Chimp vs. Chimp

It’s so funny, having another orphan in the house, mostly because it brings out the real personality differences between the two babies!

Aketi is already doing SO much better than he was yesterday -- we figure he’d had little to no food while in “captivity” with his hunter/mother-killer. He’s literally been eating ALL day, from bananas to spring onions to the same tomato soup we had for lunch!

It’s pretty normal for chimp babies to eat what their mothers were eating, so while we relaxed this afternoon, eating tomato-plantain soup, we put some in his little cup and he ate it eagerly, getting it ALL over his face. It was incredibly cute, and nearly made us forget all about how awful he’d looked just the day before.

Since they’re both in quarantine before heading to our little sanctuary, we decided to introduce him to Mangé today.

Mangé had much less time with his mother -- though he and Aketi are about the same age, Mangé’s mother was killed when he was probably only 3 or 4 months old. Aketi’s mother was only just killed, and the difference in their confidence levels is HUGE.

Aketi acts a lot more like a standard chimpanzee infant... he seems remarkably well-adjusted after his 6 days in the hunter’s grip. He seems to be warming up not only to Adam, but to me and Cleve as well. He does certainly alarm call, but he isn’t quite as dependent as Mangé is on defending and protecting himself. He doesn’t like new people, but he doesn’t scream as much.

He seems mostly focussed on sleeping and eating and hugging. And regularly pooping, which we’ve all been very responsible and diligent about picking up. The lingering odor of baby chimp shit is one I’m very accustomed to already! Ha!

Mangé, on the other hand, is hopelessly and neurotically dependent on Polycarpe. When very afraid, he adopts this behavior we’ve come to call “The Inchworm” where he huddles on the ground and pulls himself along the concrete with one arm. While it’s quite funny to watch, it’s also quite sad that he had to develop such a behavior at all.

Whenever Polycarpe exits his sight, Mangé shrieks quickly, and he’s yet to really accept any of us - Adam, me, or Cleve - for more than a few seconds.

Watching them interact is amazing too. Aketi is eager to play, and lounge, and very comforted by Mangé’s presence. Mangé, on the other hand, screams and tries to flee. He hid today in a pile of plastic bags, trying to stay as still as possible while Aketi lay next to him, lounging leisurely and trying to be friendly.

Poor Mangé tried to flee out of the room eventually, but he used the InchWorm, barely making any headway in his escape as Aketi followed him, walking normally, probably wondering what in the hell Mangé was doing.

It was, indeed, funny and pitiful all at once, because Mangé was still covered in plastic bags and we could hear the shh-shh-shh of the bags rubbing against the floor as he InchWormed his way into the living room.

We hope that the influence of Aketi will be good for Mangé -- perhaps growing less attached to poor Polycarpe. Additionally, if the two boys form a brotherhood, it’ll be an easier integration for them in the sanctuary.

We shall see what happens!

The Integration of Mangé

Integration of another chimpanzee into a pre-established group is always tricky, but does tend to be easier when the chimpanzees are all as young as the Aketi Five are.

Still, when it comes to the integration of a chimpanzee with as obvious social deficiencies as Mangé, it’s always going to be a challenge.

Troubling too was the fact that I wasn’t going to be able to be present at the integration, since my responsibilities to Aketi Kigoma left me stuck at the house.

Regardless, I have excellent faith in Polycarpe, even if his patience as a chimp mother was noticeably absent during Mangé’s last month at the house. So off he went on the back of the moto with Seba, and Seba recorded it all on video for me to watch later.

It strikes me as remarkable that one of one species can be so utterly afraid of others from his own species. That Mangé felt more at ease with Polycarpe than he did with other chimpanzees is a troubling statement, but one we had to try to counteract nonetheless.

I might consider being afraid too at first especially when all three chimpanzees at the sanctuary -- Kathé, Bolungwa and Django Mayanga, all descended upon Mangé at once, curious to see who had arrived!

As he fled and the three followed, Djodjo did eventually intervene and collect Mangé from the ground, though he continued to scream.

Djodjo sat with Mangé and the most remarkable thing happened. Django Mayanga came in to jealously swat at Mangé (he has enjoyed thus far being the “baby” of the sanctuary), Kathé, the biggest chimp there (a female) came running over to Mangé’s rescue, chasing Django away while beating him.

It gives me such hope that perhaps Mangé can form normal chimpanzee bonds with the others!

Never A Break!

What a stressful night --

At around 9 pm last night, two of the caregivers from the sanctuary came to the house carrying Mangé, who, to remind you, was confiscated last summer and integrated into the sanctuary community this past December.

Mangé had had a cold two weeks ago, and had been given medicine and had recovered.

Or at least we thought! Some part of his cold had moved to his lungs, so he was sort of wheezing and coughing, but it was clear that it was a really dry cough.

