by John Fowler
Feeding resumes in the second half of the morning, with the group moving on again to fresh foods not flattened by gorilla rest and play. Like the human lunchtime, or siesta, midday marks the mountain gorilla’s long rest period. As for the morning rest, the group becomes idle again, either sprawling out, particularly if there’s sunshine, or huddling into day nests. Again, the youngsters may rest or play, with long periods of nursing for the infants, and grooming of each other and the silverback. After as much as an hour or more of snoozing farts and burps and picking teeth, appetite spurs them on again to forage as before.
While males become silverbacks at around fifteen years old, they become sexually interested before that, and potentially reproductive. These subadult blackbacks, like Ziz of Group 5, don’t have the social rank within a group to breed with mature females. Females mature earlier, at about eight years old, and if a female is cycling, copulation may occur at any time of the day. Sex is a largely public affair for gorillas, with only a modicum of privacy vegetation might provide. If the relationship is sanctioned by the alpha silverback, in non-competition for his select females, privacy is less of an issue for other sexually mature males in the group. If the affair is clandestine, and adulterous by gorilla standards, privacy is a must, but difficult to achieve. Although a couple might linger behind, or move off peripherally from the group into a thicket, their staccato copulation vocalizations, emitted in a series of eh eh eh eh eh . . . rises in vigor and volume until revealing the tryst to all and giving away its location. Then, the cuckolded male intervenes and disrupts with his best display of screams and chest beats.
I did witness another clandestine copulation in an isolated instance of lesbian sex between Effie and Pantsy. The two adult females lingered away from the others as they solicited each other. Their playful advances culminated in the two hanging frontally by their arms from a leaning sapling while rubbing their genitals together. Their pursed lips and swaying heads revealed their gratification at this brief secret tryst before each dropped to the ground and moved on to rejoin the group.
As with humans, gorilla youngsters are curious about sex, and seem to find humor in the conjugal antics of the adults, impishly gathering near the scene of a copulation, or dashing through daringly in play, as if taking advantage of the conjoined pair’s distraction, baffled and bemused. Despite a silverback’s massive body size, his penis is remarkably small; even when erect it is only about half the size of a man’s pinkie. Neither does the scrotum, covered in fur, protrude enough to be obvious. Although one eventually learns what to look for on either sex, Dian never seemed to master the ability to determine gorilla gender, which resulted in a number of females given male names.
I once watched Beethoven sprawl on his back after a cold rain. His tiny penis became erect in the warm sun. Young Poppy was passing by, and stopped to stare at it as if to say, “What IS that? I never knew THAT was there . . .” When little Cantsbee wandered into the same scene, Beethoven, still on his back, idly dragged the youngster back and forth over his rigid member a few times before releasing the befuddled tyke. Afterward, Cantsbee simply scampered off to play with the other youngsters. The scene would have earned the silverback prison time had they been human. Onward movement to forage and feed is usually determined by the lead silverback, but the group will also follow an alpha female who, done with waiting around, might also initiate the direction of the next feed. Vulnerability and risk of danger ahead will limit the distance an assertive female will move from her protective male, and a silverback will usually resume the lead again. After the first afternoon foray, the group has another short rest, similar to that of the morning, before once again moving on to feed. A group may traverse a relatively short distance where food is abundant, or may cover a great distance in search of seasonal plants, like coveted blackberries or bamboo sprouts. Sometimes they may climb high on the volcanoes to eat high-altitude lobelia or favored senecio, cracking the thick stems with their mighty teeth and arms to extract the tender crunchy white pith inside. Nights are cold in such places, and the group usually moves lower before the day ends. Near sundown, as the day darkens and cools, the group stops for the day, and each builds its own night nest, a more substantial version of their day nest, and settles in for the long sleep of the night. Infants sleep in one nest with their mothers. Sometimes younger adolescents will too. I could soon see how gorillas represent humans at their most basic primal state in their daily endeavors to meet the fundamental basic primate needs for food, security, sex, and possession—possession being in the context of the feeding grounds they occupy, much in the sense of human property. The silverbacks defend this real estate in uproarious fervor, with loud hoots, chest beats, and even violent maulings, when another group ventures into their stomping grounds. It is easy for me to understand humans as primates, not so far removed from our great ape cousins.
