gorillas!

The alarm went off at 5:30 a.m. Our last full day in Africa. Gorilla tracking day. We had been looking forward to this since we booked our permits in May. What a way to spend our last day. Now, we know we had said back in January, “Who knows when we’ll be here again?” But this time we mean it. It’s not a big secret that we’re trying to start our family this year (apologies to Harvey Bruce – expand our family). And despite the fact that one of our fellow trackers yesterday was a Dutch man who had just spent a year traveling through Africa with his wife and one year old daughter as part of a Lonely Planet project on traveling with young children, we’re thinking it’s truly going to be some time before we’re back.

Anyway, we were staying at the Kinigi guesthouse, high in the Rwanda mountains, just miles from the borders of the Democratic Republic of Congo to the West and Uganda to the North. It was a fairly simple operation at the guesthouse, but no one stayed there for the accommodations; everyone we met was there for one reason: gorillas. Of course these were the same gorilla families that Dian Fossey had made famous through her book (and eventual Hollywood film), “Gorillas in the Mist”. The permits are pricey and the philosophy that powers the operation (one which Fossey vehemently and understandably opposed) is that only through tourism dollars can the government protect these incredible creatures. Before the money was rolling in, the government (as well as the governments of Uganda and Congo) just couldn’t afford the manpower and resources needed to keep the poachers from killing the adults to sell their hands and feet in the local markets, or from kidnapping the babies to sell to zoos. Our guide told us that in order for the poachers to kidnap one baby, they have to shoot and kill ten to fifteen from the family. After seeing them, I just can’t imagine it. Gorillas share 98% of our genetic make-up; killing one would be like killing a dear relative, albeit a rather furry one…

I don’t know how many of you have seen Aimee when she is REALLLY excited, but it is a sight to behold. Aimee is not someone whom I’d call a morning person. But yesterday, as soon as that alarm sounded, she was in high gear. She sort of doesn’t know what to do with herself so she kind of buzzes all about the room, sometimes saying things in a voice that has to sort of squeaks through her constricted throat muscles. Often, the things she’s saying are not words that I recognize but rather unrecognizable patterns of tones and grunts that seem to signify excitement. Later, in the jungle, I recognized a few of those same grunts and groans coming from some of our primate cousins… At one point, on her way to the bathroom, she jumped on and off the bed for no apparent reason. At another point, she came over to me as I was packing and grabbed me in a bear hug. I have to remind her that she actually needs to get ready because her mind is going in so many different directions that nothing is really happening. While there is a lot of movement and energy, it’s sort of a spinning the wheels kind of thing. I should also mention that it is grand fun to see her in such a state…

She was still buzzing at breakfast and talking about how she hoped we would get in the Susa Group. There are about nine different families of gorillas on the volcanoes. Oh yeah, the mountains that they live on are all dormant volcanoes. All over the area, houses are built from volcanic rock. The river beds are lined with porous grey, dried lava. The paths up the mountain are littered with chunks of volcanic debris. Anyway, there are three groups of gorillas that are solely for research groups and restricted to tourists. Then there are nine groups open to tourism. There is a strict limit of eight permits granted per group per day. Each group is allowed just one hour with the family from the moment they find the group. When we were booking in May, the 14th of July (Vive la France!) was the only available day in the week, and we got the last two permits. Each permit is $500 so there weren’t a whole lot of scruffy, twenty-something backpackers here. In fact, we were among the youngest people on the trek. I’d say most people were in their forties and fifties… Anyway, the Susa group is the most famous of the families. For one, it is the largest. There are thirty-six gorillas in the family and four silverbacks. The other reason for their fame is the fact that twins were born to the family in 2004. It is the first recorded successful gorilla twin birth in history. Apparently it is very, very rare for twins to survive. Their birth was cause for great celebration in the country, and the President and his wife named them during the annual naming ceremony (called “Kwita Izina" in Rwandese). It was clear when we arrived at the Volcanoes Park Headquarters at 7 am that a lot of people wanted to be in the Susa group. Aimee and I, typically, were the last people to show up at the headquarters. We waited in line at the desk and eventually filled out our paperwork, showed our permits, and then went outside to mill about, talk to other travelers, and wait to see what happened next. There were wooden signs staked into the ground around the front lawn, each sign with the words painted, “VNP Welcomes You to (name of gorilla family) Group”. Next to each sign two guides in park ranger outfits were stationed. There were some group names we recognized. Group 13 is well-known for its friendly silverback. Pablo group is fairly well known. And of course, Susa. We met an American family from L.A. They really wanted to be in the Susa group. They tried going over to the Susa sign but were shooed away by the guides and told to wait for assignment by the officer in charge. So Aimee and I waited and watched. “Let go, Let God”, despite the cheesy bumper stickers, is a motto we travel by. So we just kind of smiled to one another and said it: Let Go, Let God. The officer in charge was randomly grabbing people and placing them in groups of eight and then asking them to follow him to one of the signs. We wondered how we would be chosen. Group after group was assigned. The mother in the American family went again to the Susa guides (note: honestly, only American travelers seem to be so pushy) and this time, the guide walked over and said something to the officer. I decided to stick close to the American woman because maybe the guide told the officer that she really wanted Susa. I figured that if I was in proximity, I could get us in. So the officer came over – there were only about three groups left, including Susa -- and asked the family how many. They said “four.” The officer had walked over with another couple so he said he needed two more. I raised my hand, holding up two fingers. Aimee raised her hand. He totally ignored us. He grabbed two other people and asked the group to walk with him. Aimee thought we had been chosen and started to walk with the group. Very disappointed I said, “Aimee, it’s not us.” We were bummed. But lo and behold, they were led to a different family! Not Susa. There were sixteen of us left on the lawn. Another group was rounded up. Again, we tried to get in but were ignored again. They went off and didn’t get Susa. There were only eight of us left and there was only Susa. We couldn’t believe it. Sure enough, the officer came over, rounded us up, and took us to Susa! We were ecstatic. Aimee was beside herself. She wanted to see those twins so badly... and as we stood at our welcome sign, we definitely sensed some Susa Envy.

