Call number
599.884 HAN
Collection
Publication
Curtis Brown Unlimited (2014), 272 pages
Description
A self-described eco-nerd Thor Hanson, scientist and writer, brought the nascent gorilla tourist program in Bwindi National Park, located within Africa's Impenetrable Forest, to life. With grace and good humor Hanson navigates the local customs, mores and bureaucracy governing everything from love to superstition to build infrastructure, hire and train staff, fend off millions of ants among many other creatures while studying and acclimating the mountain gorillas to humans in their midst.
User reviews
LibraryThing member satyridae
I saw Hanson at Powell's and really enjoyed his talk. He was warm, charismatic and funny. He's a better speaker than he is a writer, I think. The book is interesting but it drags in many places. The plight of the gorillas is juxtaposed with the lives of the people around them in a very moving
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fashion. There's a lot of good information here. I wish the picture quality was better, all the photos are grainy black and white on matte paper. I hope Hanson keeps writing. Show Less
LibraryThing member breic
Fairly enjoyable, but not as dramatically compelling as other Peace Corps memoirs, especially Kris Holloway's "Monique and the Mango Rains," and lacking the deep relationships and humor of Peter Hessler's "River Town". I did appreciate the epilogue in which Hanson revisits Uganda.
> I wasn’t sure
> Tribes in Uganda relish teasing one another over food preferences, and a proud Baganda will scornfully dismiss the entire western half of the country as “millet eaters.” But in the case of munanasi vs. tonto, Tom definitely had a point. I learned how to make munanasi at Annette’s place, with a big pineapple grater and a series of shiny aluminum pots. After three days of fermentation, the final product resembled a thick, tart cider. Brewing tonto, on the other hand, involved a bunch of barefoot men stomping around in a hollow log full of bananas. In the end, it was tough to say whether it tasted more like the bananas or the feet.
> In Buhoma, young men complained constantly about their “dowries” and how to pay them off. The sum usually included between one and two hundred dollars in cash, supplemented with at least twenty goats, ten cows, and quantities of tonto, millet, and other commodities—far more than anyone could afford to pay at one time. Remittance often stretched over years or even decades, forming a complex network of debts between families and clans throughout the area. The bride-price system plays an important cultural role in binding Bakiga communities together, but at significant cost to the social status of women. The hardship of long-term payment makes men more likely to treat their wives as property, particularly second or third spouses. As Agaba Philman, a porter who worked for John, once told me: “For twenty goats, she will wash my feet!”
> in previous times, when meeting the male members of her new family involved sitting on a wooden stool puddled with their combined urine. After this symbolic ritual, any of them was free to demand sex. “If a man came home to find his brother’s spear beside his door, it meant he was with the wife,” Enos Komunda had explained to me. “He could either wait or go directly to plant his spear at the brother’s house.”
> I teased them, naming women from the village, and asking, “ Mbuzi zingahi ?”—“How many goats?” When I mentioned that we paid no bride-price in the States, they shook their heads in envious disbelief. “And,” I added, “the woman’s family even pays for the wedding party.” “Is it?” Caleb’s laugh was high and drawn out, like the shout of a loon. “In America, I think I would be married many times!”
> When we were gone, the farmers would begin to shout, beat on pans, and throw rocks—a good technique for driving gorillas from your shamba but a serious setback to our habituation efforts.
> My house was a complete loss. The invaders commanded floor, wall, and ceiling space in every room, centering their attack on the kitchen, where I glimpsed ants pouring out of the cupboards and swarming over a bin of dirty dishes in a dense, almost liquid mass. Occasionally, a cricket, spider, or small lizard would fling itself down from the rafters, twitching spasmodically under a living blanket of tiny, voracious attackers.
> Today, the Virungas lie within protected areas in three countries: Parc des Virungas in Zaire, Parc des Volcans in Rwanda (both formerly part of Parc National Albert under the Belgians), and Uganda’s Mgahinga Gorilla National Park.
