Positive vibe in former hellhole

Family ties ... Rwanda's gorillas remind us of our humanity.Credit: Gabrielle Costa

Gabrielle Costa experiences an inspiring and surprising country.

In Rwanda, it's considered impolite to inquire about someone's tribal heritage, to ask whether a person is a Hutu or Tutsi.

In other parts of East Africa, tribal background is a point of celebration, a point of difference. In Rwanda, however, the 1994 genocide that saw almost a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus slaughtered remains a not-quite-healed wound.

But any signs of that conflict are no longer apparent, at least on the surface.

In Le Pays des Mille Collines - the land of a thousand hills - there is a sense, at least superficially, of order and serenity, even security and safety, that is difficult to reconcile with the atrocities of less than two decades ago.

Crossing the border overland at Gatuna, from Uganda, there is a noticeable difference. In Rwanda, the roads are suddenly better, the terrain seems more ordered, somehow even greener. The welcoming greetings of the Rwandese is a comfort to a traveller who has traversed the streets of cities in nearby countries with a sense of foreboding.

Taking the winding path to the capital Kigali is an experience in its own right, a slow trip around tight bends where children stand at the side of the road, waving frantically at the sight of the "mzungu", the westerners, yelling "how are you?" at the tops of their voices.

The vibe is a positive one. It doesn't speak of the tragedy that even those with just a passing knowledge of world news will never forget, a tragedy that seems to have been sectioned off from day-to-day life in this country of 11 million.

At the Kigali Memorial Centre, the bloodshed of the early 90s is condensed into a two-storey museum that attempts to explain how it was possible that this tiny nation descended into chaos in such a short space of time, how one group turned on another with devastating consequences.

The exhibits, including video interviews with survivors who tell of the horror they witnessed, ends with a heart-wrenching series of photographs of children killed in the genocide, with little write-ups about the things they liked, their favourite foods, what they hoped to be when they were older.

And that is all compounded when you step outside and there is the sight of mass graves, not marked as graves as such, and flower beds for the most part. The knowledge that there are 250,000 victims of the genocide just beneath the surface is an extraordinarily grounding and unsettling experience.

The reason most come to Rwanda, though, is several hours' drive away in the Parc National Des Volcans, the Rwandan section of the Virungas mountain range.

The famed eastern mountain gorillas live in the park's many hills, among the volcanoes. Each day, groups of no more than eight people are allowed to visit each of the seven family groups that have been habituated to human contact.

Traipsing along slippery, slopey paths, ducking down limbo-style to make your way through what would best be described as bamboo tunnels and clambering over rocks for hours might not sound like much fun, but when you happen upon a giant silverback, just sitting in the morning mist, the muddy climb up the mountainside and the 7am start - if you're late you forfeit your spot and lose your $US500 payment - is well worth it.

It was a giant silverback from the Amahora group that greeted us, sitting quietly and not moving as we approached. It was his territory, not ours. Amahora means "peace," and the group was aptly named given this silverback's clear sense of self-assuredness, his steady but not threatening, stare.

Our guide, who had worked for years with Dian Fossey, researcher and subject of the film Gorillas in the Mist, calls out to the gorillas in their language to let them know we're on our way, a warning that we'd be visiting and that we weren't a threat.

Before 1999, tourists weren't allowed into the area because of violence - human violence - and the threat posed by poachers.

Now, no more than 56 a day can visit and there are strict rules - no eating or drinking in front of the gorillas, a distance of at least seven metres must be maintained at all times - that are enforced with differing degrees of rigidity.

The purpose is to keep the gorillas far enough away to avoid the transmission of a human disease that could wipe out the entire colony that now numbers in the hundreds, not the thousands. Genetically, there are so many similarities between gorillas and humans that a virulent strain of influenza or another infection would have no trouble infecting the already endangered primates.

The visit with the mountain gorillas lasts an hour and while it sounds like a long time, it passes quickly as you watch the creatures go about their day, peeling the bush celery before chomping through kilogram after kilogram of it, watching a mother cradle a baby gorilla in much the same way as a human mum would cradle a newborn, the juveniles romp and play-fight right before your eyes.

And as we watched the gorillas, they watched us too, a reminder of their humanity, and the humanity that still exists in a country that didn't know much of it less than 20 years ago.