Our group was interesting. An American trio: a couple in their early forties traveling with their female friend. The couple was tough. She was pretty high maintenance and kept nagging her husband about drinking enough water and putting on more sunscreen throughout the trek. He had done the trek in 1988 but had gained a little in the middle since and I thought several times that he was going to have a heat stroke or start vomiting, or both. He was beet red within minutes and I couldn’t believe he made it to the gorillas. Then there was a young guy from Seattle who was fit and very nice. There was Abbe, our Dutch friend. His wife and kid went home last month so he was solo. He was a bit chatty on the hike but a very friendly and likeable guy. Finally, there was a young Indian named Raghiv. Very sweet, very nice guy who miraculously showed up that morning and secured the one permit remaining due to a last-minute cancellation. Not only did he get a permit but he got the Susa group. What luck! But I knew Raghiv was not much of a hiker. The guides had told us that Susa was usually pretty far up the mountain and that we should be ready for quite a hike. When we arrived after a forty-five minute drive to the base of the mountain, the guides started handing out bamboo walking sticks to help us on the ascent. Raghiv asked what the sticks were for. I thought, “Hmmm… Has he ever hiked before?” Well, literally about five minutes into our 90 minute hike, Raghiv was on the ground. He sat down, dripping sweat, and needed to rest. I felt bad for him. The forty-something was in bad shape, too. He and his wife were already bickering about something. She said, “Chris, don’t be so pessimistic!” Then she yelled to the porter who was carrying her backpack, “John! I neeeed some waaater!!!” Oh boy.

But enough about our companions. I should mention that we were with two guides, a porter for whomever felt they needed a bag carried for them up the mountain, and several armed soldiers. The soldiers were there to protect us and to be on the lookout for poachers. They hiked all the way to the gorillas with us and then watched our bags as we spent our allotted one hour with the family. Before the tourists show up each day, a different group of trackers is already on the mountain tracking the families from the spot where they left them the day before. It can take several hours to find them. As we were driving to our jump off point, they still had not found them. We were traveling to a spot based on their last known whereabouts. Sometimes groups can be very close to the boundary of the forest. Let me explain. There are several different parking areas that the tourists are dropped at with the guides. From there, depending on the location, it can be a short, level walk to the boundary of the forest, or it can be a long, steep climb. Then, once you are inside the protected boundary, it can be a short or a long hike to reach the family. It is all totally random and based on where the gorillas happened to have nested the night before and where they happen to be that day. We spoke to one group of tourists the day before who got to the jump off, walked across the dirt road to the boundary and had a very short, twenty-minute walk across flat ground before finding their family. They were a bit disappointed. Of course, with everyone we spoke to, any disappointment over the nature of the hike dissipates quite quickly upon seeing the gorillas.

