He is a professional tour guide specializing in bird guiding and identification, and boasts a 15-year track record. That is not all; Kirenga Kamugisha is also president of the Rwanda Safari Guides Association, the umbrella body that brings together tour guides in the country. Kirenga’s foray into tourism was born of sheer passion and dates back to his school days at Ibanda Secondary School and Ntare School, both in Western Uganda. At Ibanda, he was involved in organizing school trips on behalf of fellow students. “I would be tasked with the arrangements in collaboration with the administration. We would make our own contributions as students, and make the trips on our own,” he explains.
In fact, while still a student, he already knew some of the prominent national parks in Uganda, like Queen Elizabeth, Lake Mburo, and Bwindi. But even before joining school, his love for nature in general and birds in particular had already been manifest. “I was born in Mbarara district in Western Uganda, in an area that had a game reserve,” he explains. In fact he first saw most of the animals and birds that he knows today during his childhood. “I spent most times in the jungles, shooting birds using my catapult. I actually killed many birds using my catapult, because that is what I always did after grazing the cows.”
