DRC & Rwanda

Wednesday 6th June

We woke up yet again at 5.30am and started the whole procedure once more. We arrived at the guides base camp at 9am and hooray – they were waiting for us! After a short delay we set off into the thick jungle with our jeans tucked into our socks, as protection against the safari ants, and jackets on to protect us from rain and nettles. It was a 1 ¾ hour walk – quite steep at first – and then leveling off with ankle deep muddy pools! We were over 2500 metres altitude so we were sucking air but our adrenaline was pumping and keeping us going. The jungle was quite thick, sometimes the undergrowth was taller than us, and other times there was bamboo. It was very still except for the sounds of birds twittering and our foot falls. Buffalo droppings were abundant but we didn’t spot any. As we walked past various plants we got peppery and “khakibos” smells. We reached the gorillas at 11am – quite suddenly we were in the middle of the group – they were quiet – unlike the chimps, and just made gentle “clearing of the throat” grunts. The guides “spoke” back to them and moved closer. The group consisted of 12 gorillas, Mapuwa the alpha silver back male, 5 females, 2 juveniles and 4 babies. They seemed completely unperturbed by our presence and just continued with their daily rituals – Mapuwa munched on leaves and looked at us every now and then with his gentle big brown eyes while the dominant female stayed near his side with her baby, Dunia. Dunia clung to her mother but also looked at us with open curiosity. We were only about 3 to 4 metres from these gorillas! It was quite an experience. After our first adrenaline rush, we started to become more aware of our surrounds, and we were literally surrounded by the gorillas – the younger ones were up in the trees, swinging and rangling with each other and there were 4 other females in the bush around us. We were all single file on a narrow path and the next minute Ingrid, who was at the back, realized one was coming up behind her! The guide motioned us to just stay calm and move slightly to the side, and the juvenile gorilla calmly walked right past us! Another time, 2 babies playing in the branches above us, let go and landed plum in the middle of a soft bush, like landing on a trampoline!
The magical 1 ¼ hours spent with these gentle giants did not come cheaply - $760 for the 2 of us – but the mystical sense of recognition in the mountain gorilla’s soft brown eyes as they stared at us was spine tingling. These massive wild animals are up to 3 times as bulky as the average man with shaggy black coats except for the alpha male who is bald on his chest and has a balding silvery back. The babies are just adorable and look so cuddly! It was one of the most awesome times we have had on this trip.
We got back to the campsite in Uganda at about 4pm and all started our relevant chores – Dave decided to check out our radiator as it had been giving us trouble, only to discover that it had sprung a real leak, so there were him and Will working until 10pm trying to repair this leak! Luckily they were successful on their 3rd attempt at soldering the hole up.
Lorraine and Neville have been infested with putsi flies- these flies lay their eggs on damp laundry(in their case it was their sheets) and then when you are sleeping the eggs hatch and bury themselves under your skin, forming “boils” which eventually hatch a grub after 8 days! Thank goodness we have not been infected and I am going to make extra certain that all my laundry is crisp dry before I take it in, as this is a preventative.
I forgot to mention, but a couple of days ago when we stopped on the road for a coffee stop, Dave found an old East African 10c coin dated 1928! It was quite a find and we are keeping it as a memento of our trip.

Thursday 7th June

Bright and early, we were packed and ready to go. Brian & Maureen left a couple of days ago to return to Kampala. Ingrid & Will are heading back to Kampala today while the Karg’s and us are going down to Rwanda for a few days. We drove the 10kms to the border and did the customs part of the border proceedings but then, typical African style, we waited for 45 minutes as the Immigration Officer had still not reported for work! He rolled in at 8.30am instead of 7.00am but this is Africa. We crossed the border and exactly half way through the “no mans land” the tar began – Rwanda has many more tarred roads than Uganda, and of course we had to swop to the right hand side of the road!
Soon after entering Rwanda we stopped at Lake Burera for breakfast and then headed SW for Lake Kivu and down to a town called Kibuye. On the way we saw lots of cabbages and sorghum being grown as well as fields of tea. The combi taxis in Uganda all have a blue checkered stripe around them and here in Rwanda it is the same but green instead of blue. The drive was really scenic and very hilly with us going up and down and round – basically following the contour lines around the hills. Along the way we saw people making bricks right on the road side with the mud in the ditches. The people here are certainly industrious.
We took an extra scenic detour back down towards the lake and so the afternoon was gone before we knew it and we were still a long way from Kibuye and it was getting dark. We took a side road up towards a church hoping to find somewhere to camp, and right there we came across a white couple! Bernard and Beatrice are Germans, a doctor and a social worker, respectively, who come out for 1 month every year to help Father Patrick with his work with handicapped children at his parish. Father Patrick gave us permission to camp so we quickly set up as it was getting dark. After supper we went down to their house and spent a pleasant evening drinking beer and chatting about Rwanda, Germany and South Africa.


