The Impenetrable Forest

by Thor Hanson

  Phenny and his family survived the attack, but by the end of that day nine people would lie murdered in Bwindi Forest. Community Conservation warden Paul Wagaba died with his hands bound, doused with gasoline and burned alive by his Rwandan captors. The rebels then singled out English-speaking tourists and led them away up the Muzabajiro Loop trail, where four Britons, two Americans, and two New Zealanders were hacked to death with pangas. “I led police to the bodies,” Ephraim told me. “It was terrible.”

  Stories from survivors and notes pinned to the victims explained the attack as a calculated political move. The Interahamwe and other Hutu exiles had lived in eastern Zaire since losing power in Rwanda’s civil war, at first in refugee camps and then as roving criminal gangs. They targeted the tourism program at Bwindi to send a message to the world that their struggle for power was still alive and to punish Uganda, Britain, and the United States for their support of the new Tutsi-led government in Rwanda.

  The massacre brought Uganda’s tourism industry to a standstill, underscoring how vulnerable conservation and development programs are to violence and unrest. The fate of Uganda’s people and the fate of its natural areas are inextricably linked; conservation efforts can only be as stable as the social and political systems within which they take place. “They have closed the park,” Tibesigwa lamented to me in a letter after the attack. “We have nothing to chew.”

  A major U.S. newsmagazine attributed the killings to “Africa’s implacable hatreds,” dismissing them as something unfathomable and in some way inevitable. This kind of shallow reporting does little to alter Western misconceptions about Africa. Uganda and its neighbors may seem distant, exotic, and complex, but we cannot afford to be so completely uninformed. The killers at Bwindi were the same Rwandan extremists responsible for the genocide of up to a million of their Tutsi and moderate Hutu countrymen in 1994. If the international community had known more, empathized more, and intervened then, those soldiers and militia would not still be armed and active today. The massacre at Bwindi demonstrated all too well that in the shrinking modern world, ignorance and inaction in the face of suffering will ultimately affect us all.

  After the attack, the Ugandan army stationed a garrison at Buhoma, assigning soldiers to accompany every forest walk and gorilla trek. There were no further incidents at the park, and tourism rebounded quickly. Across the border in eastern Zaire, however, war and civil unrest have continued unabated, with numerous rebel groups and militias operating over large swaths of lawless countryside. The border region remains troubled, but Ugandans have adapted to the insecurity with the pragmatism of a people who survived colonialism, Idi Amin, and Milton Obote. Soon after my 2007 visit, the Interahamwe surfaced again in a raid on Butagota, killing three people and looting several shops and homes before being repulsed. “It was not a serious attack,” William wrote to me. “Even the bus made its trip to Kampala as usual.”

  In a regional context, Bwindi remains the most stable protected area, a cornerstone of gorilla conservation efforts and the most heavily visited gorilla tracking destination. International groups and researchers view it as an ongoing test case for ecotourism and the concept of integrated conservation and development. Though intellectually appealing, linking economic goals and biodiversity conservation has often proved difficult in practice. True ecotourism must balance the simultaneous protection and exploitation of fragile natural areas, while finding ways to fairly disseminate benefits in complex rural societies. In his doctoral dissertation, anthropologist Chris Sandbrook found that Bwindi’s program had performed “surprisingly well,” stimulating the local economy, financing forest protection, and helping engender better attitudes toward the park. The community campground and other revenue-sharing programs have helped fund schools and a medical clinic, sponsor students and women’s groups, and build a gravity-fed water system to villages throughout the parish. The park also serves as a locus for other development projects, from a modern health center to public Internet access, community health outreach, and a small gorilla research facility. During my visit I even met a team of engineers from the European Union scouting the Munyaga River for its small-scale hydroelectric potential.

