{"id":30479,"date":"2016-11-21T09:10:03","date_gmt":"2016-11-21T09:10:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/mcdonald-family-100-visits-to-1000-hills\/"},"modified":"2016-11-23T02:42:30","modified_gmt":"2016-11-23T02:42:30","slug":"mcdonald-family-100-visits-to-1000-hills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/mcdonald-family-100-visits-to-1000-hills\/","title":{"rendered":"McDonald family: 100 visits to 1000 Hills"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Two Americans, Joe McDonald and his wife Mary Ann McDonald have paid 100 visits to Virunga Gorillas and bringing more than 600 tourists with them. They pledged so, and they have made it.}<\/p>\n

This family from the state of Pennsylvania visited Rwanda\u2019s Virunga Gorillas for the first time in 2003 where they were excited on special care for the rare species. <\/p>\n

The dual, professional photographers, captured the captivating moments of their visits on camera, shared the same with the world and too Rwanda\u2019s tourism a notch higher through photography. They have recently written a book dubbed \u2018One Hundred Treks and Thousand Friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talking on the time-honoured commitment to visiting Virunga Gorillas, McDonald said; \u201cWe thought about visiting Rwanda for the first time in 2000 but our efforts remained inert for tourism had not yet progressed well in the country. We came later in 2003 but it was not easy as there was a problem of infrastructures like roads and hotels which were not in good conditions. We immediately pledged to visit Rwanda for several times each year and bring at least six tourists as we return,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201c We were excited by how Rwanda boosted tourism sector and using it to improve citizens\u2019 welfare through Revenue Sharing Scheme. We come to Rwanda very often and amazed by the hospitality of Rwandans,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

In 2014, after 11 years of visiting Rwanda, the couple dreamt of naming a baby born gorilla. At the time they had already brought 500 tourists. Their dream came to pass during the 22nd edition of Kwita Izina, a gorilla naming ceremony of baby gorillas on 2nd September 2016 when Mary Ann McDonald and her husband were selected among the namers (in Kwita Izina parlance). <\/p>\n

\u201cWe were extremely delighted for being selected among people to name baby gorillas. We named the baby gorilla \u2018Nchili\u2019 originating from the family of Kwitonda.The name we called the baby gorilla is \u2018Ntamupaka\u2019, a free gorilla which has rights to walk the entire park without barriers,\u201d says Mary. <\/p>\n

In 2013, Joe McDonald and his wife Mary Ann McDonald had spent USD 1 million in Rwanda\u2019s tourism. The couple had to visit Virunga Gorillas more than seven times a year. <\/p>\n

The couple has also visited various parks in East Africa like Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. They visited parks from South Africa, Arizona, California, Florida, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware among others. <\/p>\n

\"Mary<\/figure>\n
\"Musanze<\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Two Americans, Joe McDonald and his wife Mary Ann McDonald have paid 100 visits to Virunga Gorillas and bringing more than 600 tourists with them. They pledged so, and they have made it.} This family from the state of Pennsylvania visited Rwanda\u2019s Virunga Gorillas for the first time in 2003 where they were excited on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-30479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30479\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30479"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=30479"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=30479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}