in this crazy world. As it turns out, gorilla socialization is helping them to have a place as well. But a dog will at least look up when something changes in its field of view. When the leader of the group, a silverback named Kumira, came into view as we made our way into the group, he didn’t even look down at us from his space overlooking the side of the jungle, just kept eating. One cheeky male reached out and whapped me on the leg then stood in front of Erin and did a little chest pounding before the guides grunted him off. A one year old looked up from his play with an older group member before rolling down the hill right between us. But the big male just stared into space and chewed.

Big? At first impression, gorillas are not as big as one would expect. That’s not to say they’re small, but I did not feel dwarfed by any means. Okay, forget arm length. But Kumira was another story. He was fully twice the height of the biggest female and easily four times the mass. Massive, in fact, is the best word. After half an hour (the clock is still ticking, 0:30 to go) the dominant silverback stirred and started moving down the hill. The difference in size was remarkable – see how I’m remarking now? – and, as he moved directly toward us, every person took a step back at the same time. I know I didn’t think about taking that step back. I just made more space because one of the lords of the earth approached. Still not looking at any one person, Kumira strutted his stuff down that steep slope some three meters away (about 10 feet, America), stopping about six meters away, below us now and promptly seemed to fall asleep. The one-year old kept playing, rolling down the hill in the path the group’s number one male had just taken. His playmate rolled down the hill behind him(?). The mother with the twins continued feeding and holding. The pair that had been in the tree returned to the tree and picked leaves and ate and ate. The mischievous sub-adult that had thumped me on the leg sat in a nest of nettles and gorged, stripping leaves off a stalk smoothly and methodically grabbing another stalk with one hand as the other shoved copious leaves into his mouth with the other. Ten minutes left.

This is where it gets difficult to wrap up the synopsis, as difficult as wrapping up the hour of ‘viewing’. Socialization is finite. Another silverback emerged into view and sat a few paces from Kumira. According to the guide there is another silverback in the group and he was somewhere nearby. One hour for us seemed a blink of an eye and it was about to end. I do not know how long we would have been tolerated, but for one hour we were in the middle of perfection. There is another patch of nettles for Thumper to eat tomorrow, and around 9:30 A.M. on every morrow, Kumira will not even look up when he thinks to himself, to quote the lead guide, Vincent, “that’s just the m’zungus coming.”  

* each tracking group is sent to a different gorilla family loosely based on apparent fitness and desire for longer or shorter walks; we chose the longest more because of the opportunity to see the largest group, Susa, but also because of the opportunity to walk through more unmolested African rainforest; people we spoke with who saw a different group the day before parked at the park boundary and walked just a few minutes into the park to see one group; in fact, one gorilla was outside the park wall eating potatoes from one of the fields, sitting just 10m from someone working the field

 

see y'all tomorrow



Feats of Strength: Part II

One clump of dirt at a time…

Rwanda often speaks about the fact that one of their most abundant resources is their people.  In fact, they are right as Rwanda does have the distinction of being the most heavily populated country per square kilometer in Africa.  Due to this dense population concentration, it seems that when there is a job to do there are plenty of people around to help do it; in the process shunning all machinery to do these jobs whether on purpose, or otherwise.

A very fancy mutatu.

As I ride the motos and mutatus (mini buses) around Rwanda, other than in the capital city of Kigali, and even there the sightings have been few, I have not seen a bulldozer, backhoe, tractor, jackhammer, mill, or any other kind of road, farm, wood works, or infrastructure building machinery in use.  To be honest I think the only machinery I have seen is a jackhammer in Kigali.  Instead I see roads, houses, gas stations, stadiums, bridges, culverts, ditches, parking lots, water lines, electric lines, furniture, and hotels being built, dug, tunneled, mined, nudged, excavated, moved, broken, and sawed, along with crops plowed, planted and harvested by human exertion; sweat pouring, muscles focused.  In other words, Rwanda is most definitely a country built by a great and many fabulous feats of strength.