  While these projects represent tangible increases in the local standard of living, they have not come without costs. “In Buhoma it is like Kampala now,” William warned me. “Land is very expensive, prices are high, and people are not planting like they used to.” For those who lack the education or family connections to get a good job in the tourism industry, the rising cost of living makes traditional farming less viable. Some worry the community is becoming too dependent on tourism, vulnerable to its unpredictable trends and fluctuations. Also, the influx of new people has brought unwelcome cultural changes, from the commodification of traditional dancing and crafts to begging, petty crime, and prostitution. Soldiers, drivers, and other short-term residents now fuel a busy sex trade in a rural community ill prepared for its impacts. While Uganda’s aggressive campaign to rein in the AIDS crisis has reduced the national HIV rate to 6 percent, infections in the Buhoma valley have skyrocketed.

  For Bwindi’s gorillas, the impacts of tourism and the comprehensive park management it affords may best be measured in numbers. Census data show an encouraging population increase since the park was created, from an estimated 280–300 in 1991 to 340 in 2006 (similar trends in the Virungas bring the total mountain gorilla population to approximately 720 individuals). There have been no documented or suspected gorilla killings in Bwindi since the demise of Katendegyere group, but several scabies outbreaks have underscored the gorillas’ vulnerability to human ailments. Disease transmission remains a serious threat, and a recent study found tourist groups regularly approaching the animals too closely. With tourism now generating millions of dollars in revenue, park managers face heavy pressure to keep expanding the program. Already, several tenets of the original management plan have been abandoned. The maximum number of habituated tourist groups rose from three to four, with a fifth in the works, and the daily limit of six visitors per group has risen to eight. “In Rwanda they take eight, so why should Uganda only get six?” one park employee explained. “This was not equitable.”

  In spite of such risks, the daily presence of tourists, rangers, trackers, and soldiers in Bwindi, Mgahinga, and Rwanda’s Parc des Volcans gives the gorillas vital added protection. Unrest in and around Zaire’s Virunga National Park continues to prevent effective management, let alone tourism. In the first half of 2007, Zairian poachers armed with automatic weapons killed at least ten gorillas in Virunga Park, and the situation remains dire. Clearly, mountain gorillas will always be rare creatures, their survival dependent on two small habitat islands isolated in a volatile and increasingly populous landscape. Since I lived in Uganda, the human population has risen from eighteen million to more than thirty million, and that figure is projected to double in less than twenty years.

  “I think Uganda should have two hundred million people,” William told me on the long bus trip back to Kampala.

  “Sure?” I said. “But how can the country support so many?”

  “How can it not?” he answered simply. “You see how things are growing—we will surely reach two hundred million.” If current birth rates continue and William lives to be an old muzee, it could happen in his lifetime.

  On the last day of my visit to Bwindi, I hiked alone through regenerating forest where Bizenga Creek joins the Munyaga River. Purchased from a farmer in the early 1990s, the old fields now boasted a thin canopy of young rain forest trees and dense, shadowy thickets of saplings and shrubs. It was perfect gorilla habitat, and soon enough I spotted familiar signs: flattened vegetation, branches pulled down, and stems split to the pith. The trail looked two days old, but I followed it anyway, winding between trees and ducking through tunnels in the undergrowth. My passing startled up a duiker, who barked a shrill alarm call and fled, its tiny hooves a brief drumbeat on the soft earth. The song of a bush shrike mingled with creek
noise, two olive sunbirds darted past, and I paused to watch velvet ants sipping nectar from a purple-flowered vine.

  When the trail led into an open place I arrived at a loose cluster of nests where the group had slept. I counted them carefully—two females, a juvenile, an infant, and one large male—and my suspicions were confirmed. Only one gorilla family in the area fit that description. Poking through the largest nest I found the telltale gray-tipped hair of a silverback and held it up in the light: Hello, Makale.

  Though he hadn’t been tracked regularly for many years, Makale still interacted with habituated groups, and I’d heard news of his antics. The guides told me how Ruhondeza and the other silverbacks came to fear Makale above all others, steering their families away whenever he came near. When he and Mutesi finally succeeded in luring a female from Mubare group, Makale quickly chased off his older brother and kept her for himself. Another female later joined him, and the new group had been sighted on the slopes of Rukubira, Rushura, and along Muzabajiro creek, a range that closely overlapped the former home of the Katendegyere family.

