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Published: June 22nd 2009
We left Uganda and headed for Rwanda on 6/14. The drive was beautiful, however, the boarder had the worst bathroom/hole in the ground that I have seen. I threw up a little in mouth.
Rwanda has so many hills, it is no wonder it is called the land of 1000 hills. The best part of Rwanda is the roads are better! It is great when you can actually read while on the truck.
Our first stop was in Kigali, which is the capital of Rwanda and also the starting point for the Genocide that happened in 1994. We went to the Genocide Memorial which is a mass grave, where around 300,000 genocide victims were buried. The Memorial was dedicated to educating people about what happened. I learned that this was a genocide that was directed toward woman and children. The women were raped by men with HIV, and the children were murder and tortured the same as adults. There was a room in the Memorial that was dedicated to the children. I was able to view hug pictures of children and read little pieces about them and the last thing shared was how they were killed. There was also a portion of the memorial dedicated to other genocides of the world. The whole experience was very educational and well worth the visit.
We left Kigali and went to Ruhengeri another small city that was effected by the genocide. We stayed in the worst, creepiest place; it was a large dorm with a ton of bunk beds. Not my favorite place. We had to wake up at 5:30 am to get ready to see the Mountain Gorillas. There are only 700 mountain gorillas in the world. If they are taken to the zoo they will die with in 9 years, where in the wild they can live for 40 years.
The driver picked us up and we drove to the base camp, where we were told about the gorilla family that we would be seeing. The family that we saw was named Amahoro, which means peace. The silverback was born in 1984 or 85.
After the introduction to the family, we had to go for another drive, the road was like off roading in a very old land cruiser. Finally we arrived at the place that we had to begin our hike. The first part was through a village, their crops, and their yards. It was very weird, the little kids came running up trying to sell us pictures of gorillas that they had colored or drawn. Once we were through the village we hiked up a mountain but only for around 20 minutes. It was a hard walk, there was guy with a machete cutting down anything in our way. There were stinging nettles that hurt through clothes. Once the guide was in contact with the trackers we began another hike this time through bamboo, about another 15 minutes. It was so cool, I could not stop smiling. Finally, after crawling through a tunnel of weeds and such we came to an enclosing of bamboo that we were told to leave everything behind, and the gorillas were very close.
The first gorilla that we saw was just chilling by itself eating. The second that we saw was the silverback, he was huge and beautiful. While we watched the silverback another gorilla started making its way toward us. You can see these creatures coming form a mile away because they just plow over all vegetation. This gorilla made its way directly toward me, it was awesome. He came so close to me, that the tracker stepped in front of me. The whole hour just went on like that. There were young gorillas with their mothers, they also had their friends that they lounged around with. All the gorillas do is eat, eat, eat, lay around, and maybe play. I was so happy, that I cried tears of joy. A gorilla even touched my pant leg, I was not allowed to touch him back.
I cannot ever explain how beautiful and amazing this experience was. Well worth every penny, every sting from the nettles, and all the dirt that covered my body. I forgot to mention that there was an 8 month old gorilla that was very spry! He kept messing with all the other members of the family and at one point this gorilla made some noise and our guide said, "That's enough, is what the gorilla just said" and sure enough the baby gorilla just stopped messing around. They are such peaceful animals. WOW, WOW, WOW!
We went back to town and that same evening we had dinner at a local families house. The food was so good!!!! Here a guy around my age, I assume, spoke to us about the genocide. His name was Francis, and he was a survivor of the genocide. The information he gave us was a lot like the information we read and saw at the memorial. What was different was how Rwanda is recovering. In a brief summary, the Rwandans want to forgive and grow the country. There were 700,000 people in Rwanda that either murdered, raped, tortured or abused another person during this genocide that lasted 100 days. If the country was to punish everyone that took part in the genocide there would be no population left. Their solution, which is working, was to forgive. Each person minus the government and people who raped, was allowed to publicly apologize for the wrongs that they have done. Once they were forgiven by the community and families they wronged their punishment was split between jail and and community service. So if some one was supposed to spend 5 years in jail, they would spend 2.5 years in jail and 2.5 years rebuilding the community that they helped damaged. In addition, to this type of community rebuilding at the last Saturday of every month each community comes together and helps out the poor families for 4 hours. And every year for the 100 days that genocide takes place they also take additional steps in rebuilding and strengthen the country.
Rwanda is beautiful and was a great place to visit. I was only there for 2 days but it was 2 days that will stick with me for the rest of my life!
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Heidi
non-member comment
WOW
Man I'm loving these updates! You are so lucky! And MAN! Gorillas? my gosh! Sounds like something out of a movie! I miss you tons - and think about how much fun you are having all the time. What an amazing experience. Can't wait to come meet you somewhere! Love you and live it up girl!