In the tradition of American labor, each day worked out to at least an eight-hour day. It was funny that an approaching holiday would mean anything at ten thousand feet up in the remote Virunga Volcanoes of Rwanda, but I found myself thinking about the approaching Easter Sunday, as if I should take a day off. Peter recalled that Kelly Stewart had dressed up like a bunny one Easter and went around camp, distributing Easter eggs. Dian had loved it at the time, but that was before she had written Kelly off like everyone else.
Peter had been wanting to take a trip to the town of Gisenyi, on Lake Kivu, one of the Rift Valley’s great lakes. It lay below five thousand feet on the far side of Mount Karisimbi, and was within a morning’s drive from the base of Visoke, via Ruhengeri. I was intrigued by the lake’s reputation as being safe for swimming due to its high methane gas content, which while safe for humans, rendered it mostly free of the aquatic snail that served as the vector of Africa’s nasty bilharzia parasite. This flatworm used a snail as its host, and infected the urinary and gastrointestinal tracts of unwitting swimmers in tropical and subtropical lakes, rivers, and waterways. The disease, also known as schistosomiasis, infects its victims with bloody diarrhea and anemia. It was rare to be able to swim in a tropical African freshwater lake, and Lake Kivu even lacked dangerous crocodiles and hippos. I was in for a Spring Break at the beach, of sorts. We packed up Karisoke’s green military tent for the trip. Although we didn’t know where we’d camp exactly, we felt sure we’d be able to find a spot. It was a resort town, of sorts, after all.
“We’ll have to stop at a friend’s of mine in Ruhengeri,” Peter said, “I met him a while back, and he’s been wanting me to come down and have lunch.”
When we got to André Servais’s house, his girlfriend, Mary, greeted us at the door. André wasn’t home yet, and it was a little awkward, because we spoke neither French nor Kinyarwanda, and she spoke neither English nor Swahili. Still, through gestures, and a few common words of the aforementioned languages, she invited us inside and had us seated in the living area of their simple, comfortable white stucco home.
Mary was a beautiful girl, tall, graceful, and elegant, with delicate features. She wore her hair close-cropped like most Rwandans, and was dressed très Americaine in a trendy denim dress, which clung perfectly to her lithe body. A row of buttons up the back accentuated the graceful arching bow of her spine from hem to neckline. Her youth and femininity made me realize how long it had been since I’d seen a pretty young lady.
But what kind of a lady was she, I wondered, when André arrived. Mary excused herself to check on things in the kitchen as the Belgian expat greeted us heartily, especially Peter, whom he obviously adored. He was much older than Mary, and not so handsome, with thinning hair, spindly salt- and-pepper moustache, pot belly, and scrawny appendages, I could only surmise that Mary had taken up with him for all the wrong reasons. Especially when Peter told me that André had a wife back home in Belgium. Things just got weirder when our host took Peter aside in another room to show him a collection of nude photos of his live-in concubine. I could see Peter’s bewilderment, when he told me about this lat
er.
Soon Mary served us lunch at a long dining table next to the kitchen. After setting the table, she sat at the head. I was struck by the dish she served with our roasted chicken, a mixture of beans and plantains. It had been stewed with dried beans until everything had become tender in a rich sauce, like American chili, and just as satisfying.
“Igitoki,” Mary said, when I asked her about it; the Rwandan word for plantain.
It was good, very different for us Americans, and uniquely African.
