Zebra Meets Skunk, Meets Lemur. Or Something Like That.

Nyungwe National Park, Rwanda – Toward the end of a long day spent moving south through the country from Kigali, fog seeps from the pavement as though the earth is smoldering beneath us. It dances hypnotically in the truck’s headlights as lightning briefly introduces us to the mountain peaks that envelop the serpentine curves of pothole-chocked roads in Nyungwe National Park. We’re heading to Cyangugu through Nyungwe, which is the largest montane rainforest in Africa, and whose stunning vistas will serve as my backyard during my time at the Kitabi College of Conservation and Environmental Management.

While Rwanda’s roads are extremely good – particularly for Africa – this one, winding through the park, is far from it. Already, we have seen two trucks that have driven over the edge, their drivers huddled around fires by the side of the road to keep warm. The curves are enough to become vomit-inducing, which has become the case for one of our passengers, and a few before. That it’s dark and raining lightly certainly does not help matters.

I have been fortunate to see my first non-avian wildlife of the trip: a jackal, loping along the side of the road, and an animal Jethro identified as a civet – a medium-sized carnivore with the face of a lemur that looks something like a very large skunk with a bushy tail and zebra striping on its hindquarters. Really. Unfortunately, I had packed my camera given the darkness, but both animals are extremely shy and seldom seen.