Up north!
on Melissa Hipkins (Rwanda), 23/Mar/2010 10:58, 34 days ago
Aphrodise came round last night to bring the carpenter to fix the gaping hole that has been a feature of the bathroom ceiling since we moved in. According to Aphrodise, it's access to the roof space which he needs for maintenance. Fair enough, but it's also access for the mosquitoes that constantly irritate. They are easily heard when we have quiet moments in there but difficult to spot against the dark walls. They also retreat up there whenever we try to spray them as it seems to have no effect. Aphrodise and his man arrived just as we were preparing our evening meal. After a great deal of deliberation they have loose fitted a piece of plywood that looks as though it should do the job.Tonight we were to enjoy what was left of the week's bean, mince and vegetable stew supplemented by some maize Jacky had given us. It was a very nice thought and perhaps as a way of apology as she was late this morning due to the heavy rain. However, the maize isn't sweet corn and at the moment the method of cooking that converts it from little bullets to something palatable eludes us. If boiling it up with the beans for 2 hours doesn't work I think we shall give up on it.We had some sweet potatoes with yesterday's stew and that was very successful. They taste of a mixture of chestnuts and parsnips with the texture of a slightly fibrous potato, and they are good for soaking up the gravy.This weekend we had nothing arranged so I thought it would be a good opportunity to go back to Musanze to see about somewhere to stay during my lecturing period. If we both went then Melissa would have an idea of the conditions up there and as it's a nice part of the country we might be able to explore a bit. She would also be invaluable as a second opinion as to accommodation. Melissa had heard from some colleagues of hers of a private house that does B&B, so we arranged a couple of nights there.While I was at ISAE, Anselme the dean of the Vet school said that if we did come up again, he would show us round the town and give some help over where to stay, so I texted him as to our plans . He, however was going to visit his mother so would not be there. I was all for re-arranging but Melissa was reluctant to abandon. Unbeknown to me, she rang the office that books tours to the gorillas to see if they had any places left on Saturday's trek. She was delighted to find there were just 2 places, but they would not take payments over the phone, we had to go in person. It would probably be too late if we left it until we were in Kigali on Friday on our way to Musanze, so I delegated myself to go the next day, Thursday.Came across a nasty smash on the way to Kigali. A 4x4 looked as though it had attempted to get past a slow lorry on a bend when it met one of the buses coming the other way. It had hit the bus, then the lorry had run into it from behind. The 4x4 was a write-off. The police were there and were loading the passengers from the bus into buses headed for Kigali that had had to stop as the road was all but blocked. Fortunately, there seemed to be no serious casualties bar one bus passenger with a bandaged foot.When I got to the tourist office, I was relieved to find that the places were still available. They are strictly rationed so that the seven groups of gorillas in the Rwandan section of the mountain reserve are visited only once a day by a maximum of eight tourists. It's perhaps because it's the low season during the rains that it's not booked up solid.Melissa managed to get home on the Friday in time for us to catch the 11 o'clock bus to Kigali so she could meet up with colleagues and still catch an early bus to Musanze. Another sobering sight met us on a corner at the bottom of a hill. A bus had rolled down a steep embankment having failed to negotiate the bend. Dazed and bedraggled passengers stood around by the bus fifty feet down from the road. From our brief observation of the scene, everyone seemed to be standing but no help had yet arrived. The bus itself was one distinctive by its green livery; all other buses are white, and its characteristic, rather top heavy shape. Not a line we use or intend to use.We were met in Musanze by Cathy, the proprietor of the house where we were to stay. She was with Teste, her husband who gave us a lift to the house a few hundred metres distant. She is Canadian but about to become a Rwandan citizen having been in the country for close to 7 years. She is involved with a lot of charitable work, notably a school she runs for which she uses the donations given to her by the guests that stay in her house.Teste also acts as a driver for those guests visiting the gorillas. We arranged to be up and ready for 6.15 to get to the visitor centre using his ageing Land Cruiser comfortably ahead of the 7.00 departure. We got there well before the rush in order to have some little say as to which group of gorillas we visited. Some groups are more than just a step away. The more unfit amongst those in the groups; peoples' grandmas and lardy Americans are directed towards the shorter journeys. How our group rated in the difficulty league will remain unknown but it took 2 hours of tough walking through dense vegetation before we encountered the "amahoro" group or "peace" gorillas.Our search was made easier by an advance party of trackers who located them and reported back to the guides their whereabouts by radio. A brisk pace was set by the lead guide, in wellingtons and armed with an AK47. The weaponry was felt necessary to stand some chance against poachers or the buffalo that live in the reserve. Indeed the first traces of life, apart from the birds, were buffalo tracks and fresh dung.One of the hazards of taking the narrow paths through the reserve was the presence of the largest stinging nettles I have ever seen. Some of them must have been 7 feet tall and with stems over an inch thick. Their leaves glinted with a frosting of needles and the lower leaves stung through thick trousers. Machetes cleared the worst of them and their increasing use to clear