A Family Guy

MOUNTAIN GORILLAS HAVE NO INTEREST IN MESSING WITH YOU BUT THAT KNOWLEDGE WILL NOT STOP YOUR HEART FROM HAMMERING WHEN YOU TROOP UP TO MEET GIRANEZA, THE SILVERBACK, IN HIS HOME IN RWANDA’S VIRUNGA MASSIF

- Mitali Saran

Giraneza is a dude, and I mean total dude, from Rwanda. He’s a sex bomb—200 kg of solid muscle, gorgeous silver in his hair—but a family guy, with several wives and babies who are his top priority. If you mess with his loved ones, he’s capable of crushing your skull with his bare hands, but he’s essentially peaceable, so he’ll likely only scare the crap out of you. Being reclusive, he lives in the bush up a very steep mountain, eating a healthy vegetarian diet. It took an expensive flight, and an even more expensive permit, to visit him. He can be prickly with visitors, and we’d been given strict instructions for what to do if he didn’t want to be visited. As it turned out, we didn’t need the instructions.

When we finally came face to face with him, after thrashing through a forest of nettles with a machete, Giraneza sprang to his feet, big as a house, and our bodies responded perfectly: our knees turned to water, and we collapsed to the ground in a craven crouch, silently praying for our lives. Having established who was boss, he returned to a supine position and resumed munching on nettles.

Giraneza is the silverback—the dominant male, the big cheese—of this family group of mountain gorillas. The term comes from the silver patch of fur along the spine of a male which develops as he matures. Silverbacks are built like tanks; the females are built like slightly smaller tanks. Giraneza’s ladies cradled infants with huge wet eyes and spiky baby hair. The family was relaxed, making happy lip smacking sounds as they foraged and snacked. We walked around slowly and quietly, tracking them and taking photographs as they moved around the bush reaching for food.