"ok," but really couldn't have cared less. (I'm not the kind of person who
watches Animal Planet.) When they said it would be in Rwanda, I perked
up: genocide? gorillas? guerrillas? Whatever the case, I knew that aside
from the animals, we'd have an interesting time seeing another country
and learning more about the 1994 genocide of both Hutus and Tutsis.
Rwanda is a very small country just south of Uganda. You can drive there,
but it takes forever because of the conditions of the roads, so we flew.
While it is still a French-speaking country (it was colonized by France and
later Belgium), English has become more common, partly as a way of
showing disdain for that French colonial past. However, you are still
better off knowing some French. Fortunately, Rich, the French-Canadian
in our group, was able to provide a lot of much-needed elaboration when
our English stopped working.
The gorillas: apparently those in the "know" know that the
Rwanda/Uganda region is famous for lowland gorillas. Dian Fossey
made the area famous by spending years living with and studying the
animals. (It is believed she was killed by poachers who were threatened
by her efforts to protect the gorillas.) We drove for hours on the bumpiest
road known to man to get to the national park , where we met with a
bunch of other tourists and were broken into smaller groups assigned to
a gorilla family. After a short briefing by the rangers ("don't point your
fingers at the gorillas, don't make loud noises, don't eat, don't get closer
than seven meters"), we drove to the edge of a part of the park and walked
for about 15 minutes to the edge of the forest. We were accompanied by
soldiers (there to protect the revenue-generating tourists from occasional
rebel forces), the park rangers, and eventually, gorilla trackers.
At this point, you just crossed your fingers and hoped it wouldn't be hours
of hiking before you found the gorillas. We had barely reached the forest
when the family we were assigned to came walking down into the fields
we were walking through! OMG! We got close, and spent the next hour
following them as they moved slowly through a small area, stuffing their
faces with food. And forget the whole seven meters thing -- I had two
different gorillas walk right by me, right at my side. Unbelievable. The
experience was much, much more than I expected, and even though I'll
sound stupid saying this, it was light years different from being at the zoo
(and even the San Diego Wild Animal Park). It was amazing to see such
big animals sitting so quietly, with very little regard for our presence. By
the way: gorillas are identified by their "nose prints"!
As if the gorillas weren't enough, we also had Kigali, the capital city, to
explore. Our main goal was to see the Genocide Museum, which had
opened earlier in the year to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the
genocide in which over a million people were murdered (mostly by
machete) in roughly three months. The complex includes the museum,
which sits in a building the size of a typical American two-story home, and
a series of concrete graves which are mass burials for some 250,000
victims. The museum did not disappoint. With the assistance of
international non-profit agencies, a very impressive and informative
exhibit explains the history of the Rwandan genocide, as well as some six
other genocides which occurred in the twentieth century.
A number of good books and documentaries can explain the genocide in
much more detail, but the bottom line is this: misguided notions of race
and power fueled this atrocity, and the rest of the world sat by and did
almost nothing until it was too late, despite ample prior knowledge. It is
incredibly depressing.
If you visited Rwanda and didn't know about the genocide, you wouldn't
notice. There are few physical indications that such an atrocity occurred
there. The intervening ten years have done much to repair the physical
damage. With 1 of every 9 Rwandans killed, though, the emotional and
psychic damage is embedded much more deeply.
Rwanda is definitely worth visiting. The French influence is noticeable
enough to provide an interesting contrast to former British colonies, it is
beautiful, it is small and manageable, it is safe, people are friendly, and
because of its size and the relative scarcity of visitors, the Genocide
Museum's impact is very strong and long-lasting.
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