  I sat on the damp ground beside the nest and leaned against my backpack. Broken clouds passed through the sky above me, casting a call-and-response rhythm of shadow and oven-hot sun. I could picture Makale somewhere close by, gray-saddled now, patriarchal, but with the same bold swagger. It was closer than I’d expected to get to my old friend, and with the forest rising up green before me and a faint breeze lifting the midday heat, it was close enough.

  Glossary

  The Bantu family of African languages includes hundreds of dialects throughout the sub-Saharan region. Rukiga is spoken only in the southwestern part of Uganda, but is structured the same way as all Bantu languages and is very similar to the dialects of neighboring tribes. The language contains several distinct noun classes, each of which has different prefixes to denote plural and singular forms, and sometimes the size of the object. People fall into the Mu-Ba noun class, so a single white person is a muzungu, while many are bazungu. Similarly, a single tribe member is a mukiga, while several, or the tribe as a whole, are referred to as bakiga. Greetings often include a long series of questions and answers, starting with general news and leading to specific queries about the health of one’s family and crops. Only the simple forms and other words used in the book are included here. Verb stems are listed alphabetically, with their infinitive prefix (ku or kw) in parentheses.

  Luganda and Swahili are also Bantu-based tongues, although many of the noun prefixes are different, and Swahili includes Arabic influences stemming from its origins in the trading culture along the Kenyan and Tanzanian coast. Words from these languages are denoted with a capital L or S respectively.

  abantu. People.

  abazungu. Non-African, light-skinned visitors.

  agandi. What’s the news? How are you?

  akavera. A plastic bag.

  amabare. Stones.

  bahima. Ruling class of Ankole kingdom. banda. (S) Traditional house, usually

  round, with thatch roof

  baNyabo. Ladies.

  baSsebo. Sirs, gentlemen.

  boda boda. Bicycle or motorcycle taxis (or their drivers), from the English “border border”—they were originally developed for transport from Ugandan border posts to neighboring countries.

  dhow (S). Type of sailing vessel on East African coast, introduced by Arab traders.

  dudu (S). Insect, bug.

  duka. A shop.

  ebihimba. Beans.

  ebitakuri. Sweet potatoes.

  eego. Yes.

  eki. What?

  emondi. Potatoes.

  empazi. Safari ants.

  engagi. Gorilla.

  enjojo. Elephant.

  enjoka. Snake.

  enkima. Monkey.

  enkobe. Baboon.

  erizooba. Today.

  (ku)garuka. To go back.

  goma (L). Traditional dress for women of brightly colored satin with a wide sash and puffed shoulders.

  (ku)guma. To be tough.

  (ku)gyende. To go.

  hamwe. Together.

  (kw)ija. To come.

  iwe. You (singular).

  jebale (L). Thanks for working.

  Jjuko (L). An Mborogoma clan name.

  ka. Let, as in ka tugyende: “Let’s go.”

  kabaka (L). Traditional king of the Baganda.

  kabaragara. Small sweet bananas.

  kanju (L). Traditional dress for men, a long white smock.

  kare. OK; sometimes used as a greeting.

  karoti. Carrots.

  kashundwe. Wart.

  ki. What.

  kodi. Greeting: “Is anyone home?”

  makyita. Courage, mischief.

  matatu. Taxi van or pickup; also a card game.

  matoke. Green bananas, served steamed and mashed.

  Mborogoma (L). Lion; a clan totem.

  mbuzi. Goat.

  mpora. Sorry.

  mpora, mpora. Slowly by slowly.

  muchuchu. Shadow; dusty.

  munanasi. Pineapple wine.

  munonga. A lot; very much.

  munwani. Friend.

  munyaga. Thief, robber; name of river in Bwindi Forest.

  muraaregye. Spend the night well; good night (to several people).

  musuzi mutya. (L) Good morning (to several people).

  muzee. Old man; sir.

  muzungu. A light-skinned, non-African visitor.

  mwakora. You have worked; thanks for the work. A typical greeting for people digging in the fields or doing other labor.

  na. And.

  ndi gye. I’m fine; it’s good.

  ngaha. No.

