It’s a bit of a cliché to say that gazing into the eyes of a wild gorilla, at close range, is a wildlife experience like no other. But a good cliché works for a reason..... I'm afraid you’re going to have to bear with me on this one and forgive me also, if I can’t help chucking in a few superlatives along the way. These animals are impressive and awe-inspiring.
Part of their mystique, of course, is that they’re just so rare: there are only seven hundred or so Mountain Gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei ) left in the wild and they cling to a precarious existence on just two small patches of prime real estate a few kilometres apart - the Virunga Mountains and the Bwindi massif, along the borders of Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
It doesn’t help that this enormously fertile, well-watered corner of Africa supports a huge human population, all desperate for access to more farmland; nor that the volcano range that supports the rich forest is still active - the last erruption was only a handful of years ago, when the main street of Goma was submerged in meters of lava, covering cars, trucks, shop fronts and destroying livlihoods; nor that it lies at the epicentre of a region that has frequently been shaken by episodes of violence of an almost unimaginable savagery over the last few decades. Think Idi Amin, the Rwanda genocide, the decades long ongoing conflict in the DRC… all in all, it’s a wonder that any gorillas have managed to survive at all.
But survive they miraculously have, and to spend a precious hour with these gentle giants, munching peacefully on wild celery and other forest delicacies, leaves you with a feeling that all is somehow well with the world. Not forgetting the periodic reminders of the pitfalls of a high fibre diet, which affects the big apes as much as it does us.
Let’s go back to those eyes for a minute. A gorilla’s eyes are a deep, warm brown, hinting at ancient knowledge and infinite patience. They have no problem with staring straight back at you, as if curious about you and your place in their world. That is the moment you experience the frisson of subliminal connection that makes your time with the gorillas so precious and unique.
They have an extraordinary presence. It is something to do with their size, their impressive muscles together with an aura of serene gentleness.
Time spent with gorillas is utterly unlike chimp viewing. Due to their social structure, omnivorous diet and a bunch of other factors, chimps are entertaining but unpredictable animals, capable of violent displays, intense play, tool-making techniques, cooperative hunting, political intrigue worthy of a medieval court and an awful lot of noise. An hour with them can leave your ears ringing, your heat pumping and a crick in the neck. While gorillas feel … benign. Don’t mess with their babies and be respectful of a silverback, obviously, but as long as you don’t cross these boundaries, a gorilla encounter is a peaceable affair. If that makes it sound like a let-down in comaprison, let me assure you it is not.
I could go on gushing for ages in the same vein, but I should probably stop here. Let me finish with a few scene-setters to give you a taste of what that day felt like.
The hike to the forest from the lodge – holy macaroni, is this a good idea?? A steep 2000 foot descent to the forest edge far below, with the knowledge that what goes down must, inevitably, and with much puffing and sweating, come up again. (It turns out to be surprisingly easy – our guide does a great job of setting an easy pace).
An immature animal, playing in a tree: he considers us with such a serious, owlish expression, that it is difficult not to laugh. I feel he would be offended though. He plays just as seriously, turning a stately somersault and then looking around, to see who noticed, as if he is taking part in a scientific study of play.
A silverback, half-hidden among the leaves, his eyes in shadow – what is he thinking? We can just make out his vast bulk through the foliage but the physical sense of his presence is overwhelming.
The family all bedded down for a late-morning snooze in a forest clearing.
The guide calls time, and we turn and start the homeward trudge. Just then, a silverback comes out onto the trail (‘Everybody off the trail, let him pass!') and he pauses for a long moment, before knuckling his way off into the forest, allowing us a last unscripted look at the monarch of this magical forest.
*****
A sad footnote to this post concerns the Batwa (singular: Mutwa) Pygmies. The Batwa are the original inhabitants of the Central African forests and, for possibly half a million years before the coming of the Bantu peoples and then the white man, lived in relative harmony with their surrounds. Over the last 70-80 years, however, they have become more and more marginalised in Uganda, as forests have been steadily cut down to make way for agriculture and human expansion. In 1991, the Mgahinga and Bwindi National Parks were gazetted, as part of a trans-national effort to protect the remaining Mountain Gorillas. One of the stipulations of international donors was that everyone living within the parks should be evicted, at a stroke reducing the Batwa to squatters on their ancestral land, their traditional hunter / gatherer way of life criminalised. A classic example of how well-intentioned conservation can destroy as much as it can save, if the wider eco-picture is not always in the forefront of policy making. The government has set aside a parcel of land for the community near Bwindi. Unbelieveably, this is a mere 35 acres all told. Here, they are trying to integrate into modern Ugandan life; the Mutwa guide tells how they are growing crops, building modern huts with tin roofs and sending their kids to school. They earn revenue from ‘cultural visits’ like ours. The women and children put on a dance and demonstrate skills like lighting a fire with fire sticks. It all sounds rather wonderful and yet feels merely worthy and slightly dispiriting. I can’t help wondering how long this community will continue in any real sense – their forest way of life was central to their existence and now they are cut off from that. Like aboriginal peoples everywhere, the Batwa struggle to integrate: levels of alcoholism and drug abuse are rampant and they scrape a living working for a pittance on the farms of others.
Maybe this whole process is inevitable: the displacement of the world’s original inhabitants, our earliest common ancestors, by technologically-superior peoples. But it grates - in this time of environmental hand-wringing, the people with the lightest ecological footprint are the ones who are most thoroughly disenfranchised.