the paths gave the clue we were nearing our rendezvous as we left the beaten tracks.We met up with the advance party of trackers and it was here we left packs and sticks to allow freer movement close to the gorillas. Our first sight was of the silverback above us on the side of the hill sitting half hidden in the vegetation looking in our direction. The guides went on ahead all the while voicing a low growling grunt to give assurance of our lack of threat. We followed and got within 5 or 6 metres-I was surprised to see him munching on goose grass or cleavers, not something I would have given Michelin stars for. He was regally unconcerned by the scrum of nervous photographers and leaving his meal unfinished presented us with his silverback and not inconsiderable backside and ambled off into a thicket of bamboo.He had been the only individual we had been able to see, but rustlings and violent shakings of the bamboo close by hinted he was not alone. The guides forced an entry through the bamboo and indicated the best path for us to follow. Brief glimpses of other members of his family could be snatched through the dense canes. By and by we advanced slowly getting used to the gloom and gradually became aware of the extent of the gathering. The most active were three boisterous adolescents wrestling and rugby tackling each other. They had cleared a form of arena 4 or 5 metres across in the stand of bamboo by systematically pulling over and breaking the 5 or 6 metre high canes in order to eat the leaves at the top. Their games of tag had also created avenues at the four principal poles of this space to create the illusion of a stage. We, the audience crouched taking in the spectacle in the dim but atmospheric greenish light. We kept ourselves to the margins, but as the wrestling and tumbling took place on a sloping surface, bodies rolled towards us in a disconcerting way. The guides were concerned both for our safety and the gorillas' health-respiratory infections caught from tourist are a major threat. They did their best to remove us from the bouts; squeezing back between the bamboo canes was an option as it still allowed good observation. A close eye needed to be kept on the third young male as he had the habit of entering the stage at a rush using the avenues, often along the one we were gathered in to keep our distance from the main action. He grabbed the bag of a slight woman in his progress, but she hung on and he let go before any harm could be done.This activity was intermittent, often the whole company becoming inert, unselfconsciously posing on their backs mimicking human males by scratching and fiddling with themselves. The peace would be disturbed by one deciding to jump on another and the cycle would begin again. The silverback was disinclined to lower himself to this level, being asleep under a thick patch of scrub not in the least concerned.For the hour we were privileged to be there, they hardly moved 30 metres from where we first saw them, unlike other groups, who we are told, have to be constantly tracked though it feels often more of a pursuit to keep in contact, so not much time for close observation.At the end of it our departure seemed to go unnoticed and we made our way back to the vehicles to be bumped and jolted back along the track paved with the volcanic rock of the region. I recommend you don't go undergo a similar journey in the back of an antiquated Land Cruiser and expect to have your kidneys still in place.Once back in Musanze, we took the opportunity to use Teste's local knowledge and contacts to look for my accommodation. Having visited 3 guest houses we chose one that had a good size room and hot water and only a little distant from where the buses run to the college. I hope it's further from the mosque and it's muezzin who had been calling on the hour every hour from 4 o'clock while we tried to sleep at Cathy'sThe evening was spent very pleasantly in Cathy and Teste's company, together the rest of their house hold; a couple who are returning visitors and who are doing African studies and teaching at Cathy's school and 2 lads, alumni of the school, one of whom has gained a scholarship to go to universityCathy has many interests among which animals and their welfare are to the fore. She observed that Rwandans in general have a fear of dogs and cats amounting to their active destruction. She has witnessed their stoning and beating; on challenge the defence is that animals feel no pain. Dogs gather in packs and breed uncontrollably; puppies if found are often killed or taken off, dying after a few days of inappropriate feeding. Ownership of dogs or cats is rare and being concerned enough to have them looked at by a vet is even rarer.This worries me greatly on a number of counts. On the practical side, where are these students going to get their clinical material, there seems little likelihood that clinics will furnish suitable cases or that there will be much neutering done normally. The greater concern is how these future vets see themselves in relation to the animals they will be dealing with. Will their priority be the welfare of the animal or the requests of the client? I know this can still be a big issue in the UK but in a culture that seems to regard pets as a scourge it may have more radical effects. According to Cathy, when she has offered to euthanase a tortured dog or cat, this has met with blank incomprehension- it's going to die soon so what's all the fuss? I am assured that when it comes to cattle, which are valued out of proportion to their worth as income generators, to the extent of being status symbols, welfare issues will be clearer. However, in my experience if cattle have a high value farmers are reluctant to have them killed on welfare grounds unless they can be won over or shamed into agreeing.I need to formulate some sort of questionnaire for these students to see exactly how they regard their role as professionals visà vis welfare. It will take a bit of skill to prepare in order to elicit a true picture. Any of you vets out there got any ideas as to the format?