One of my favorite of these feats is to see a person slowly and methodically chop down a good sized tree with a machete, remove the branches, and then get a friend or two to hoist it onto their heads or shoulders to help them carry it a few kilometers and perhaps up and down a few steep inclines to a local “mill”.  The mill (and oh how I wish I had a picture of this) consists primarily of three large logs fashioned together so that the first two are positioned at an angle with the third across the top of these about five feet above the ground.  This design allows the recently cut tree to rest on the cross beam where someone with a large saw, somehow, perfectly saws it into beautifully straight and even planks.  From there the planks may be used as is, and while I have not yet seen the step in which the bark is removed I have no doubt it is done by hand, or they may then be sawed in half and be subsequently hand planed into gorgeous two by twos, which are then transported back to the original owner for their chosen use on the top of someone’s head.  To Rwanda’s green ambition credit not a drop of fuel is used in this process or in the many to follow, just lots of human energy, patience, and endurance. 

When I first arrived in Nyamata the district offices I work out of were in the process of getting a new parking lot.  No tar or heavy machinery in sight, just sand, bricks, a few hand tools, string, and a crew of about ten.  My first thought was that this would be a one or two month project as each brick had to be fit into place and made level for this significantly large parking area.  However, to my surprise, the project was complete in a mere two weeks.  Complete, perfect, happening almost as if by magic, and the first of many examples that makes me believe that Rwanda must have some of the finest bricklayers and stone masons in the world.

I say this as I have seen gorgeous stone walls go up in a week, a taxi park the size of several football fields have a two foot wide and three foot high cascading wall built around it in a short three weeks along with other such examples of stone and brick work to salivate over because it is done so attractively, expertly, and seemingly naturally; meaning I do not see a lot of talking, measuring, angling, or hesitation in the work, just self confident movement.  Interestingly, many of these stone workers are women, not just as transport for the large stones on their heads, but as actual stone workers in the process of building.  Also, because Nyamata is booming in anticipation of the new international airport, I have seen large banks, conference halls, shops, and other buildings go up in short order using only basic log scaffolding, hand tools, and hard work. (Usually going up next to small homes of mud with no water or electricity, but I suppose those will change soon too.)

If you closely you can see half a gutter done.

About three years ago a beautiful German-engineered highway was built from Kigali through Nyamata, and on south to the Burundi border.  However, for whatever reason the side gutters are still kilometer by kilometer being built.  Just like in Japan I find this foot and a half wide side gutter on either side of the road a bit dangerous and concerning, but that is the style here and the speed with which a dusty side of the road can be transformed into a stone lined gutter gains pure admiration on my part.  Part of this infrastructure construction is being done by folks who have fallen on hard times and need work to make ends meet, part of Rwanda’s initial attempts at a kind of social welfare.  Therefore, alongside the expected young man of twenty-something in his tank top masterfully placing and moving rock, you may see an older gentleman who seems impossibly thin, in worn suit coat, dress pants, and faded fedora working alongside a young woman in her long African fabric wrap around skirt and sandals doing their best to add to the work’s completion.  What is lovely to see it that none seem concerned about the differences of ability and rather continue to work at their own task as that is the purpose-the work.

A little early morning wood collection for school.



For about two weeks in May as I rode the moto about I saw feats of community strength as all able bodied persons seemed to be out working on maintaining the country’s dusty side roads.  In mass, and I mean in mass, communities would be out clearing brush from the side of the road, filling in potholes, cutting a cleaner edge to the road, hauling in gravel, and all other tasks assigned to any road crew anywhere.  Tiny little children too young to be in school would be moving rocks, elderly men and women would be taking a turn with a hoe or pick axe, while folks of every age in between took on work of varying difficulty to ensure a mwiza umuhanda (good road).  The work was over in about two weeks and while it lasts the bumpy roads of January, February, March, and April have given way to level, bright iron red, side roads that rival any gray, machine grated dirt roads in Montana, Wisconsin, or Minnesota.

