Day 2 Rwanda

A Tribute to Digit

Wow… this was a late morning.I was the last wake up, waking up two hours later than Billy and one hour later than Jenny at 11:30. Sleep last night was marred with issues from the malaria medicine, jet lag, a rock hard mattress and nervous thoughts running through my head.

We are currently adjacent to an area that is a Level 4 on the State Department’s Advisory for travel; AKA-Do Not Travel for Any Reason-except to Volcanoes National Park. You are warned to not travel within 6 miles of the border of Democratic Republic of the Congo, due to unrest and armed militias and we are sitting at about the 6 mile marker – however, we are in the apparent “safe” zone. So when the power shut off at a few minutes after midnight without any prior warnings, I’ll be honest in thinking, “Oh sh@t, here they come.” I quickly formulated a plan in my head which included hiding Jenny in the lidded laundry basket and jumping in her bed so they’d never know there was a third person in the room. So, as you can imagine… it took a long time for my head to calm down and my heart to stop pounding- silly I know but it’s typically the way I roll. Hence why the 11:30 wake up for me.

Having slept through breakfast, we had lunch at 1:00 before Anderson came to pick us up for an afternoon outing. We had asked to do some shopping for local items and to go to the Dian Fossey Center.

We went to the women’s cooperative first which turned out to be a fantastic stop! Before we even made it up to the welcome area though, we got sidelined by the extraordinary birds and the colorful flowers.

Once upstairs we were warmly welcomed and shown in to various areas where the women were busy handcrafting a plethora of objects. The first stop was where they were creating walking sticks that were hand carved and beaded- a very intricate process.

We then saw where they turned textiles into various items such as bags, skirts, aprons etc. using foot-powered sewing machines. Next up was the workshop where they weaved products from naturally dyed rafia and local grasses. In this workroom, the girls/ladies also entertained us with a drum riff and dancing.

They even managed to get Jenny and I up there to dance along with them! It was quite a special occasion.

We finished up in the painters workshop where the few males whose work was on display were quick to recognize that they were there to support the women.

Once the three of us stepped into the giftshop we went a bit hog wild. Billy bought one of the walking sticks; Jenny and I each buying paintings, miniature carved gorillas, small weaved baskets, reusable bags and beautiful metal candlesticks that also had beading. It is the kind of endeavor we like to support, so we did!

Billy with the lady whose beadwork is on the walking stick

From there we headed over to the Dian Fossey Museum. The museum was very well put together giving a thorough history of her life, her work as a researcher, the gorillas she came to love and protect (Digit had been her favorite) and her untimely death. There was a replica of the cabin she lived in housing many of her personal effects (having been funded by Sigourney Weaver).

It also had great displays on the conservation efforts spearheaded by her; where they are today; and what they are working towards in the future. There are four types of gorillas in the world- the ones in the zoo are lowland gorillas, the ones we will see tomorrow are mountain gorillas. At one point there were only an estimated 250 of them left in the wild, today there are about 1065. In fact, mountain gorillas are the only species of the great apes that are actually growing in numbers – a rare success story!

It was interesting to learn that gorillas do not have fingerprints, researchers tell them apart using nose wrinkles- similar to the way they tell whales by their fluke notches. Here we bought a cool print of Digit’s nose wrinkles and a weaved mat.

Afterwards Jenny asked Anderson if he could drive us around a bit to see some of the local life. He didn’t seem too interested in it (maybe he thought there’s not much to “see”) but Jenny pushed for it so he agreed.

We drove high up into the mountains where we could see a few of the volcanoes surrounding us though their tops were shrouded in clouds.

Up here at about 8600’ there were fields and fields of potatoes. Anderson explained purple-flowered plants yield purple potatoes and white-flowered plants yield white potatoes. It is incredible how the farmers transport their potatoes. They are put in huge sacks that are probably four feet tall by two feet wide; each weighing a good hundred and fifty pounds; then one sack is loaded on to a bicycle! At one point, one of the transport bicycles passed us and in an incredulous voice Jenny asked, “Was that smoke coming off the bottom of that guy’s shoes?” Anderson laughed and confirmed it was. The guys who deliver the potatoes cut up old tires, glue hunks of them to only one of their shoes and use that to slow them down when going downhill or coming to a stop. And let me tell you, these guys fly! At one point Anderson tried to keep us with one so we could video him and he couldn’t. An absolutely astonishing sight and ingenious method.