Polycarpe, Mangé’s surrogate mother during his long quarantine period, seemed extremely worried, and we all huddled in the dark living room, illuminated only by the weak glow of our substandard Chinese flashlights.

The air was so chill that I wasn’t sure whether I was tense with cold or tense with worry, but seeing Polycarpe holding Mangé so tight, swathed in a blanket, while Mangé’s head lolled around and they tried to give him some honey --- of course I was reminded of Akuma Cleveland, and my heart sank even further.

Mangé had been a fighter-- a success story -- who no one thought would live when he was taken in last year. Akuma may have given up, but Mangé hadn’t, and the thought of losing him - or any of the other chimps, was more than I could bear.

Because of the late hour, the pharmacy was closed (and is also closed on Sundays) so we made due with what we had -- and because I’ve also been prone to bronchial problems since having whooping cough in Uganda, I had some bronchial expectorant pills that we quartered and then ground up in a spoonful of water.

One of my chief concerns in taking over this project was the health of the chimpanzees. There are certain extremely strict procedures we follow to keep the chimps from getting sick (especially with regard to limited exposure to human pathogens), but once they GET sick, it can sometimes be difficult to diagnose and treat them.

Before I knew we would be sending the chimps to another location that already has an on-site vet, I was working on getting veterinary care out here, because it really is just that important.

Mangé threw up in the night, and the three of us stayed up very late, monitoring him and listening for improvements in his breathing.

I am happy to report today, at 3 pm, Mangé is already back on his feet and feeling much better after another 2 treatments of the bronchial medicine.

The danger is over, and I couldn’t be more relieved, but it does impress upon me ever more that pushing through the next two months might not just be “that easy”...

Extracts from Cleve's Journal

WELCOME TO AKETI, LOLA AND ADAMU! I am so glad you guys have come to help! We sure need it. We have now seen 30 chimpanzee orphans in the area since last September and 18 carcasses for sale. Unfortunately, we cannot save all of these chimpanzees, but with Laura and Adam down here I am sure that Kathe, Django Mayanga, Bolungwa and Mangé will get all the love and care that they need when I return to Holland in a month to write my PhD.
The following are some recent extracts from my journal:
October 21, 2008
        This has been by far the best day I have had in a long time. Laura still has a bit of a cough, so she reluctantly decides to stay home, but I walk to the sanctuary with Adam, Seba and Jojo. I greet folks as we pass with ‘Yambi’s and ‘Mbote’s, which Adam quickly picks up on. Polycarpe has completely renovated Monganzulu … the road has been cleared, and they have built a mud hut. It looks great! I panthoot my arrival from a distance, and the chimps race out to greet us. Kathe and Adam really hit it off, with Kathe wasting no time playing her favorite game with him --- King of the Mountain on top of his head! She also frequently sticks her butt in his face. I get some great films and photos. While Kathe romps, swings and spins on us, Django Mayango hangs about on the sidelines, repeatedly approaching cautiously and planting on us his bite/kiss greet, or slapping at us jealously. Bolungwa as usual stays in the background, watching us untrustingly. Django urinates on Adam’s Beatles t-shirt, hitting poor old George Harrison straight in the face. ‘You could have at least have pissed on a living Beatle!’ Adam jokingly chides him. Somehow I manage to break a stool and then a bench, on the latter occasion ending up on my back with a post sticking dangerously up between my legs. Kathe and Django swarm over me. Django knocks off my glasses and Kathe gets a hold of them, but I somehow manage to get them back intact. Adam swings Kathe round and round and she guffaws with laugher.. The chimps look so great, and healthy, and happy! I tip everyone generously and will work on the salaries this afternoon. I feel better than I have in many many months!!!! When we get back, I share my photos with Adam and Laura and Adam makes a great report to Laura on the healthiness and liveliness of the chimps. Laura will accompany us tomorrow, and she can’t wait. I think we may finally have come over the crest of the hill.