 

 

My best, but not great shot of lining up for water.

 Recently I was without electricity for two weeks as the underground cable that had been delivering power to my home to heat water for my all important morning cup of french press coffee had had it.  While I know many folks with ready electricity might think living without electricity for two weeks was a feat of strength, not a single person here could even understand why I would even mention it as only roughly 5% of the people in this district have electricity, and after the fourth or fifth blank stare I did indeed stop mentioning it, buy some candles, and enjoy the ritual of heating my water by candle light-literally.  However, that is not the point.  The point is the single man that for five or six days toiled away to unearth several kilometers of underground electrical cable with a pick axe, swing, by methodical swing to find the problem.  When I would catch a glimpse of him in those hot sunny days I only saw him resting once, sitting briefly to take a sip of water, before taking up the pick axe again for a fee unknown to me, but one that I am guessing would motivate very few of those with ready electricity to do the same.  He is one of many examples of feats of strength here that are both mental and physical in nature and that I admire so much.

The primary occupation of nearly everyone I pass on my moto rides is farming.   Farming by the sweat of one’s brow, strength of muscles, determination of mind, and a serious garden hoe.  Every clump of dirt and weed moved and taken out by the swing of this implement and every seed placed by hand.  With the end of the rainy season beans, peas, peanuts, and coffee are now being harvested in earnest.  Large bundles of the legumes are being carried down the road on top of mother’s and their children’s heads.  These bundles brought back to homes alongside roads or far off into the bush to be thrashed with long thin tree branches by men young or old, girls, women, or anyone else who hopes to benefit from their selling.  This thrashing leaving behind piles of dried foliage that is then moved to compost the still growing corn plants.  Once the compost is moved off colorful beans, dried peas, and tiny peanuts are picked off the ground one by one, placed on a sheet of some sort, cleaned, dried, packed, and transported in a rice sack on the back of a bicycle or on top of one’s head to the local sector pick up point to be sold for a price quite unknown to me, but one I may be staggered to consider knowing the calories burned in the effort.  Coffee beans are also currently being harvested, but with a kind of attention to selection that makes me wonder at the persistence and patience involved.  Coffee beans here are watched and monitored so that each is picked at its full ripeness, bean by bean.  There is no shaking of the tree or machine for this work, but rather beans picked a fistful at a time.  A process so delicate and meticulous that I no longer wonder why Rwandan coffee is in actual fact so delicious.

 

Feats of strength indeed, everyday, all day acts of physical labor are performed to build an ever increasingly sophisticated infrastructure, maintain the infrastructure already in place, feed a nation and one’s family, and grow the country’s crucial exports.  What strikes an American like myself watching all this is the lack of complaint, the consistency and simplicity of the day in and day out physical labor, and the focus of this work.  Faces do not contort in pain or effort, hands do not fly up to lower backs as the person leans back to loosen sore muscles, necks do not get cracked or twisted, and children do not flail and cry on the ground when there is work to do.  This is not to say that this work does not wear on those who perform it.  I see the sweat, the steely resolve of the eyes, and the grim determination required, especially from the older workers.  However, I also see that there is an understanding that work is work and without it there is no life.  I also see some of the fun and benefit to a life lived so close to one’s labor, children diving and tumbling through the chafe of the bean plants like any child in the north woods playing in a pile of recently raked leaves, families or neighbors chatting as they sort through millions of beans or peas, husbands and wives picking coffee beans together as their child sleeps in the shade of these trees, a commute that involves no traffic jams, flat tires, gas fumes, or expense, children spending their days with mothers, fathers, and siblings to maintain their home, and loaded bicycles ridden with free abandon down hills trying to get every inch of glide possible for the sweat inducing upside.

Bicycles…perhaps the king and queen of Rwanda’s feats of strength and the final installment of my countrywide homage to these incredible feats of strength.  Until then…