Post by Michael Evans
Dear Readers,
I was walking back from the
bathroom Thursday morning when I heard my name called, “Michael!” from down
near the fence of our compound. I looked
down to see Travis in a light plaid button-up t-shirt waving, sweeping highly with
his arms. He beckoned me to come down to
the hotel lobby – I knew what it was about, but I thought we were supposed to
meet the gorilla guy at 6:30. It was
6:15. He was early this day, but
tomorrow he would be 30 minutes late which is not a big deal here, nor is it
uncommon. This is what they call Africa
Time. I quickly arranged my bag – rain
jacket, sunscreen, about 3 liters of water, headphones, disposable underwater
camera, 1 larabar, 1 fruit leather - and walked across the street into the main
building of our hotel, the Centre
Pastoral Notre Dame de Fatima.
Travis and I would prepare to see
the gorillas the next day at Volcanoes National Park on Friday. Flashing forward about 27 hours, after our
guide, Olivier, took us up into the forest for about a half hour on a trail
graced with stinging nettle, he informed us that the gorilla family we were to
see were nearby. We would have leave our bags and walking sticks at that spot,
so as not to threaten the gorillas. He
had taught us some gorilla language, including a purring growl which means “No
problem” and a puffed-up hooting which serves as a warning.
In anticipation, we followed him
and another man off the path just a few feet.
As we all paused in a tight machete-cleared walkway, I continued to hear
crashing in the jungle on both sides of us.
I recognized the guide offering his deep-throated growl, saying, or
perhaps better suggesting, “Hello” and “It’s all good.” This requires response
from them as a go-ahead. I heard a confirmation
growl – one more deep than his, as if it did not come from a human..
He told us, “Don’t run, just move
that way,” and we started to, but I turned around and realized that the guide
was using his body as the only thing between us and a dark gorilla, which was crouched
about knee height. But this gorilla was
determined to go where he was going, and he moved around all of those in front
of me undisturbed, passing just in front of me next, pristinely on all fours.
We got to be with the gorillas for
1 hour, and it was amazing to see them.
There were great silverbacks, secure females, wrestling adolescents, and
even an adorable baby who was 5 months old, but still climbed constantly, hung
by one arm, followed his mother, and put it up with his older siblings. They were extremely powerful, strong, and
determined but also very playful and explorative. Their presence was deep. It is an experience which I will remember for
the rest of my life, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to go. There is not enough that I can say about it.
-
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Nothing has been built onto our
structure the past few days, persay, but we have continued our efficacious
progress. We carried large 13-ft planks
of Eucalyptus from Cyanika 20 minutes or so up to our site in-community. We began in pairs of 2, each carrying 2 – on our
shoulders. We began to realize the
difficulty of this, and soon Ellis suggested that we reduce the bearing on our sensitive
bones and muscles. We placed the wood
through the straps of our backpacks, and relieved much of the sharp pain, although
we still have some nice bruises to show for our efforts. As we paused for a short break along the way,
we were overtaken by our translator Hassan, who was carrying two planks by
himself – on his head.
It was at the site when we realized
that the wood saw we had purchased was not going to suffice. Even the beastly chief and monitor of the new
site, Japhet, could not efficiently cut the wood into the planks we designed. So we headed down to be picked up for our
daily van trip back to Musanze.
Today Curtis, Ellis and Xilal went
into community while Travis and I went on our special trek. They arranged with the mason to build the
foundations for 2 new tanks at Nyrotosho this week and the brick columns for
our new system at Ntarama thereafter.
They also brought in a a saw which we brought from home so the strong Eucalyptus
would could be cut by the workers at Ntarama.
Tomorrow we will continue our work,
refilling the holes we dug for tank foundations partway. . . we accidentally designed
them to be ridiculously too deep. We
also will cut rebar for our tank foundations, and go from there.
Thanks much for reading and keeping
up with us, and you will hear again from us very soon!
Michael
Carrying planks with backpack straps
Jacques messing around with Michael - who's holding who?
Chief Had-Hair in his Natural Advisory Capacity
(52 years old)
Measuring tank locations and putting our practical engineering skills to work with string and sticks
Several of the many adorable kids who hang out with us at Nyrotosho
Another practical engineering lesson - one Hassan is enough weight to keep wood steady for sawing (The man sawing is Japhet, who owns the property on which the system will stand)
No comments:
Post a Comment