October 22, 2008
        When Seba and Dido were at the Aketi market today around 10:30, a female merchant told them that she was selling chimp meat, and would they like to buy some? Around 14:45, I send Seba on the motorbike to the market, where he is able to photo A SMOKED CHIMPANZEE CARCASS. It is fairly obvious that it is chimp meat, though it is just some ribs and several small pinkish chunks of flesh. The ribs are long and the meat is red. The merchant hoped that Seba would buy the meat. She wanted 2000 francs (roughly $4) for the ribs and ‘petites morceaux’ (in comparison, according to Adam a chicken sells here for roughly $5). The vendor says that the carcass arrived yesterday from the Yoko Forest, brought by the hunter. She is not mad at Seba when he says we do not buy chimpanzees. She tells Seba that a new chimp carcass arrives every 2 or 3 days, usually from the Yoko or Bongolu Forests.
        As we are sitting out in the backyard next to groggy Mangé, Laura and then Adam manage to come and join us without any reaction from the sleeping chimpanzee baby. Mangé wakes up with no screams, and rambles around on the blanket in his solitary play (sometimes accompanied by his rocking/humping). After all the dire warnings from the workers that feeding Mangé milk from a bottle would surely never work, that the ‘biberon’ is too big for his mouth, and that poor Mangé would surely dribble the milk all over his chin, Laura easily manages to coax Mangé to totter over on his wobbly little legs. LO AND BEHOLD, he accepts the bottle from Laura, eagerly slurping down the milk after a few tentative and ill-advised chews. He then retires to his blanket emitting a series of contented belches. A new friendship has been formed! Congrats to Laura, Mangé and Mr. Polycarpe (Polycarpe has been patiently wearing the orphan around his neck for the last 2 and a half months, a ‘veritable maman de subsitition’!)
        Mangé is now totally relaxed around all of us, but it will probably be a while before we can hold him in our arms.
        Now, time for malaria medicine!!!
        Despite my dizziness, it has been a very pleasant afternoon out back. Adam is reading a Star Wars book and Laura is working on a needlepoint. And ‘un peu de frottage’ against the canvas and towel for Bebe Mangé!

Un Peu Deranged

Mangé behaves like no chimpanzee I have seen thus far, which is saying a lot considering (when I add it up in my head) the number of sanctuary chimpanzees I have had exposure to.

While he might be cute with his flat face and huge wide floppy ears, the fact that he behaves SO little like a regular chimpanzee becomes especially troubling when taken into account the facts that he must eventually be integrated with the others and that, if he lives, he will somehow have to normalize over the course of time as he comes into adulthood.

Which of course begs the question, what will he be like as adult? And will the trauma of his first 3-6 months of life impact him in a markedly noticeable way?

Most chimpanzees of Mangé’s age are running about, getting into trouble and climbing and exploring and knocking things over.

But not Mangé. Instead, he cowers out of the way of most people and tends to scream and flee upon approach.

Unlike a normal flee though, he has adapted what Cleve and Adam and I call “The Inchworm” where he clutches his cheap plastic bag for reassurance and shuffles across the floor, pulling himself forward with only a single arm.

As a result of inchworming, he seems to have lost a lot of the hair on his shins and he seems not to use his legs often enough to have full use of them when running or walking

Even worse, he seems to be unaware of his species’ predilection for using hands for everything - grasping, eating, playing. Instead, he sits at the foot of whomever is feeding him and suckles his food just with his mouth and lips, keeping his hands dormant.

Not only is it very unchimpanzeelike, but man, it looks dirty.

Is eating with one’s hands even something you can teach?

I had hoped that when Aketi came to the house for their shared quarantine period that perhaps they could form a friendship, a bond, or even a male alliance. But any proximity to Aketi sends Mangé into paroxysms of fear and screaming, leaving Aketi confused and lonely without another same-species playmate.

It does leave me concerned over Mangé’s future at the sanctuary. He already is such a high-stress chimpanzee, what will the constant exposure to three other chimpanzees do to him?

And most importantly, will he be able to survive it?

The Big Cheese

It took him seven hours to get here on the wet season roads, and yet it only took him 20 minutes to upset the order of the house.

Our owner of the house, here presumably working for the same cause and yet with completely different methods.

I’ve been reading this book, African Silences, and, while some of its wildlife descriptions are lacking, it zeroes in on the real social problems of Congo with ease. Amazingly too, it was written in 1978, and I don’t see that a whole lot has changed here since then.

It’s easy to see here how to have nots dominate the “haves” here. I’ve witnessed it during the past few nights, attempting to keep my distance at the same time to stay uninvolved.

I’d laughed at first, watching the staff here prepare for FS’s arrival. His room was unlocked by the only man in Aketi who has keys to it - it is a trove that is apparently full of electronics and candles and jam (a rarity here) and packs of spaghetti and fancy coffee from Kinshasa. And onions. Don’t ask me why.

Out of the room FS’s ManFriend pulls all of his clothes, clean-looking, from inside drawers and he brings them out into the hot day and washes them all, hanging them each delicately on the line.

Dido then irons them all while Bea is getting her hair done in the yard. I chuckle to myself -- and text Cleve who is still in Buta. He laughs too, giving me the Lingala equivalent of “The Big Cheese.”

It isn’t until FS’s incredibly late arrival and I am woken from a sound sleep by chimp screaming that I realize the dark side to that Congolese power and charisma -- a cruelty; demanding and petty and impatient. If FS believes I’d ever let a man like that care for chimpanzees, he has another thing coming.

