For drivers of trucks and taxis at the foot of the lengthy and perilous escarpment route to the North, it provided a handy rest location. Bill would always stop at an open air kiosk to get an omelet and a soda, then roll the omelet in a burrito-style wrap known as a chapatti. Normally served cold, the omelets and chapattis were piled on platters beside the pay counter.

Bill nicknamed the town chapatti village. And the weak young polio victim who resided there dubbed the chapatti child. Leaning on his knotted wooden stick, the lad initially fixed his gaze on the bill from the rear ground while other lads got closer to see the umuzungu eat.

Whether one is white or black, personal space is not understood in Rwanda. But for young Rwandans, strangers are a never-ending source of unbridled in your face curiosity. The child grew closer with time, his big eyes softened by lengthy lashes.

One day Bill ordered an extra omelet chapatti for him, but the child turned it down under the other boys’ withering glances and derision. He could watch the boys vulnerable body crumples beneath the overwhelming onslaught of the other lads as the Toyota truck drew away on his next visit.

Now free from time restrictions and with his own automobile, Bill made sure the chapatti boy sat at his side to have his lunch. He was possibly silent and never said a word. But at least not while the large umuzungu was there, the other lads did not violate this arrangement.

The School Tour came off really well. Students discovered the park, the mountain gorillas, and the possible advantages both for Rwanda. In a curriculum dominated by a strong Eurocentric emphasis, students at last heard about something of worldwide significance and importance right in their own homeland.

We gained a lot of knowledge on the viewpoints of the students on their surroundings, their beliefs and way of life in return. Their inquiries forced us to consider why parkland was valued more than the local population and why all of the researchers were white foreigners. We had to know and be ready to respond to their queries if we were to provide remedies. And rethink some of our own.

We had to spend more and more time apart during the school trip. Apart from the school visits, Bill made use of every corridor strategically situated in Kigali to meet with government and international officials. Given Rwanda’s leaders’ continual postponing of meetings, the expense of these layovers would have been exorbitant.

Luckily, American and European friends pitched in with free housing and board. They also offered another source of knowledge and opposing opinions on Rwandan life, particularly that of the Europeans. Still, the seven to ten day separations were lengthier and considerably more frequent than in our seven-year-old marriage.

Bill completed his business in Kigali by early afternoon at the end of one trip and felt the need to get back to our Karisoke lodge before evening. He quickly went shopping, then threw north in the Renault bypassing his usual visit in Chapatti village.

He arrived in Ruhengeri in record time, then drove more gently down the last lava route to a little parking lot at the foot of the mountain. Five thirty he was ready to ascend. If he was going to arrive before nightfall, he understood he had to cut the regular fifty-minute hike to our cabin. It was feasible, really. He lacked a tent or sleeping bag in any case.

Ten minutes down the path, all preparations fell apart. From the saddle between Karisimbi and Visoke, a massive black cloud poured forth, snuffing out what little daily life remained. Soon after Bill started running up the camp route, rain started. He went to his memories of the route he had ascended hundreds of times before even as he chastised himself for not bringing a flash light with the early advent of total darkness.

At that time, he was an infrequent smoker carrying around twelve matches. These he rationed to highlight important crossroads, shielding the silly but useful small lamps in his cupped palms. While he was out of matches, the rain was pouring heavily and the cape buffalo were starting their nighttime promenades along the trails halfway.

The chilly water flowing down the route numbed Bill’s sense of the trail under his feet. Then he lowered to his hands and knees. Mud leaking between his fingertips indicated he was still on the much-used route vegetation suggested he was off track. Every length without recognized land markings caused disturbing ideas.

Even scarier were the ideas of animals that go bump in the night. At the top of his lungs, Bill started to sing, alternately rolling stones and thankful dead with oldies and show songs. Anything to produce noise keeps sanity and helps him not to consider the cold that had already numbed all sensation in his fingertips.

At last, the unique rock outcrop surrounding Bone Ravine told Bill he was headed in the right direction. From there he knew that this creek would soon show up on the left diverting the route as it passed thirty feet of our cabin. Not now could he get lost. Bill got up once again on two feet after five or ten minutes, ascended the cabin’s stairs, and pushed open the door.

