by LaurelC-19, 31 July 2009

Laurel took a year off before heading to university. Read about her here

In Rwanda I went trekking with the mountain gorillas! They are magnificent creatures, and I must admit that was the first time I ever felt truly passionate about a species' conservation. I have always been very supportive of conservation, but with gorillas I could only think that killing one of these equates to cold-hearted murder, and losing them as a species would be an act of passive heartlessness for our own kin.

These feelings probably stem from the simple fact they are so utterly human-like. The youngsters would wrestle and roll around in the grass, all tangled up in each other's limbs. Meanwhile the adolescents would watch over them and occasionally join in, perhaps just by sitting there with a bored expression, holding squabbling youngsters apart with no effort. The silverback - the majestic, muscular alpha male with a shimmery back - could easily kill me just by sitting on me. But in his own way he was just a jaded old man, and didn't seem to object to the little ones climbing all over him, a hill of a playground in himself. Technically, we were supposed to stay a minimum of 7 meters away. Several times the guide had to frantically grab me around the waist and hoist me out of the way of a PMS-ing mama gorilla.

One mother in particular had a feisty reputation, according to our guides. I was cornered by trees when she strode up behind through the small clearing I was standing in. She stopped, and glared at me. It must have been a good 8 Missississpi's, during which I was semi-terrified but very thrilled. It felt so long that it was almost awkward, and I didn't know what to do... except to raise my camera to my face, and to let the shutter sound a long, loud "cuh-lick". The large camera effectively reduced our separating distance by a third. I thought right then and there I was in for a mauling, but before I knew it she was already bored and gone.

I got goosebumps from the eerie humanity in their eyes when they would stare straight into yours and I knew, I just knew, that some message was passed, the meaning left at some fork in our evolutionary path. Or it could have been my naive desire for a human-animal connection and my resulting anthropomorphic projection onto the gorilla, who actually didn't give a darn. I'm not sure.

In a way that is extremely fortunate and unfortunate at the same time... I got malaria. It started off with waking up in the morning with a headache. The first thing I thought was malaria, after being thoroughly (and as it turned out, fortunately) "paranoiafied" by the UN guy. But I thought it was probably a slight hangover. After breakfast I slowly got worse and went back to bed. Thanks to the truck's smart crew they took me to the doctor's within 3 hours of first feeling bad at all. I was taken to this dingy little clinic that didn't speak English, but fortunately I spoke French with them (Rwanda is a former French colony). They took my blood and I watched them 'incubate' the slide in this wooden box with a singular pathetic, flickering light bulb. I sat there, my condition rapidly deteriorating, with nothing to do except stare at the only adornment on the wall - a flowchart poster outlining how to diagnose and treat cerebral malaria. In summary, it said: "you're f**ked". I paraphrase. The lab technician dude came out and spoke with everyone around in Swahili (or Rwandan, not sure) so I didn't understand anything except for him saying "malaria" every 20 seconds or so. Great. I had no idea what was going on. Finally they broke the news. I was fortunate because I caught it uber early. Also because it was my first activity-less day that wasn't spent traveling on the truck or camping. And also because I was made paranoid by the UN guy. And because I speak French. And also because if I had gotten it the day before (and malaria can show up any time up to a year after you actually contract it), I wouldn't have been allowed to trek with the gorillas (they're so closely related that they're susceptible to the same diseases). So yeah, it's unlucky that I got it, but I know that really, I was also very lucky.

University of Pennsylvania African Studies Center - Rwanda Page