He has woken up Polycarpe, our house pappa here, who takes as good care of us as he takes of baby Mangé (who clings to his side daily and nightly) and demanded that he relinquish his bedroom, and his bed, and wake up the chimpanzee and have him do the same.

Mangé is, of course, screaming at the outrage of being woken at nearly midnight. FS is requesting that Polycarpe make him stop screaming. While he and his equally rotund friend gorge on food from fancy flowered pots that I have yet to have seen in this house nor be offered food from, he commands Polycarpe to sleep, with the chimpanzee, out in the dining room.

FS and his friend have already consumed three Primuses (a local beer), a luxury for us at $3 a bottle, and they are merrily eating while poor Dido runs around trying to meet their needs and Polycarpe tries to calm baby Mangé.

FS does not introduce me to his spherical friend. And feeling helpless to assist Polycarpe in his troubles in the dining room, I head back to the bedroom to check on Adam.

The next morning is no different. While Adam and I must wait until we give money to someone to go to the market to get our tea and bread, there are already cups and coffee out on the front veranda for FS and his friends, who have multiplied during the night. There are now a constant stream of men on the veranda, buttoned down, grim faced, yet I am introduced to none of them. I fear that if I intervene and insert myself into their politics, that I will be hopelessly swallowed in them.

RoundMan emerges from Polycarpe’s room, towels in hand -- there is a direct door into the bathroom from that room and he has been in the bathroom for an hour, bathing, despite the other 4 people in the house that might need to use the bathroom.

He calls for Dido brusquely, and shoves the towels in his face, saying “Wash these,” using informal French, with the obvious tone meaning as much as his choice of conjugation. He then shoves his leather loafers at Dido and says, “Polish these.”

There are no pleases, no thank yous. This is Congo.

Of course, RoundMan has left the bathroom without unlocking the main door - the one that does *not* go through his/Polycarpe’s bedroom. Ergo, despite being empty, the bathroom is thoroughly locked. He does this several more times during the course of only 2 days.

We are consciously not involved in the affairs over the next two days -- every once in a while we will emerge to see a new collection of gents on the veranda, smoking and sitting wide-legged, somewhat humorous considering that they are sitting in flimsy white plastic chairs.

There is ubiquitous Primus too, drunk from clean, clear actually-glass glasses. Also a rarity here, but how can a dignified man drink a beer without a mysteriously clean fancy glass here?

Thankfully, Adam’s malaria gave me a good excuse to retreat into our bedroom.

But as I excused myself to head off to bed late last night and passed a new collection of gentlemen, FS and RoundMan among them, pouring Johnny Walker Red Label into the same clear glasses over FS’s fancy coffee table - embedded with real ivory and with legs carved to look like elephants - I wondered how two people, FS and myself, could ever work towards the same goal?

The Whole Story

This hotel in Rwanda is even nicer than I remembered. I sit on the balcony, listening to the sound of the waves hitting the shore and Bach and it’s so serene that I feel like I could cry.

I’ve been doing a lot of that recently. As I told Don and Stu yesterday, I feel like a teenage girl again.

And I’ve been loathe to write this entry -- to try and make our adventures as compelling as possible, as I write I transplant myself back to the scene, remembering vividly what it felt like so that I can best convey the life of the scene.

But I don’t want to go back to the airfield in Aketi again. Imagining the scene fills me with the same fear of the day itself -- and as I feel my heart sink into the pit of my stomach, all I can remember is how close we nearly were to losing everything we had worked so hard to achieve -- and how near to us failure became for that hour on Monday morning.

I will try anyway, however, to recount it as best I can


***************************************************************************

Monday, by 9 am, had felt like a long day already. The sun was particularly hot, and both my temper and those of the workers were short as we’d all had little sleep, and they were on the cusp of losing work while I was on the knife’s edge between wild success and disastrous failure.

Though we had given the chimps valium earlier in the morning, it had worn off too by 9 am and they were restless, hungry, and wondering what in the world was going on. Thanks to the Valium, we’d been able to take the chimps across the airfield to the river before the sun came up without being caged, and they continued to be uncaged, romping through the underbrush at the sides of an extremely narrow path cutting through the dense undergrowth where we sat hidden. It was off of the main path, so the countless ladies with their empty wood collection baskets who passed by didn’t even notice us.

It was impossible to find shade, and everyone looked pensive. In addition to sweating, I felt an unusual tightness in my chest, my eyes focussed on the narrow path towards us.

At about 9:30am, my eyes caught sight of an official, but quickly realized it was just Papa B, our extortive “friend.” It was his job to authorize the plane to land, and he’d been the only person told the specifics of our plan. He rarely wore his uniform, so it was rather funny to see as he made his way through the underbrush, trying not to get dirty or rumpled even as the leaves and branches pulled at his neatly pressed shirt.