Amy and David Watts could only stare in shock at the shivering, dirt coated night crawler in the doorway as dinner delicato was being eaten. Shared laughter warmed the heart; the body followed more slowly. Although this was not the last late night excursion in the Virunga, Bill always carried a flashlight going forward.
WALKS ALONG THE Park border offered a study in striking contrasts. Perfect rows of white potatoes were grown straight up to the meager line of exotic cypress trees that defined the border. The hoes of angry women farmers regularly cut away the cypress roots on the downhill side. Above that threshold, uncontrolled excitement drove rain forest life.

There was just binary in this planet. Without a transition zone to balance impacts in either direction, all fields and humans to one side all forest and wild animals in the other. Usually, our sympathies run toward the forest and its inhabitants. Great stretches of land have been regularly hacked and cleared from the forest.

From chopped bamboo to wire caught animals, it was the forest suffering from a thousand little wounds every day. People always profited in this connection; the end of which for the gorillas appeared sadly evident. On other days, however, we turned around our views and tried to comprehend how the local people saw the park days when the cold statistical results of the surveys might be spun into a picture of harsh human life along the Virunga border.

From a distance, the homes in the Virunga area seemed to be half buried acorns. Thick thatch fashioned into a cone topped round gloomy, windowless walls of wood and adobe construction. An upside down clay pot covering a central vent in the ceiling replaced the tip of the corn’s stalk. Most cold mornings, smoke slowly leaked from every roof.

Inside the thatch, the continual smoke of an open fire clouded eyes. We could just picture the occupant’s lungs’ hue. People were moving to rectangular homes with windows and tin ceilings claimed to be more ventilated and shielded from rain in places like Ruhengiri and nearby regions.

The traditional dwelling was still the standard near the park; its shape fit the back drop of volcanic cones more naturally. People realized, nevertheless, that change was invading their homes and daily lives.
Most of the farmers living near the park, according to various surveys, produced enough food to meet the basic requirements of their families. Still, most believed they lacked enough property to split with their oldest sons as Hutu custom demanded.

Nearly all knew that land constraints were considerably as acute for Rwandans living outside of the Virunga. Many pointed to the ancient releasing value of emigration as their answer to the dearth of land, however without clear notions of where no emigrate. Actually, Ruhengeri’s population were returning from a disastrous relocation scheme in Southern Rwanda in the late 1970s. Others raised their hands and asked God or government for assistance.

Nearly none of them discussed birth control.
Specifically regarding the park, more than half of the nearby farmers believed they could use its ground. Given none of their crops were suited for farming over the 8800-foot park border elevation, this was an unusual viewpoint. Though they knew these actions were forbidden, forty percent more said local residents should hunt or chop wood in the park.

Regarding the natural forest itself, most local farmers couldn’t name one benefit of its presence if it couldn’t be exploited. The same applied to wildlife, should hunting prove impossible. One very noteworthy exception was travel. Notable as more than one third of those polled felt it was feasible even more so since the Parc des Volcans lacked a workable tourist program at that time.

In Bills polls, the mountain gorilla did rather well. told that there were only 260 remaining worldwide, more over four out of five local frames said the gorillas should be kept under protection. Half of the same farmers said that the whole park should be turned for agricultural use, hence the link between preserving gorillas should be found there.

Other polls of university students and urbanites in Rwanda revealed more support for park preservation as well as for gorilla conservation. Still, the most important population were the farmers around the park. Their views reflected their reality even if some of their ideas were false or badly informed.

Government policy and regional politics further strengthened and improved them as well. At that time, Rwanda’s tourism consultants concentrated on the Akagera Park, which suited the East African paradigm of car tourism in savanna parks.

Their model did not accommodate hiking through verdant paradise, hence the Parc des Volcans was overlooked. Not only was there no tourism; for the whole park, there were just eighty underpaid, poorly educated, inadequately equipped guards. Between 1959 and 1973, this carelessness led to the loss sponsored by European donors in the name of development more than half of the original Virunga parkland. Plans to clear further territory were under constant discussion.