André poured white wine, making small talk with Peter and me as we ate, asking about Karisoke and the gorillas. He seemed genuinely interested, especially about the birth of little Maggie, which he translated for Mary to her delight. It was nearly two hours before André needed to get back to work, the nature of which I don’t recall. We said our farewells to our host on his fenced front lawn, as a friend of Mary’s arrived on foot.
“That’s Dr. Weiss’s wife,” André said with a grin, before leaving us. “She started out as his housekeeper.” André didn’t need to fill Peter and me in on the back story of Dian’s victorious rival and her ill-fated romance with the Frenchman. Dr. Peter Weiss was the same gent Stuart and I stumbled upon with Kima’s lifeless body at the hospital. Despite the doctor being in his seventies, this young wife of his appeared to be only in her twenties.
Compared to Mary, Faina was a sturdy gal, thick-set, loud, and boisterous in her mannerisms. Unlike the très chic denim dress that Mary wore with hip elegance, Faina had on the common French-cut T-shirt, a wrapped kanga for a skirt, and simple Rwandan factory flip-flops. Still, Mary obviously took comfort in her friend’s self-assuredness, letting her take over the entertaining.
“Iko lugha yangu!” Faina said boisterously with a husky laugh, as Peter and I tried our Swahili on her. That’s my language! Her voice was loud and confident, compared with her friend Mary’s soft-spoken demeanor.
“Oh, where are you from?” I asked in Swahili.
“Tanzania!” she said, again laughing.
I noticed she wore a fine gold chain necklace with her name, “FAINA,” spelled out in a pendant. The whole scene of Dian coming down the mountain and smashing Dr. Wiess’s windshield in a blind rage over this rival lover flashed through my mind. Faina looked like she could kick Dian’s ass back up the mountain with one blow, and I guess in a way she had.
Lake Kivu shimmered beautifully on descent from the volcanic uplands into the small city of Gisenyi, extending far southward along the border between Rwanda and Zaire. Looking down the shoreline, this city on the lake merged into the adjoining city of Goma, Zaire, just across the border, where Rwanda’s sandy beach ended. Upon arrival, I felt the warmth of the lower altitude and sunshine, and quickly changed into swim trunks in the van. The golden sand felt good under my bare feet. The lake’s waters were warm and inviting, and as I waded in up to my neck, I took comfort in knowing its volcanic methane gas ruled out the risk of tropical disease. Fishermen in carved dugout canoes drifted on the horizon, casting nets for the tiny sardine-like samaki so abundant at the marketplace. I allowed myself to soak blissfully in the warm water and idyllic views of the Kivu District in all directions.
After our relaxing swim, we set out to find our home base for the next two nights, but soon realized there were no proper campgrounds. Our search led us to a large green expanse of picturesque shoreline just to the southeast of town, along the lake. The manicured lawns turned out to be owned by a Catholic convent, and an elder nun met us upon arrival.
“I’m sorry, that would not be possible,” the Belgian sister in a gray-and-white habit informed us when Peter asked if we could pitch our tent on the beautiful lakeside spot.
Back in town, our luck, and hunger, landed us at the small but chic Palm Beach Hotel, a relic from the art deco era, and an earlier period of colonialism. A block in from the lake, the hotel’s raised patio with a bustling clientele was, as far as we could tell, Gisenyi’s center of activity after dark. Peter and I, on our shoestring budget, were satisfied that a room was available for just ten dollars. Tired from the day’s travels, we took seats at a dining table al fresco, and enjoyed a couple bottles of Primus in the balmy night air before dinner.
As we finished our meal, and ordered more Primus, a couple of men in a small pickup truck drove up to the wall of the raised terrace. Upon their arrival, women came trotting out of the hotel, adjusting their simple kangas and T-shirts. Each wore their hair in a short Afro, and looked like typical Rwandan farm wives. Except for their common attire, it was obvious they were prostitutes, finished with their tour of duty for the day. Our table was just above where the women boarded the bed of the truck en masse. One of them, looking no different from the rest, but more brazen, caught me staring.