We were not disappointed at all. We had a real experience. Our hike felt like a 90 degree climb up the face of a mountain. It took about an hour from the cars to reach the boundary. We went fairly slowly to account for the folks who were struggling. But that was fine with us because it was easy to get winded at the altitude at which we climbing. The path went through the locals’ patches of farmland and it always feels a bit odd to be these rich, white tourists tramping through the countryside, passing shoeless peasants and their children working their land. To me, it’s uncomfortable but I think it’s the discomfort of actually having to face the gross inequities that I’m the beneficiary of. In America, too often, I think we are able to shield ourselves from those inequities a lot of the time. The unofficial, class-based zoning laws see to it that we don’t have to see what we don’t want to see. But here, there is no escape. One needs to recognize ones privilege and question that structure, question that set-up, ask why that is. And hopefully, ask how that can change. And also confront the survival instinct that wants to give… but just so much. Just enough that I’m still O.K., still living the way I’m accustomed to living. I recommend Wallace Shawn’s play, “The Fever” for a much more eloquent expression of this dilemma…

So we hike up this trail and finally get to the edge of the jungle. We rest for a moment and are told that the gorillas about another half-hour hike in. We enter. And we are in the jungle! We keep climbing upward through thick bamboo and thick, leafy foliage that the guides have to occasionally hack away with their machetes. Nettles grab at our arms and legs as we pass. With each step the jungle gets thicker. I’m not nervous but I am definitely excited. Aimee is visibly thrilled. She says her heart is pounding. Finally, the guide stops short and holds up his hand. He has been in radio contact with the mountain guides all morning and now he is talking to them again. We are standing in a clearing. All around us is thick growth that is almost impossible to see through. We are told to be still and stop talking. Then he tells us to move up and behind him, quickly! We hear the breaking of branches all around us. Crack! Crack! Everyone moves. We are told to remove our bags and leave our poles on the ground. Take out our cameras. As I am moving, I see him. A huge – I mean HUGE – silverback standing just behind the bamboo, eyeing us. He is massive but I only get a glimpse because the guide is telling us to move. Now the mountain guides come out from behind some branches, smiling. They point in and say something to our guide. The army is assigned to protect our bags. We are told to follow the guides and porters as they disappear into the bush. We do. As we walk, the guides make a very distinct gutteral sound, almost like they are clearing their throat. They say it’s the way to assure the gorillas that they are friends.

And there he is. One of the silverbacks. We can’t be more than six or seven feet away from his back. And he seems very deliberately to have decided to keep his back to us. His back is massive. I don’t even know how to describe it. He was just a mass of black muscle. Not far from him was a female, Poppy, the oldest gorilla of the family (gorilla lifespan – 40 -45 years). She was just chilling, chewing some bamboo sticks, casually checking us out. Now there was excitement but no fear. The gorillas went about their business, more or less unconcerned about us. The guides constantly checked in with them by making their throat noises. The silverback continued to “ignore” us so one of the guides called down from another spot and told us to come up. We were all to move as a group and we did. The jungle was thick and it was tough to walk but we came up to another spot where a female was sitting while a number of kids – including the toddler twins! – were playing. And they play! They were all wrestling and running around, swinging up on the bamboo poles. It was incredible. The children were running all around us, chasing each other through the jungle, mock-fighting, having a grand old time! Every once in a while we would be told to stand up straight because one of the silverbacks was approaching. Or a mother was approaching. Aimee and I were sometimes a few yards from one another and thus, saw completely different things. At one point, she later told me, she say one of the mamas carrying a pink little baby in her arms, cradling it in her arms. It was tiny. We found out later that the baby was just three weeks old and that it was very rare for a visitor to see. In fact, we never saw the baby or that mom for the rest of the hour.

Incidentally, Aimee always asks our guides about how the different animals birth. We found out that when a gorilla is giving birth, the other females make an inner circle around the mother-to-be and watch over her. The males form an outer circle facing outward as a wall of protection. If anything approaches, they charge. Our guide told us that he was bringing a group of tourists to see Susa when the males started charging them. He couldn’t figure out what was going on but sure enough, the twins were being born!