Friday 8th June

We packed up and left at 7am and reached Kibuye without further delay. Our first stop was a large Catholic cathedral set on a hill in Kibuye overlooking Lake Kivu. On the 17th April 1994 there were 11 400 people hiding in this church when rebels, drunk on banana beer, threw petrol bombs through the windows and then proceeded to slaughter the whole 11 400 people with machetes! This genocide that happened only 13 years ago, here in Rwanda, is impossible to understand, especially as all the people we meet are so friendly and peaceful looking.
Neville & Lorraine had received information from their daughter on how to treat their putsi so we stopped for them to do this as they were being driven crazy by these grubs! They covered each ‘boil’ with Vaseline – Neville has about 10 and Lorraine about 23 – for 1 hour and then were able to squeeze these ‘maggots’ out! Apparently, the larvae cannot survive for more than 48 hours on dry laundry, so we will definitely not be wearing anything that has been washed less than 2 days ago.
We then had breakfast. The locals here speak French and it is quite amusing to have a black man walking past saying ‘Bonjour, Bon Apatite!’ The Kargs wanted to go further S and we wanted to head for Kigale, so we said farewell and made plans to keep in touch via sms.
We drove around Kibuye which is set on the shore of Lake Kivu. Rwanda is called the land of a 1000 hills and so this lake is dotted with islands which are the tops of the hills sticking out of the flooded valley, although the lake is as deep as 475 metres in places. Imagine an un developed Knysna and this is what the town of Kibuye looks like – a paradise in the middle of Africa.
A local man told us that there are 18 000 DRC refugees in a camp just outside Kibuye although we did not see this.
We reached Kigale at about 2 pm and looked for a place to stay as there is no camping facility. The city of Kigale is really clean and quite picturesque spread over a couple of hills. With the help of Agatha(our GPS), a printed map and me navigating, Dave did really well, as don’t forget, we are driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road! Traffic circles and robots are the trickiest! We found a reasonable hotel called ‘One Hill Motel’ in the suburbs which had secure parking for Garfield. We had lovely hot showers, changed into ‘town clothes’ and went walk about. We changed some money and then went to a pub for a drink where we met a New Zealander, Alistair Cook, who works for the UN wfp, and we had a really interesting couple of hours. He is here to investigate Lake Kivu as it is one of 3 lakes in the world that is ‘under threat’ – it has about 5 billion cubic metres of methane gas dissolved in it, and if there were to be any volcanic activity beneath the lake, which is a real possibility in this area, then the chemical reactions would result in a layer of carbon dioxide covering the lake, effectively strangling life in and around the lake. We also chatted extensively about rugby, as he is an avid rugby fan – we thought of you, Sean. After our pre dinner drinks we walked to an Italian Pizza Restaurant, and had a romantic candle lit dinner – so things are looking up!!

Saturday 9th June

After a delicious breakfast (omlette and fresh fruit including pomegranate) and a couple of cups of filter coffee, we headed S for 30kms to the church at Nyamata where 10 000 people were slaughtered on the 11 April 1994. This church is a memorial to the genocide and houses all the clothing, belongings and the bones of the victims. When we saw racks upon racks of skulls and heaps of bones it really brought the genocide home to us. We then drove back into Kigale to the Genocide Museum/Memorial to try and get a better understanding of this genocide. The museum was very well laid out and had 3 sections – the build up to and the actual genocide in Rwanda where 1 million people were killed in 3 months – genocides the world over – the children killed in the Rwandan genocide. We still don’t know if we can understand such hatred and brutality but you certainly walk away emotionally upset and determined that the world must never allow another atrocity like this to ever occur again!
At 2pm we walked back to the pub to watch the SA/Somoa rugby match, and we bumped into Alistair again. He was meeting two local Rwandans as he is also working on setting up trucking clinics along the Mombasa/Uganda/Rwanda trucking corridor as the Dept of Foreign Affairs UK have given him a budget of 1-2 million $ to do this. So we met Theodore, the Secretary General of the Rwandan Truck Drivers Association and Emanuel, a local truck driver. Once again we have had a very interesting and enjoyable afternoon, watching rugby, drinking beer and meeting locals.

I don’t have much to say at the best of times and Beryl does cover our daily activities so well. Not forgetting my poor spelling, makes it much easier for Beryl to just get along with the daily log. The last few days have been an eye opener for me in many ways, I will try to explain. To see the mass killings of the genocide and what one human can do to another, no different from himself in any way, is scary. What provokes any one to do to another human what these people did to their fellow countryman is beyond explanation? It makes your skin crawl and you want to weep, hearing stories of individuals telling their horror stories.
Having also spent an afternoon with Alistair from the WFP and Theo, a local Rwandan, I believe that we, as white South Africans with our fellow blacks need to take a huge lesson from these people. They are a proud nation; their city is the cleanest, prettiest capital city in Africa. As much as we white SA need to talk to and mix with our fellow blacks, the blacks need to stop feeling a lesser person than us and to stand up proud for who they are and stand along side us to work together to make SA the best country in Africa. These last few days I have felt humbled and elated at the same time. I have a renewed intention to change the way I see, and interact with my fellow Black South Africans. Also, many of us overlook the precious gift we have, that of our families. Imagine having all you parents and five brothers and sisters wiped out (in front of you, watching them being maimed, raped and eventually killed) and you are all that is left behind! So, look after your family, love them for what they are, know that you have them to turn to, because they are there for you. To my children, parents and all my friends, I pray that none of us ever have to go through what these people have had to. To my children Carmen-Jo, Daryl and Rayanne I love you and look forward to getting back home to you all. Man, this place can get to you.


Sunday 10th June

We left Kigale at 6.30am and headed N towards Kampala. Dave had been concerned for a couple of days as there was a shudder on the steering wheel, and this seemed to be getting worse. He decided it was the back wheel on the driver’s side so we stopped for him to change it. Finally, he had found the problem – the tread was splitting away from the tyre! Luckily, Dave is proactive or else we would have had a blow out.
We made good progress, although it was a long day of driving, and we finally reached Kampala at 5pm – 520kms and a border crossing!