He was, of course, visiting to discuss the subject of payment -- he was willing to offer us a “discount” but he wanted to ensure that I would pay him before everyone came. Nothing says “I’m going to take this money under the table” than a persistent demand to have the money in secret, right?

He assured us, however, counting the last stack of our meager remaining money, that he would protect us in the hours ahead.

So we waited.

The wait was indeed painful -- I could barely believe there was a plane coming even as I’d booked and confirmed it, and a deep-seated fear nagged at me that the plane would never come. In the interim, we tested out the cages, and discovered problems immediately. The bigger cylindrical cage had its door sticks too far apart, and Bolungwa escaped after only 10 minutes of trying.

As it was already 9:30, we set to fixing that cage immediately.

Aketi didn’t take to being caged, and, frustrated, took it out on Mangé, who isn’t much of a fighter, or a lover. More of a rocker/floor-cleaner. We separated them and left Mangé in the cage and let Aketi roam free, keeping an eye on him as he was still showing signs of valium haze.

Kathé was another story -- she was the only chimp for whom we’d made a wooden planks cage, as she’s far bigger and stronger than the rest of the kids. We’d made many modifications already with the carpenter, and now all that remained was to put Kathé inside and nail the top shut.

Kathé, tranquilized but not tranquil, had other ideas. It took six of us to get her inside, and it took her six seconds to escape.

The side bars were too far apart, despite all of our modifications. We had to think FAST.

I sent guys out to cut small branches, and we worked feverishly to make additional lattices on the sides and prevent further escape.

Laughing at us, Kathé rolled in the grass next to the cage, calm and flopped.

Our second attempts to get her into the cage were easier, but she immediately set out to untie all of the vine-knots that were holding the lattices in place. It was now 10:15am, so I figured it was a good time to get out to the airfield.

Carrying the three cages and Aketi separately, who was sleepy and heavy with Valium, we made our way out to the airfield.

Local people cutting wood and what-not were immediately intrigued and followed us closely, with no mind to our personal space OR the chimpanzees’. It was all I could do to run at them screaming to get them to move back and away from the chimps, but with the help of all of our staff out at the airfield, we managed to get a bit of breathing room.

Out of the protective shelter of the trees, however, it was hot, and as the sun razed our flesh and our patience, I wondered if the plane was ever coming. We put Aketi back in with Mangé, and the heat lulled them into a temporary truce.

As I contemplated despair, Polycarpe looked at me, an excited gleam in his eyes -- “I hear a plane!” he said.

And sure enough, five minutes later, the small black speck was visible from the ground. The plane circled around, becoming louder and louder until finally, it touched down.

Adam ran to me, tears of joy streaming down his face, “It’s here, it’s here!”

I couldn’t believe it! But our work was not done yet.

We introduced ourselves to Joey and Jon, who were two very cool and laid back pilots indeed! They started refueling immediately, as we loaded our luggage into the plane and prepared to the load the chimps as well, still a hundred feet from the plane in their cages.

The bags loaded, I headed over toward the cages, and my heart dropped as I saw the very thing I’d been dreading -- Mr Moibi -- decked again in his blueberry shirt.

At first I fooled myself into thinking that perhaps he was just there to wish us a fare-thee-well, but as he pushed documents in front of my face, menacing me and commencing a loud angry tirade about the $8,000 tax bill, my stomach dropped and it was all I could do to keep myself from falling or puking.

He pulled from his pants pocket a crinkled, torn note -- an invitation, to the ATE’s office -- to discuss the matter of documents and insisted that I accompany him immediately.

My heart raced, and as I returned to the plane to pull the additional documents we photocopied and prepared ahead of time -- a just in case for exactly this scenario -- I felt the rush of fear, that desperate urge to just get on the plane and flee. But the pilots had ten minutes left to continue refueling. It wasn’t an option.

I returned to Mister Moibi and tried to explain clearly, quickly, politely, succinctly, that we were within the Congolese Law, had permission from Kinshasa (the big boys), and that the pilots had a very tight schedule to keep that couldn’t be delayed. All of this was true, but it did not stop him from coming very close to my face, his breath even hot after the morning of equatorial sunshine, and whispering, his eyes narrowed menacingly, “I will take these chimpanzees from you,” he hissed.

He announced to the increasingly large crowd of spectators that we were all going back across the river to the office, and he beckoned to one of his goons (not in a uniform or anything) to grab the chimps.

The goon took Aketi Kigoma by the leg from between the bars of the cage -- and inside the cage there was no way he could defend himself and he screamed, terrified, struggling to release this stranger’s grip.