What to say? The hour was just incredible. The gorillas were at once with us and at the same time completely unconcerned with us. They allowed us into their world and it was one of the most spectacular things you could ever imagine. To look at their faces and into their eyes is like looking at a human being. The gorillas kept moving, climbing higher into the jungle and we kept following them – carefully. At one point we were on a small ridge. I think we were following one of the females. The group was kind of split in two (we were separated by about five feet or so) and the guide at the front of the line told us to stand up. We could see through the bush a huge silverback coming toward us from above. The group that I was in – the one lower on the ridge – heard a cracking from below and turned to see another silverback coming at us from below. We were in a precarious position. The guide at the top didn’t seem to know that there was another male below us. So we were getting different sets of messages from the two guides. The top guide was telling us to be still and the bottom one was telling us to move. I was third from the back. Behind me was the husband and wife. She was pushing me nervously: “Umm. Keep moving. Keep moving. He said to keep moving.” But I wasn’t scared. I wanted to see the silverback and he didn’t seem aggressive. The guide was relaxed and I knew he wasn’t scared. Again: “Keep moving. He said keep moving!” I had about had it with this one so I kind of snapped, “GO!” She hurried by me and I got to really look at this silverback as he moved by us.

Aimee was snapping away. She went through roll after roll of film. We were balancing wanting to take photos and then just being with the gorillas, without feeling the need to film. It was awesome to simply watch them. Unfortunately, we had left the roll of 400 in our bag because we thought the light would be too dark to film at such a slow speed. It was a bit of a blow to have run out of our good film at the end because the very last thing that happened was we came upon the dominant silverback – it was the first we had seen him – sitting in a nest of grass and bamboo. We must have been about three feet away from him. He just sat and ate making little grunts and snorts as he chomped his food. The guide said he was happy. He was enormous. His fingers were like large, black bananas. His head was like a watermelon. Above him a little baby swung on a bamboo pole. I snapped what I could with the digital but mostly we just wanted to be with them, to watch them and to see them. The guide told everyone to take their last snaps because the hour was up. We said thank you to the papa gorilla and then turned to go. We hiked back through the jungle and, on jelly legs, down the mountainside to the cars. I had a splitting headache at that point. The sun, the altitude, dehydration, adrenaline drop? I don’t know but both of us were totally spent and elated. It was about 1:15 p.m. We got in the jeep and went back to the hotel to pack and head back to Kigali.

So my computer battery is on 20% and we have about 10,000 francs in our pocket (US $20) and it is time to board the plane in a few hours. We are so sad to leave here. We love Africa. We’ve loved our time in Rwanda. We miss our friends in Gulu. And we also miss our friends and family. It’s time to come home.

and always the same...

July 11, 2007 (written by Aimee and Kevin)

We’re in Kigali and feel culture shocked. Rwanda is much more developed than Uganda. It’s almost hard to believe that the two countries could be side by side. (then again, I think of the United States and Mexico.) We spent the day taking care of business (getting money exchanged, picking up our gorilla permits, etc.), and then spent the afternoon at the genocide museum learning about the horror that took place here only thirteen years ago. At that time, the tension between the two groups of people here (artificially created in the early 20th c. by the Belgian colonial government), the Hutus and the Tutsis, exploded and resulted in the death of over a million Tutsis and moderate or sympathetic Hutus in just over three months. It puts it into horrifying perspective to think that a sixth of the number of people who died in the Holocaust were killed here in just one twenty-fourth of the time…

We were with a guide, Dietier. He lost both parents during the genocide. He and his younger sister were taken into a friends house and hidden for two months. As we approached the museum – at the top of a hill overlooking a slum and the fancy, upscale city center, the latter above the former on the opposite hill – we were surprised that there was a huge line of cars and hundreds of people on foot approaching the museum. Dietier told us that the market had been closed on this day to allow the local merchants to visit the memorial. It was really something to be at the museum with these people, the survivors of the genocide, as they gathered to mourn and to remember. As we entered the gates, the mass of people weren’t going inside the museum but were instead heading down a set of stairs outside. Our guide told us that we should try to go inside first because the others would be coming in after a ceremony in the rose garden. It was very nice because we had the museum to ourselves and were able to go slowly through each section. Our hearts sank as we walked with Dietier through each room learning about the history that lead up to the genocide. Dietier explained (in French, one of the two national languages along with Kinyarwanda) about the sometimes difficult-to-understand political and cultural subtleties that led up to the genocide. We read accounts from the locals and watched many explicitly violent and heartbreaking videos of the violence that occurred during that spring and summer of 1994 (as America was transfixed by O.J. and his white Bronco). Everything in this memorial was absolutely horrifying, but a few things stand out: The women who were brutally raped and purposively infected with HIV so that their deaths would be long and painful; the tiny children (as young as a few months old) who were brutally beaten and tortured before they were killed; the fact that neighbors or family members turned on friends and relatives in what was, literally, an instant (the signal for the violence to begin was the explosion of an airplane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi); and perhaps worst of all, the fact that the West could have completely prevented this had it cared to. Our government and the U.N. had the information and intelligence to know what was happening. It is said that as little as 5,000 U.N. troops could have prevented the deaths of a million innocent lives. Not only did the French government supply the killers with 12 million dollars worth of arms, but Kofi Annan and Bill Clinton (and the rest of the world) sat idly by, knowing full well what was happening, and did nothing. Once again, the world watches as Africans die because it is too complicated or too local or too expensive; the problem is too big… But to be here and to see and meet and talk with these beautiful people (whether here or in Uganda) is to see and know them as fellow human beings, as brothers and sisters who care about and love their children, who are struggling for work and money; who worship like us, who laugh like us, who live – with the obvious exception of the unbelievable luxuries we take for granted – just like us. It is all we can do to hold back tears – really – almost every day we’re on this continent…

