BWINDI IMPENETRABLE FOREST 1°03’07.6”S 29°37’12.4”E BÉATRICE VU
from the moment my father introduced me to the Discovery Channel as a young Asian child growing up in a Western country, I became deeply curious about both my roots and the vast world beyond. Where I grew up, there wasn’t much color diversity until I arrived at cegep. But whenever I opened a book or the television, I was mesmerized by the mysteries of the jungle, drawn to stories of the great apes and their striking similarities to us, and amazed by all the diversity our world had to offer. Little did I know that years later, I would become a documentary filmmaker and photographer, witnessing these stories firsthand and sharing them through my lens. In 2024, my friend Simon, a talented impact filmmaker, reached out with a proposal to combine our strengths and create a film about the stigmatization of children with disabilities in Uganda. This collaboration set the stage for what would later become a solo adventure further south in the Bwindi forest. Deep in the misty, biodiverse cloud forests of the Pearl of Africa, Uganda is home to the mountain gorillas of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park. Due to habitat loss, poaching, and other threats, these gorillas have long been on the brink of extinction. However, conservation efforts have brought hope. In 2018, their population had risen to 1,063 individuals across Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with Bwindi alone sheltering 469 gorillas. During my seven weeks in Uganda, observing a gorilla family was, by far, my most humbling experience. The journey started with an educational session with our guide, where he introduced our group to the family we would be visiting and information about how to observe ethically. To maintain an ethical tour, the group has no more than seven to eight people, in addition to the guide and two rangers. The family I got assigned to was the Katwe, which is formed of eight members, including two silverbacks, three adult females, one blackback, two sub-adult females, and two juveniles. With my visit being during the slower seasons, we were somehow lucky that the gorillas were closer to the base of the mountain due to the rarer food source in the thick jungle. This means that our trek was only 45 minutes through slippery barks and muddy floors with rich biodiversity and constant mist. To be honest, I would have preferred if the journey through the forest was longer, as it was simply beautiful to be surrounded by this unique ecosystem. As I admired the small details of nature, suddenly, the guide turned at us and pointed in the direction of a dense patch of vegetation. It took me a couple of seconds to realise there was a silverback known as Muriinza standing no more than ten meters from me. I remember this moment of ecstasy in my brain, while my body was static with the shock of excitement, a moment that felt like a scene in a movie seeing him standing tall right in front of me after only seeing shades of green scenery. In this thick and dark forest, their black fur is the perfect camouflage. We often perceive them as aggressive and dangerous, but as I watched the silverback ensure the safety of his family, there was a profound sense of calmness and relatability in the energy they were projecting. He even intervened when a blackback harassed a young one too much, just like our parents do when we are younger. “Even if there are all kinds of perspectives and people that visit us, it is our duty to educate them.” — Joyleen Tugume
99
MOTHER VOLUME FOUR
Made with FlippingBook. PDF to flipbook with ease