Gorilla gazette no 11

Welcome to Gorilla gazette!

Postings from the gorilla inhabitants of the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, in Western Uganda.

Well, this time it’s my turn to do the Gorilla gazette. I’m Kasigazi, the dominant silverback of the  Kahungye 2 family. (It’s called ‘Kahungye 2’ as the Kahungye family actually split in two and we’re the second half). I know what you are going to ask: “Does he have a wife?” Well, actually all the females in the group belong to me! You’ll find us in the area we live in in the Rushaga Southern Sector of the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. 

Now, you might just have had breakfast or dinner. I’m eating dead wood of the myrica  species of trees, which is  indigenous to tropical Uganda and Central and East Africa. It’s locally called ‘Omushengyeshi’. (Please do try to say it!) You may take vitamin pills but I’m eating this dead wood for sodium nutrients. As I think you know, we gorillas normally eat leaves, straight off the branches, but I do have to say that they were getting a bit dry in the last month or so, until the rains came. Now they are tasting much better and are ‘much softer on the palate’. 

Talking of the rains this photo has been taken of Bwindi at the beginning of this rainy season. For us, this is a quiet time as visitors don’t come to see us as it’s too muddy and slippery. We can get around as we have strong arms and anyway we generally walk around on our ‘hands and feet’, but not quite like you, when were crawling around as a little child. We can also climb up the trees remarkably quickly if we want to. The younger ones do that, of course, to show off, but they’ll have to wait a while until the visitors come back to perform their antics to an audience.

The rainy season means that the women and their children in the nearby village of Nkuringo don’t walk through the forest so much. The women stay home and spend time making baskets and bowls out of grasses that have been dyed. While the rains are filling the water tanks, they have time to spare as they don't have to go down, or up, the mountain and it means that they don’t have to keep their children out of school to help.

Thank you for letting me tell you about life in our area of Bwindi and please do support Commat’s efforts to help the Nkuringo women and children.

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