In one of the books we’re reading it states that 99.9% of the people of Rwanda witnessed extreme violence and killing during those 100 days. It is eerie to walk the residential streets of Rwanda and picture the scenes of a bloody genocide. We are just down the road from Hotel des Milles-Colline (made famous through the film, Hotel Rwanda), where people ran for refuge in hopes of saving their lives. One of the last rooms at the museum contained a pictorial overview of all the genocides that occurred in the twentieth century, from Armenia to Rwanda to Darfur.

What on Earth is this creature called “man”? We, who pride ourselves on our technologies and cultures and civility? We, who can travel to space and to the depths of the seas? We, the only animal to conceive of divinity and meaning, to have the ability to reflect on our own consciousness? And this? Genocide?? The attempted destruction of entire peoples based on superficial differences like color or religion or, in this case, tribe? And it keeps happening. It is happening right now. What in the f-ck are we doing here?!?!? Different eras, cultures, religions and ethnicities. And always the same…

On the drive back to our hotel, we spoke to Dietier about the process of reconciliation. What is incredible about Rwanda is that just 13 years after this genocide, there is almost complete recovery. Of course, the country has not had the resources to try to address the psychological wounds that abound in (literally) every psyche here. But the young (45 years old) leader here, Paul Kagame (a Tutsi who, from everything we’ve read and heard about him, seems loved, respected, energetic and, amazingly for sub-Saharan Africa, untainted by major scandal or corruption) and his government have implemented a sweeping reconciliation program through which the Hutus have been almost universally forgiven by the families of their victims (thousands upon thousands of Hutus are now standing or awaiting trial for their crimes; many others were able to flee). Dietier told us that in order for people to move on they must forgive. He shared with us that the man who killed his parents came to him later to ask for forgiveness. It’s unbelievable to walk the streets here and feel safe, to feel that there is a lack of tension in the air. The people are different here than in Uganda. No hearty greetings. No big smiles. They eye us as we walk by. There is a seriousness in their faces. There is no hostility toward us, just something more (perhaps understandably) reserved in their demeanor. The city center is well-developed and thriving. Investment is working. In just 13 years, this country has roared back to something resembling normalcy. Of course there is disparity. Of course the government has critics. Of course too many people beg on the streets and go to bed hungry. But considering the fact that more than about a sixth of the population was brutally murdered just over a decade ago, the state of affairs must be seen as a powerful statement to the will, determination, and capacity of these people to forgive and to love. It is awe-inspiring to us in the same way that the Acholi people are able to laugh and to love so easily so soon after they watched two generations of their people wiped out. How to fathom the duality of mankind – the great capacity to kill and the greater capacity to live? It is a fascinating planet, no?