> “Before you whites came, that girl would have died here,” Phenny shouted over the roar of the falls. “You mean without the hospital?” “No,” he shook his head. “This place. The waterfall. This is where the locals used to judge unmarried mothers. They threw them from the top there.” He pointed to a ledge that jutted out from the top of the cliff, overhanging the waterfall’s precipitous drop. “No one could survive.”
> With a fibrous fruit and vegetable diet, and their own collection of stomach parasites, mountain gorillas surpassed even Peace Corps volunteers as the gassiest primates on the African continent. As any tracking veteran can tell you, a good portion of gorilla viewing involves sitting around in the rain, listening to the apes break wind.
> I wasn’t sure
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if people actually got us confused or whether they simply assumed that all muzungus were called John. Either way, it didn’t bother me. Liz had been coming to Buhoma for nearly a year, and everyone still called her John too.> Tribes in Uganda relish teasing one another over food preferences, and a proud Baganda will scornfully dismiss the entire western half of the country as “millet eaters.” But in the case of munanasi vs. tonto, Tom definitely had a point. I learned how to make munanasi at Annette’s place, with a big pineapple grater and a series of shiny aluminum pots. After three days of fermentation, the final product resembled a thick, tart cider. Brewing tonto, on the other hand, involved a bunch of barefoot men stomping around in a hollow log full of bananas. In the end, it was tough to say whether it tasted more like the bananas or the feet.
> In Buhoma, young men complained constantly about their “dowries” and how to pay them off. The sum usually included between one and two hundred dollars in cash, supplemented with at least twenty goats, ten cows, and quantities of tonto, millet, and other commodities—far more than anyone could afford to pay at one time. Remittance often stretched over years or even decades, forming a complex network of debts between families and clans throughout the area. The bride-price system plays an important cultural role in binding Bakiga communities together, but at significant cost to the social status of women. The hardship of long-term payment makes men more likely to treat their wives as property, particularly second or third spouses. As Agaba Philman, a porter who worked for John, once told me: “For twenty goats, she will wash my feet!”
> in previous times, when meeting the male members of her new family involved sitting on a wooden stool puddled with their combined urine. After this symbolic ritual, any of them was free to demand sex. “If a man came home to find his brother’s spear beside his door, it meant he was with the wife,” Enos Komunda had explained to me. “He could either wait or go directly to plant his spear at the brother’s house.”
> I teased them, naming women from the village, and asking, “ Mbuzi zingahi ?”—“How many goats?” When I mentioned that we paid no bride-price in the States, they shook their heads in envious disbelief. “And,” I added, “the woman’s family even pays for the wedding party.” “Is it?” Caleb’s laugh was high and drawn out, like the shout of a loon. “In America, I think I would be married many times!”
> When we were gone, the farmers would begin to shout, beat on pans, and throw rocks—a good technique for driving gorillas from your shamba but a serious setback to our habituation efforts.
> My house was a complete loss. The invaders commanded floor, wall, and ceiling space in every room, centering their attack on the kitchen, where I glimpsed ants pouring out of the cupboards and swarming over a bin of dirty dishes in a dense, almost liquid mass. Occasionally, a cricket, spider, or small lizard would fling itself down from the rafters, twitching spasmodically under a living blanket of tiny, voracious attackers.
> Today, the Virungas lie within protected areas in three countries: Parc des Virungas in Zaire, Parc des Volcans in Rwanda (both formerly part of Parc National Albert under the Belgians), and Uganda’s Mgahinga Gorilla National Park.
> “Before you whites came, that girl would have died here,” Phenny shouted over the roar of the falls. “You mean without the hospital?” “No,” he shook his head. “This place. The waterfall. This is where the locals used to judge unmarried mothers. They threw them from the top there.” He pointed to a ledge that jutted out from the top of the cliff, overhanging the waterfall’s precipitous drop. “No one could survive.”
> With a fibrous fruit and vegetable diet, and their own collection of stomach parasites, mountain gorillas surpassed even Peace Corps volunteers as the gassiest primates on the African continent. As any tracking veteran can tell you, a good portion of gorilla viewing involves sitting around in the rain, listening to the apes break wind.
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Awards
Next Generation Indie Book Awards (Winner — 2008)
Pages
272
ISBN
0692275002 / 9780692275009