  -ngahi. How much? How many?

  nooseera. You’re overcharging me.

  nyabo. Madam.

  obugyeni. Party, celebration.

  oburo. Millet.

  omubisi. Sweet banana juice; unfermented tonto.

  omwifa. A common forest tree and gorilla food (Myrianthus spp.).

  oraaregye. Spend the night well; good night (to one person).

  oriaregye. You spent the night well; good morning (to one person).

  orio. Literally, “you are there,” a casual Rukiga greeting (to one person).

  panga. Machete.

  posho. Corn meal porridge (boil water; stir in white corn meal until you can’t move the spoon; eat).

  (ku)reeba. To see.

  (ku)ronda. To look for.

  rugabo. Silverback.

  (ku)ruhuka. To rest.

  shamba. Small farm.

  ssebo. Sir.

  sula burungi (L). Sleep well; good night.

  (ku)teemba. To climb.

  (ku)teerateera. To beat an alarm.

  tonto. Banana beer.

  tu-. We.

  waragi. Local banana whiskey; also a brand name for Ugandan gin.

  webale. Thank you.

  (ku)yamba. To help.

  (ku)yampa. To pass gas.

  Suggested Reading

  Akeley, Carl E.. In Brightest Africa. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page, 1923.

  Akeley, Mary L. Jobe. Carl Akely’s Africa. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1929

  Ballantyne, R. M. The Gorilla Hunters. Philadelphia: Henry T. Coates & Co., c. 1890.

  Baumgärtel, Walter. Up Among the Mountain Gorillas. New York: Hawthorn Books, 1976.

  Burton, Richard Francis. The Lake Regions of Central Africa. New York: Harper, 1860.

  Carey, M., and E. H. Warmington. The Ancient Explorers. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1929.

  Cook, David, and David Rubadiri, eds. Poems from East Africa. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers, 1971.

  du Chaillu, Paul. Wild Life Under the Equator. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1869.

  Edel, May M. The Chiga of Uganda. 2nd ed. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1996 (1st ed. 1957).

  Foden, G. The Last King of Scotland. New York: Vintage, 1999.

  Fossey, Dian. Gorillas in the Mist. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983.

/>   Goodall, Jane. In the Shadow of Man. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1971.

  Hall, Richard. Lovers on the Nile: The Incredible African Journeys of Sam and Florence Baker. New York: Random House, 1980.

  Hansen, Holger Bernt, and Michael Twaddle, eds. Changing Uganda. London: James Currey, 1991.

  ———. Uganda Now. London: James Currey, 1988.

  Hemingway, Ernest. Green Hills of Africa. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1935.

  Johnson, Martin. Congorilla. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1931.

  Kyemba, Henry. A State of Blood: The Inside Story of Idi Amin. New York: Ace Books, 1977.

  Lamb, David. The Africans. New York: Vintage Books, 1983.

  Moore, Gerald, and Ulli Beier, eds. The Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry. New York: Penguin Books, 1984.

  Moorehead, Alan. No Room in the Ark. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1959.

  Mutibwa, Phares. Uganda Since Independence: A Story of Unfulfilled Hopes. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1992.

  Ngologoza, Paul. Kigezi and Its People. Kampala: East African Literature Bureau, 1969.

  Portal, Gerald. The British Mission to Uganda in 1893. London: Edward Arnold, 1894.

  Roscoe, John. The Soul of Central Africa. London: Cassell, 1922.

  Sandbrook, Christopher. “Tourism, Conservation and Livelihoods: The Impacts of Gorilla Tracking at Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda.” PhD diss., University College London, UK, 2006.

  Schaller, George B. The Mountain Gorilla. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963.

  ———. The Year of the Gorilla. New York: Ballantine Books, 1964.

  Speke, John Hanning. Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile. 1864. Reprint, New York: Dutton, 1969.

  Stanford, Craig. Apes of the Impenetrable Forest. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008.

  Stanley, Henry Morton. The Autobiography of Sir Henry Morton Stanley. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1909.

  ———. In Darkest Africa. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1890.

  ———. Through the Dark Continent. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1878.

  Taylor, Bayard. The Lake Regions of Central Africa. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1881.