Village Gorilla Safaris-Uganda

19/11/2024

We grew up before time because life never gave us the choice to stay young. Responsibility makes you mature not age .
Lets those who hustle for daily bread reap the fruit of hard work.

19/11/2024

Local vendors transporting plantain (matooke/ green banana) to market ,the most favourable meal (when cooked) for most Ugandans.
This dish is a daily Ugandan cuisine with peanut sauce mixed with egg plants or silver fish.
Hustling is normal but pandemic has brought inflation in all sales .
When in Uganda you can't fail to capture yourself a such wonderful photo.
🍌🍍🍎🍏🍊🍉🥕🍆🥑🥒🌽🥜🇺🇬
www.villagegorillasafari.com

16/11/2024

Visit The Batwa People
Batwa People and their Culture

HISTORY OF THE BATWA
The Batwa also known as the Twa in Rwanda are an indigenous group of people who originally lived in the ancient Bwindi forest in Uganda until it was gazetted as a National park in 1991. The Batwa lived in harmony in the jungle with all creatures including the mountain gorillas. The Batwa were regarded as the Keepers of the forest.

Today they are some of the poorest people in the whole world with a low life expectancy and a high infant mortality rate. Some anthropologists say that most pygmy tribes such as the Batwa/the Twa have existed for more than 60,000 years in the equatorial forests. The Batwa lived a lifestyle of gathering fruit and plant, and hunting game in the forest using bows and arrows, this was mainly for both medical and food purposes. They led a harmonious life in the forests, they never practiced farming, no charcoal making or deforestation, not even the shelters they had could destroy the environment.

They have a saying “A Mutwa (singular) loves the forest just as he loves his body” Most Ugandans look at Batwa as Gorillas poachers, eaters and killers. But these people co-existed with the mighty giants and other creatures for very many years. The time the Batwa have hunted gorillas is after they had been evicted from their former home. Therefore because of this they are stigmatized with all the names they are called and also blamed for poaching Gorillas found in Mgahinga and Bwindi Impenetrable National Parks. But the reality is that the Batwa protected and kept the forest until the Bantu tribal groups migrated into the area.

The Bantu are the ones that grazed their cattle, cultivated and cut down the rainforests. Around 1992, after establishing the forest as a national Park with an aim of protecting the rare mountain gorillas, the Batwa were evicted from the forests, this changed their way of living forever because they became conservation refugees in a world they were totally not used to. Therefore their tools and skills were not useful in the modern environment they were living in hence began to suffer. Because they had no compensation in form of money or land. They could not compete in the modern marked place with their skills, hence some resorted to stealing, poaching, begging, and working for other people who even do not give them a fair wage for the work done. Basically in most parts of Uganda where Batwa people live they are seen as drunkards.

28/10/2024

14/09/2024

Village Gorilla Safaris Uganda One of Our Destinations In East Africa
Uganda’s smallest park (33.7km²) protects mountain gorillas and other fauna on the Ugandan slopes of the Virunga volcanoes. Though small in size, Mgahinga contains a dramatic, panoramic backdrop formed by three volcanoes Mgahinga has one habituated gorilla group. Mgahinga Gorilla National Park covers the slopes of Muhuvura, Gahinga and Sabinyo at an altitude of between 2,227m near Ntebeko Park HQ and 4,127m on the summit of Mt. Muhuvura. Though small in size, just 33.7km², it adjoins Volcanoes NP in Rwanda and Virunga NP in Congo. Collectively, these three parks form the transboundary Virunga Conservation Area (VCA). The most famous inhabitant of Mgahinga and the VCA is the endangered mountain gorilla. Gorilla conservation on the Virungas dates back to 1925 when the Belgians gazetted the portion of the range in present day Congo and Rwanda as a national park to protect mountain gorillas. The British administration declared the
Ugandan section as a game sanctuary in 1930. This was upgraded to national park status in 1991. Mgahinga’s three volcanoes provide a dramatic and distinctive backdrop to regional scenery and each has been named descriptively in the local language. Gahinga is the smallest of the Virunga peaks and its name means ‘small pile of stones;’ a comparison with the cairns piled by local farmers when clearing boulderstrewn land. The lofty Muhuvura is an important landmark and its name means ‘the guide,’ while that of the distinctive Mt. Sabinyo, with its rough, jagged crown, translates as ‘old man’s teeth.’

Wildlife
Mgahinga Gorilla NP is home to 76 mammal species, of which the best known is the mountain gorilla. Roughly half of the total population (780) of this endangered ape lives on the Virungas and half in nearby Bwindi Impenetrable NP.