Photo 1: Us on the Bus to Kigali
Photo 2: Welcome to Rwanda
Photo 3: Hotel des Milles-Colline

Gentle Creatures

July, 6th 2007

I had to unplug from blogging and writing this week. I had no energy for it. To recall all the events of the week feels like too much, but I feel compelled to at least follow up from my last blog. My last entry was mostly about Harriet. After her cesarean and the death of her son, her body became extremely infected. She was not monitored closely enough by the doctors and ended up with an advanced case of sepsis. When we arrived last Friday morning, her mother, Catherine, was crying and was worried that her daughter was going to die. She told us that during the night Harriet’s breathing was very labored and she was completely unresponsive. It was clear to me that she needed to be transferred to Lacor hospital immediately. We had to wait around for her transfer to be signed off on by the head doctor and then we had to arrange for a car. They don’t just have an ambulance on call ready to go. Once the ambulance is arranged, you personally have to pay for petrol. We helped the family with this cost. What about the families that can’t afford the petrol to Lacor? Harriet was in really bad shape when we transferred her. She was making these deep moans but her eyes were fixed and her breathing was very shallow. Her body was in septic shock. Harriet was taken off the gurney at GRRH and placed on a straw mat in the ambulance with eight relatives crammed around her, including Rachel, who rode with her in the back. We traveled the bumpy dirt road to Lacor and were greeted with frustration by the head maternity nurse. She gave me a long lecture about how GRRH always waits until the last minute to transfer patients to them. She was angry about how this affects the records and statistics at Lacor because, unfortunately, many of the transfer patients die. After all, Gulu hospital is the “referral” hospital. It was a shock to witness the Lacor doctors at work. They moved fast and treated Harriet immediately. We talked to them about the issue of negligence in Harriet’s case. They had a lot to say on this matter and confirmed what we’ve been witnessing at GRRH. Once Harriet was stabilized the doctor told us that he felt very optimistic about her chances for recovery. I felt so relieved. We told her family the good news and left thinking that she would regain consciousness within two days. We told them that we’d come to check her the following day. Her brother, James, spoke English well and was our main way of communicating with her family. He was also a dedicated brother and had been at Harriet’s side everyday. Around 4 pm the next day Rachel and I were getting ready to go to the hospital. I decided to call James just to check in with him. To my shock he told me that Harriet died at 1 pm. I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t believe it. It was just three days before her death that we were singing and dancing together. She was a strong, funny, lively, beautiful girl. How could this have happened? Our conversation was short. I asked him to call back with details about her burial. We hung up and Rachel, Kevin, and I were dumbfounded. I was furious. It wasn’t until later on when I was alone with Kevin that I broke down. It was just too much. Rachel and I attended her burial. She was buried on a plot of land that her young husband’s family owned. The land was deep in the bush… and I mean deep. We drove to a small town and then hiked about 2 kilometers into the bush. James escorted us along with Kenny (our driver and friend from St. Monica’s). I was glad to have him with us. Her family had been waiting for us. They were about 75 people gathered in a clearing in the middle of the bush. Harriet was wrapped in blankets. One was a the katange (cloth) that she labored in at the hospital. Her mother also tore a piece of that material and was wearing it around her waist. They unwrapped her face so that we could see her. Again, I couldn’t believe she was dead. It was heartbreaking to see her mother. We had spent so much time with her mother from the time Harriet arrive in early labor, through active labor, and then post cesarean and the death of her baby. I felt very connected to her and at a loss…The burial was very simple. She was put into the ground and her cousins poured dirt over her. Then they got inside the hole and pounded the dirt on top of her with their feet. This was followed by pounding the dirt with large wooden poles. The women and men sat separately. They watched silently. Harriet’s mother cried a little, but quietly. Rachel and I sat on the straw mat with Catherine and the other mothers of Harriet and we all held hands. She had many mothers, at least four. I think her father had five wives. After the last bit of dirt was pounded down the women erupted in wailing. They began weeping, screaming, and pounding their chests. I was totally taken off guard. The women then got up and began the procession back to the village. The crying and grieving continued all the way down the path. As Catherine passed the grave she threw her flip flops on top. We took the long and sad walk back to our car. Catherine and her sister got in and we drove them back to the IDP camp. She wanted to show us where the baby was buried. We walked through the camp until we got to a hut. There, inside the outer wall of the hut, was a small mound of mud. The baby was inside the wall of the hut. It was so sad to see that little mound of mud, and hard to believe that their baby was buried inside. They took us to where Harriet lived and then we said our goodbyes. There was closure for me in attending her burial. It helped to mourn with her mothers and family. It helped to see her face.

During the week of Harriet’s and her baby’s death there were two other babies and two other mothers who died. The two babies were both women that we had been working with. Their story is equally as important and painful as Harriet’s but I don’t have the energy to retell it during this entry. Even now as I write, Kevin and I are on a bus to Kigali, Rwanda, and nine days have passed since Harriet’s burial. It feels like a long time ago.