“Bon soir, Monsieur!” she exclaimed. “Je t’aime!”
I looked away, but couldn’t contain my nervous laughter.
She said something again in French, before trying English.
“Hallooo!” she said, drawing out her vowels as if she couldn’t stop them, “how aaare youuu?”
“Fine!” I said, giving away my language.
“I looove youuu!” she responded, obviously up for one more. “Do youuu looove me?”
Peter just laughed silently into his beer, so as not to direct attention to himself, leaving me on my own—the bastard.
“Do youuu . . . ?” she said again, still working it. “Do you love me, toooo?”
“I don’t even know you!” I responded at last, laughing at the absurdity of my cliché.
“Hallo Mister!” she persisted, having no inkling of what I’d said in response. “Hallo, I love youuu. Why don’t youuuu looove me?”
By then, I could only squirm in my seat, wondering what the other diners and drinkers must’ve been thinking, but they acted as if they’d seen it all before. As the last of the women emerged from the hotel and entered the back of the truck, the driver’s assistant closed the door to the bed and hopped back to the passenger side. To my discomfort, the driver gave the assertive hooker one last chance. She was only a few feet away from me, just off the terrace, making the moment that much more awkward. I wanted to get up and go.
“I love you Mister!” my new would-be friend persisted, even as the truck finally drove away. “Why don’t you looove meee . . . ?”
That was enough romance. When Peter and I finally ascended the hotel’s tiled stairs, our room key unlocked a tiny square space with one full and one twin bed, taking up nearly all of the small floor. A communal bathroom was down the hall. Too tired and tipsy to care, we carefully secured the row of door locks before flopping onto the beds and laughing about the absurdity of the day’s events.
The next day was Easter Sunday, and we visited the Gisenyi Market, at the top of the hill above town center. There, we could easily see Mount Karisimbi in the clear morning air. I thought about how Karisoke lay in the saddle area just beyond it. Peter mentioned that Dian’s friend, Ros Carr, had a home somewhere up in the direction of this familiar volcano, and on Sundays she had African dancers and a picnic lunch open to all visitors. Ultimately realizing we didn’t really know which road would get us there, we opted to stay in Gisenyi and peruse the market.
“Iko mzungu,” one local said to his friend, grabbing his shoulders and turning him toward me as I ventured into the center of the marketplace.
When I turned away in the awkwardness of the moment, the friend plucked a fallen hair from my shoulder and carried it through the crowd, showing others. I could only surmise that they didn’t get many whites up there, but I also thought of Dian’s tradition of throwing her own brushed hairs and nail clippings into the fire so they couldn’t be used against her in black magic. I found myself wondering where that hair would end up.
A woman soon approached with a large handwoven basket atop her head. Struck by the bright magenta geometric pattern intricately woven into its base and matching lid, she zeroed in on my interest. She declined my offer of ten dollars, but her f
riends urged her on when I brought a pair of my mom’s mod-era dangly earrings out of my backpack to sweeten the pot. I had prepared for this based on my experience from the year before in Kenya. The women’s friends, more dazzled by the earrings than the seller was, urged her on, and the basket was mine.
The owner of a small restaurant flanking the market showed a similar excitement when Peter and I decided to eat there.
“Come, come, sit down!” he said, grabbing my shoulders, and guiding me to a seat in a booth. “We have rice and chicken meat!”
The sound of “chicken meat” was a little sketchy, but we were hungry, so what the heck. The chicken was as tough as the old rooster it must have been, but flavorful, and right within our budget at three dollars a serving. After that, we took a couple of cold Primus back down to the beach for a final swim.
Not wanting to spend another ten dollars on a cramped room at the Palm Beach Hotel, Peter and I drove the length of Gisenyi before dinnertime. Finally, just shy of the checkpoint into Goma, at the border of Zaire, we spotted a small guest house with a restaurant, and stopped in for dinner. Fortunately, the kindly white-haired Belgian proprietor spoke some English.