UNIQUE WEEK

This has been a memorable week by all accounts – good and bad.

Thanks to President Paul Kagame (who won the elections last month by a landslide), we were going to have a day off on Monday and celebrate his being sworn in… Being bored at home, I came to the office to check emails, and that’s when all hell broke loose.

My colleague Veronica, the Gorilla Program Manager, came over in a frenzy, with the saddest news: Tuck, a 38-year-old matriarch, one of the most famous gorillas EVER, had just died. Of course, since this was a day off, no research assistants or data technicians were in the field, and we had no video or photo equipment out there either. In a matter of minutes, our boss, Katie, came over, fumigating, that this was completely unacceptable (Tuck had been sick for days, so we were kind of expecting the bad moment to happen). Only NOT on a holiday, of course.

So there… Since Veronica has a small baby at home and could not leave, and no one else was answering their phones, guess who had to leave the free day aside and get ready asap to climb the steep mountain… Yes, that’s right. In a few minutes they got me a car, driver, porters and military escort, and off we went.

And, OMG, what a day it turned out to be!!!

I, basically, became the first person in the world to EVER capture on video a mountain gorilla mourning ceremony. Absolutely heartbreaking, stunning, magical! I was there for some 5 hours, a few meters away from the dead body, seeing Tuck’s sons come and grieve, the big silverback kicking the body (trying to wake her up), the rest of the group calling her desperately… I simply could not believe what I was witnessing.

On the way down, I realized that I have this unique material in my hands, and the journalist in me was screaming. However, all that had to be put to rest… Since I have to have everything approved from Atlanta before posting it online, I knew the story would die then and there, since in the US they were also celebrating a day off (Labor Day weekend). Before they reacted in any way, 36 hours had passed… So sad, of course… However, this gave me time to go back the following day and see how the gorilla group was slowly moving away, and how the porters came to stealthily recover the body for necropsy. What an incredible sight, again…

I truly feel blessed to have been then and there. Once in a lifetime chance, of course! RIP Tuck!