Everyone was screaming -- the din in an outdoor space was incredible -- and as Aketi shrieked in fear, the other chimpanzees followed suit, shaking their cages, afraid.

We screamed at this man to let Aketi go -- not only was he scaring Aketi, but he was in danger of being bitten or worse!

He did not listen, however, and in a moment of father’s protectiveness, Adam rushed over to push the man away from the cage. The man, startled, stepped back, as Adam placed himself between the two.

We rushed to phone our emergency contacts in Kinshasa. They confirmed that we were within the law, and we relayed this to Mister Moibi, who insisted, louder and louder, that we were not IN Kinshasa.

Mister Moibi, undeterred, clutched the documents and left the field, and we continued loading the chimps and our things onto the plane.

Five minutes later, he returned with a man we knew quite well who worked for the ANR -- an agency I’ve mentioned before is much like the CIA of Congo. Trying to remain calm, though it felt impossible in the heat and suffocation of the crowd, we explained to this ANR man what our plans were, and showed him our documents from ICCN as well as our detention permit.

As I tried to explain rationally our situation, Mister Moibi screamed over me, trying to contradict everything I said. Finally, the ANR man asked him to please be quiet. I could not help but grin.

“Are you contesting the legitimacy of these documents?” he asked Mister Moibi.

“No,” he said, confused. “Yes,” he said. He proceeded to try and relay the history of our alleged tax responsibility.

“Hold on,” the ANR man said to him. “This document [the detention permit] has a stamp on it, and its signed. Even if it’s false, it’s not their fault. They’re within the law” He then turned to us, smiling and friendly, and thanked us for our time in Aketi. He shook our hands, and helped me get into the plane.

Mister Moibi looked crest-fallen. His ally had basically said, even if he was right, he was still wrong!

I knew, however, that it most likely wasn’t over. We hurried ourselves to finish readying the plane, and said tearful goodbyes to our staff. Random people came over and stood in front of us by the plane, as another man with a camera took photographs for money. It was certainly surreal.

We kept looking towards the entrance of the airfield, waiting, but we had so much preparation to do. We had a little extra time, since it took about 10 minutes to cross the river by pirogue, but we would still be happier and more likely to succeed the quicker we could move.

People stood by our windows, asking us for money with obscure hand gestures as we secured the final straps around the chimps’ cages. We closed all of the doors of the plane, as everyone outside continued to make a remarkably loud goodbye. But when the noise seemed to increase significantly, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised to turn around and see Kathé, our big female, OUT of her cage and pressing her face against the plane window.

She’d escaped again, and really now, time was a serious issue. I barely remembered to take photographs -- we vaulted the seats, taking Kathé in our arms.

She’d slipped through two of the planks, despite our lattice of sticks and vine, and she seemed completely unable to go back in the way she’d come out. Jon, the pilot, cleverly grabbed some tools and we worked on un-nailing one of the planks to give us enough space to put Kathé back in. We’d had to open up the back of the plane again to let Djodjo and Antoine (two caregivers) in to help. As Kathé cried out in stress, the crowd mocked her, yelling back. It was awful to see.

My eyes were restless, bouncing back from Kathé to the entrance of the airfield and back again to Kathé.

We managed to get Kathé back inside, trying to fortify the lattice with extra straps, ropes and what-not from the plane, ever-conscious as the minutes ticked by.

We finally decided to put the cargo net over the cages to prevent any sort of escape, and once it was secured to the floor, we were ready to go.

The pilots were nearly ready to go, with only the two side doors open still for ventilation from the heat.

About to leave, an official we’d had mixed dealings with previously came over with a policeman.

“The Administrator is coming,” he said. “You must wait.”

At this point, however, the pilots were already behind schedule and we really needed to go.

“We’re with the law here,” I explained from my seat. “And we really can’t wait. The pilots need to be in Bukavu by 14:00.”

“I understand,” said the man, “but he’ll be here really soon!”

“Get out of the plane!!” the accompanying policeman said.

The pilot, Joey, intervened. “We really can’t,” he said, “we’ve got to go.” With that, he turned on the front propellers, momentarily distracting the two men standing below the driver’s side door, allowing us time to close it and lock it.

It was only as the propellers whirred faster and faster that people cleared off of the airfield and away from the plane. We moved slowly to the end of the runway, preparing to turn around to take off. My eyes were peeled, unblinking, at the entrance of the airfield. We wouldn’t be safe... the chimps wouldn’t be safe... until we were off the ground.

The runway was so much bumpier than it had looked as we accelerated towards the other end. But as we felt the wheels leave the ground, Adam and I embraced one another in tears of relief, stress, and fatigue.

The chimps were free. Nothing could have felt better.

