By Emmanuel Njuki
The day you go gorilla trekking, you will not remain the same. You will keep wondering what just happened. You will realise that there are just so many things you just didn’t know until that moment. Do gorillas all have that heart-shaped nose? Why are they just so huge? And those arms! The day you will meet a gorilla, you will most likely hear it before you see it. Some people smell it before it graces their sight. And you will not be ready even then. The day I met a gorilla I heard it before I saw it. There was this tree shaking that interrupted the hitherto constant water stream flow sound. But this sound was strange! The warden shooed up all back, as if in a protective barrier and as she ensured she was the last person forward. No one comes beyond this line, she seemed to say. I asked her, in a whisper, “Are those them?” “Yes,” she answered, still placing a protective arm barrier. Even with the anticipation that I had built up over months to this point, I didn’t feel ready for this meeting!
You didn’t have to ask to know who was in charge of the family, at this moment. And this moment lasted a full hour. An hour that flew past. You can track gorillas in only four places in the world and two of those are in Uganda; Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and Mgahinga Gorilla National Park both in Kisoro on the border with Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). And that is where the other two gorilla tracking places are; Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda and Virunga National Park in the DRC. But when you think about it, it is really only one place where the world’s remaining population of 1,063 mountain gorillas live-the Virunga massif. The gorillas are no respecters of human created political borders and they crisscross through these different parts at will. To them, it is just one big homestead; the rainforest. Although their status has progressed from ‘critically endangered’ to ‘endangered’, they still are, well, endangered. Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is home to the largest population of the world’s gorillas, at 459 with 17 habituated families one of which you will most likely meet. You can also track gorillas in Mgahinga National Park with a single habituated family, curiously with more than one silver back.
You may also choose to spend four hours instead of one if you book the mountain gorilla habituation experience. You will travel with researchers and conservationists who make first contact with these gentle giants before they are safe to visit by tourists. The day you will meet a gorilla, you will be struck by its sheer size. Oh my! The male silverbacks really grow huge and they know it so they constantly show off their size and even more if they feel their family is being threatened. You will note the human characteristics that will amaze you -we are cousins after all. They can catch human disease especially the flue so you will not only be encouraged, nay, mandated to wear a face mask. You will also stay at least seven metres away as you watch them. Their immunity is not as good as a human’s and as you may have guessed from their living quarters, they don’t have that much in medical facilities.
The day you will meet a gorilla you will be reminded of parenting from the flurry of activities between the infant gorillas and their mothers, whether it is feeding, nurturing, back riding or disciplining when the little ones get too naughty. The gorillas are the gardeners of the rain forest, balancing up the ecosystem, eating fruit and dispensing the seed, with a dose of manure to ensure continuous growth of trees that ensure we have oxygen and rain. Their conservation is conservation of the forests that are their home. The forest conservation is really self-conservation because what is good for the gorillas is good for us too. So, when you meet a gorilla, you may have paid to meet it, but you will really be funding its conservation and this conservation is selfish-you will live better life when the gorillas do too. I hope you catch all that in one hour. But then again, who said you can’t visit again?