My last week in Gulu was filled with a lot of grief and joy. I was fighting a bacterial infection and had the worse case of tonsillitis ever. My body just broke down from the stress and emotional weight of the last month. In that time Jess and Ellen arrived to Gulu. They were here for just a short time but their presence was lovely. The women and staff at the hospital appreciated them so much. They “doula-ed” each woman with great tenderness. I took them to meet the TBAs at Kongya Goka IDP camp. Again, we were greeted with song and dance. In return, Ellen belly danced and was a huge hit! They talked to them about the role of a doula and showed them some positions and pressure points that are helpful for women during labor. They appreciated our short childbirth education class and we were so grateful in return for the wisdom that they shared with us.

I learned a lot from this pilot program about what works and what doesn’t work. In our time at the hospital we witnessed what to us looked like negligence… I wrote about the lack of critical thinking in my last blog. Looking back on that blog I have to apologize to my Acholi friends. I could go back to my blog site and edit it out but I feel it’s important for it to remain. There is critical thinking here. There is self-reflection. It was arrogant of me to write otherwise. It’s hard to process and live in it at the same time. There are days of utter rage, it’s true. But that rage is mixed with the most heartbreaking compassion. The rage is not directed at anyone in particular. I think that once we start indicting the victims, we as westerners lose the wider context of the suffering of the culture. That line is a constant test. My last day at the hospital was a sobering one. I learned a lot from my midwife sisters about what is needed in order to work as a team even in the midst of negligence and death. It is easy to focus on the mistakes at the hospital. It is easy to point a finger at someone and call them incompetent. But the doctors and midwives are not to blame. The hospital is not to blame. The people of Northern Uganda have been so deeply traumatized by war and poverty. We can come in and jump into problem solving and criticizing—all in the name of “research”. But at what cost? We will never know what their reality is. I came to GRRH because the conditions are so atrocious. I came because this hospital is severely lacking in supplies, training, and staff. I came because they are my friends. The women that work in this ward everyday are completely overworked. Often they are not paid for six months. They carry heavy loads at home with orphaned children that need food on the table and school fees that need to be paid. Even the head nursing officers can barely survive. So I apologize if I simplified my own analysis of the situation. I was angry the day that I wrote that blog. I still don’t have answers. Do I need to? For me that’s not the point. I have love for my friends, even the ones that participated in Harriet’s and her baby’s deaths. I am humbled here everyday.

I learned that there is no greater human power than kindness and love. I love this place and the Acholi people so much. My own personal commitment is galvanized with each visit. I had many heartfelt and tearful goodbyes, always to the shock of my Acholi friends. Crying when saying goodbye isn’t part of the culture- as far as I can tell…The nuns at St. Monica’s threw me, Rachel, and Kevin a goodbye party. As usual, our dinner turned into a dance party and was the perfect way to celebrate our goodbye with friends that had been so loving and hospitable to us. They even baked us a beautiful Sacred Heart cake! The next day (Friday morning) we drove Rachel to the bus park to see her off. It had been a month of intense and powerful work together. This was a unique situation and one that I will never forget. I’m grateful for all that I learned from my midwife sister.

July 9th, 2007
We feel good. We’ve just returned from a day-long safari at Murchison Falls with the NYU students and Teachers for Teachers exchange program. There is nothing better than being on safari with the hot sun pouring over you riding on top of a matatu and gazing over the landscape scattered with animals---especially giraffes! I felt in love with these magnificent gentle giants. [editors note: Mrs. Brill has a documented history of falling in love with long-necked, gangly creatures with knobby knees and brown spots all over their skin.] We got to Backpackers hostel at 11:30pm and found out that there were six beds for eleven people in a shared room with ten other travelers that we didn’t know and who already were asleep. Not to mention that there were no pillows or mosquito nets on the beds. It was at this point that we had a simple choice: laugh or leave. As it was midnight already, we were over roughing it and decided to book ourselves into a decent hotel in Kampala. I took about five hot showers in two days.

…So now we’re on the long road to Kigali. It’s a nine hour bus ride and luckily we’ve got great seats up front.

We’re happy to have this time together. The jungle and gorillas are calling.

Love to everyone back home,
Aimee

photo 1 Midwives at GRRH (Sister Millie, Sister Anna, and Sister Irene)
photo 2 Jess and Ellen giving a demonstration on positions during labor
photo 3 Kevin and Sister Rosemary at our last dinner dancing calypso
photo 4 Beautiful giraffes!