The flight felt quick in comparison to the morning, though Aketi Kigoma probably would have disagreed. Most of the other chimps slept (and pooped in poor Jon’s plane), but he spent much of the last hour screaming. Though we tried to comfort him, it was little help. I knew how he felt!

Landing in Kavumu airport, ICCN was there to meet us and guard the chimpanzees from any additional problems.

It still seemed packed, as countless strangers introduced themselves to me, when all I really cared about was the chimps.

Ainare, the interim sanctuary manager of Lwiro, was also there to meet us and it was wonderful to finally meet her in person!

We needed to meet with the DGM (of course) to register our immigration so I sent Adam along with our passports while I handled things by the plane, and talked to Cleve, only to discover that Polycarpe and the rest of our workers in Aketi had been taken to prison.

Even less rational was an arrest warrant that had been issued for Adam, as the story inflated itself with lies and exaggerations regarding his protection of Aketi Kigoma AND the man who was grabbing him on the airfield.

It was a terrible development in a story we’d been hoping could be a finished success, but it was only one of a hundred things going on at the time.

I walked over to accompany Adam at the DGM’s office and was encountered with a new problem -- the visas we’d been issued in Buta in January were INVALID. Not only that, but we’d been sold $45 documents for $300. Thankfully, we had receipts, but the airport DGM was intent on making us pay for our “illegal residence” in Congo and wanted us to come with him ... with the police ... to Bukavu immediately.

Of course, Lwiro is only 45 minutes from the airport, but 2.5 hours from Bukavu, so our going there at 3pm in the afternoon was pretty impossible.

Ainare convinced him to hold onto our passports, and told him we’d be back later that night to discuss options. Because we’d had to untie the plane’s ropes and straps from Kathé’s cage, I’d had fear she would escape from her cage while in the back of the pickup truck. Ainare, a veterinarian, had therefore sedated her but it meant that we were under a quickly-evaporating window of time in which to drive the 45 minutes back to the sanctuary.

The DGM agreed, so off we were, on the never-ending quest to give me grey hairs. I sat in the bed of the pickup truck with the chimps, trying to keep from being knocked unconscious by my own breasts or jettisoned right out of the truck as we rocked and bounced over the muddy, rocky, Congolese roads.

The chimps seemed calmer, probably too tired and hungry to care further.

And then we ARRIVED. I will post photos of the arrival, and I’m sure the staff there has additional photos and video as we released the chimps into a holding cage in the new dormitory as it is being completed.

They met their new caregiver, Claude, and ate and ate and ate. East Congo has such a wonderful variety of food and Aketi Kigoma literally crawled INTO the bucket of food and hoarded the bounty for three hours before he’d leave!

We’ll write later about our further struggles with the DGM, and getting the guys out of prison in Aketi, and our trip out of Congo and everything else, but all that matters now is that the chimps are safe.

We continue to be tired and feel defeated, but this fact -- that, despite its high price in many ways -- the overall success of the Aketi Five will always buoy our spirits.

Thanks again for all of your support, and thank you to Wasmoeth Wildlife Foundation and MAF for flying us out, and IPPL for helping us fund the evacuation.

More entries to come, stay tuned.

Cleve and Mangé

As I mentioned previously, the Aketi Two has recently become the AKETI FOUR!

One of the dangers of starting a sanctuary or taking in chimpanzees is that, if you put an inadvertent placard outside your door, you will be swimming in orphaned chimpanzees in no time.

Cleve has already been offered 23 chimpanzees for sale in the last six months alone.

And, for those not in the know, Never, Ever, Ever pay for an orphaned chimpanzee. It sets a very, very dangerous precedent.

Baby chimpanzees should never been perceived to have a value, or it will encourage people further to slaughter their families and pull them from their jungle homes.

Mangé just arrived at Aketi -- as you can see, he is incredibly small. Cleve was not sure he would make it, but thus far, he is doing fine.

Polycarpe and Mangé

The bond between a surrogate mother and a chimpanzee orphan is
extremely close -- Mangé, one of our sanctuary chimpanzees, became
very ill earlier this week and had to be separated from the rest of
the chimpanzees at the sanctuary to be given some extra attention,
food and medicine.

Polycarpe, his original surrogate mother from the time of his
confiscation, cared for him again, and it is easy to see how pleased
they are to be together again!

Disclaimer: Chimpanzees shown here are not pets, nor should they be
considered as such. Chimpanzees are wild animals that belong in the
forest, and the pet trade fuels a vicious cycle of wild chimpanzee
slaughter and abuse. Chimps shown here are orphans and must be taken
care of in a sanctuary environment that mimics as best it can the
natural environment of chimpanzees and attempts to minimize the trauma
already inflicted on the infants.

