out to follow the gorillas.
Bill saw this show several mornings in late August 1979 before heading out to track the gorillas he had chosen for the MGP tourist campaign. The guards and Jean Pierre were gone if he returned by mid-day. Lyre horned Ankole cattle had replaced their predecessors, sloppily grazing the rich grass in front of the run-down Parc National des Volcans headquarters.
A single Markhamia tree, its lower limbs chopped for firewood, accentuated the barrenness. Bill could see Jean-Pierre back at his Gasiza mansion sipping a hearty scotch wondering what he was doing for her. The query would have been very reasonable.
If Jean Pierre had questions, his Rwandan colleague seemed to have none. Camille the park conservatoire preferred to stay in his wardens office doing whatever official business he could generate in a park averaging daily visitation count rather than show any interest in exercises and training. Camille would show up in his well pressed uniform to flaunt before his men after the training. Should guests be present, he would declare for everyone to hear.
There is nothing to worry the gorillas about. I will personally kill a poacher I come across in the jungle! It was a big promise, made often with complete assurance. Luckily for neighbourhood hunters, Camille seldom ever ventured into the forest. By lunchtime, however he could typically be seen shooting beers at one of Ruhengeri’s many waterholes until he rolled the parks lone land rover coming after one late-night binge.
With the MGP’s arrival in the summer of 1979, our circumstances changed significantly.One thing to consider suggestions for helping the mountain gorillas, another to market such ideas to hesitant audiences. Now we had to fulfill our ideas in an environment of great expectations with equally great risk of failure.
Our work started earlier in the summer and included a spin throughout Europe and the US. Our purchase and selling of the educational vehicle had cost us money. Almost penniless, we purchased tickets from Aeroflot at far less than the official market price. Naturally, the Nairobi to Paris journey took about twenty hours with stops in Cairo and Moscow on route.
After Alain and Nicole Monfort returned from their European holiday, graciously took us to London to meet Sandy Harcourt, Kely Stewart, and John Burton of the Fauna and Flora Preservation Society. At a reception for invited supporters and reporters at the London zoo, we were requested to discuss plans for the mountain gorilla project and describe circumstances in Rwanda. We then carried on our private planning talks in greater depth. We even had time for a nice day in the country with Sandy and Kelly.
Sadly, the news that Sir Freddie Laker had developed a very successful cut rate service over the Atlantic on the basis of his own personality and the wings of a second-hand fleet of DC-10s ended our London stay.
But other previous mishaps on other airlines have resulted in a worldwide prohibition on flying any of these study aids. Too ashamed to seek for a loan or borrow money, we were banking on marshaling our last few hundred dollars to travel home with Freddie. Luckily British Air Ways said it would provide a limited amount of half-price tickets to assist stranded Laker customers on a first come first serve basis.