Chimpanzees do NOT make good pets. They are wild animals, unmanageable
in a domestic setting, strong and willful and dangerous. For more
information, please visit:

http://www.hsus.org/wildlife/issues_facing_wildlife/should_wild_animals_be_kept_as_pets/fact_and_fiction_monkeys_and_apes_as_pets.html

Visiting Aketi Kigoma

Now that we were both (finally) healthy at the same time (scandal!!), Adam and I got to walk down to the sanctuary yesterday to visit our favorite little guys -- Kathé, Aketi Kigoma, Mangé, Django Mayanga and Bolungwa.

For me, it was the first time I’d gotten to visit Aketi Kigoma since dropping him off at the sanctuary for integration. Of course, I’d dropped him off, waited five days so that he could acclimate to new mommies, and then come down with terrible malaria.

Since the sanctuary is about 2 miles from the house, maybe a little less, it’s quite a walk when you’re not feeling well! But yesterday, leaving early before the oppressing heat moved in, the walk was great!

I know enough Lingala now to keep us from having a huge entourage of children (most importantly, phrases like “Go away!” or “Stay there!” or “Leave us alone please!”), so we were relatively unmolested on the walk!

Oh! And since I’ve been here so long and have also learned enough Lingala to say “My name isn’t Whitey! My name is Lola! Your name isn’t Blackie, is it?!” -- when I walk down the street people call out “Lola! Lola! Hello!” and it’s wonderful to hear!

And oh what a joy to see the kids (chimps) again! They’re all doing so well, and Aketi Kigoma has folded into their little hairy community so well! He’s very independent, and doesn’t seem quite as attached to the guys there as he was to us at the house, but it’s only because he seems attached now to the other chimpanzees!

It’s so wonderful to see -- such a proud moment -- when your little one is out foraging on his own and scampering around with his “brothers” and “sisters”.

Of course, he doesn’t recognize me or Adam, but it’s usual since we only spent 1.5 months with him and baby chimps tend to have two settings: Momma and Not-the-Momma.

I’m sure the more time we spend there the more he’ll reacclimate to us, and it gives us motivation to spend more time there now that we are healthy!

Despite Aketi’s trepidation about playing with us again, we still played lots and lots with the other kids, and there is nothing that makes me happier than seeing them so happy and well-fed and well-adjusted. Even Mangé seems to be mellowing!

Django and Bolungwa have such funny interactions, and Django is so eager to have everyone pay attention to him now that he is no longer the baby! Adam, funnily, says that maybe we should change his name to Djealous Mayanga!

Adam and I will return to the sanctuary tomorrow early in the morning (before the heat sets in) and spend another day there! It’s such a great thing to look forward to!

Adam feeds Mangé

Mangé not only lets Adam get the closest he's been to him thus far,
but takes the bottle from his hands! It's a good day!

Aketi's First Trip to the Sanctuary

Aketi’s quarantine period was officially over as of the 11th, but it was important just to check him for a few additional days after his bout with amoebas.

Plus, it gave us a chance to take his integration into the Aketi Five Community a little slowly -- in fact, yesterday, before his official “move” date, I thought it would behoove me to bring him over to the sanctuary to get to know his new “brothers and sisters”.

I wanted his final integration day to perhaps be a little less new and scary, and additionally, it gave me a chance to go to the sanctuary again. Since Aketi came to the house, it really wasn’t wise for me to go, since i interact with Aketi so often and he’s in “quarantine,” so going to the sanctuary would really defeat the purpose.

Taking Aketi to the sanctuary was going to be no easy task, since he’d be coming with me, and the last thing I wanted was for the whole village to see a white lady parading around with a chimpanzee. Next thing you know, they’ll be the biggest rage! (as if they aren’t already in the US, according to the Google hits I get on the blog)

So, we decided to go on the moto with Seba, and I wore one of Adam’s sweatshirts and zipped Aketi up into the inside of it, with me! He didn’t struggle as i thought he might. Instead, he just pressed in close to me and went to sleep!

I don’t know whether the village noticed him inside the sweatshirt, or thought that I was hugely fat(ter) or megaboobalicious, but no one said anything. Except, of course, “MONDELE! MONDELE!” (the Lingala for “whitey”)

Once at the sanctuary, we drove right up to past the second barricade and the three chimps - Kathé, Bolungwa, and Django Mayanga all ran out, wondering what was going on!

Man, they seemed HUGE by comparison to little Aketi, when just a month ago they had seemed so small! Kathé especially just seemed monstrously huge, and was already upset that I wasn’t paying her the proper amount of attention upon arrival, whereupon she bit me hard on the middle right finger.

The irony does not escape me, with Kathé, that I could lose a finger to a chimpanzee who does not even have any of her top teeth!

The chimps were all SO curious to see what was under my sweatshirt, and Aketi seemed relatively nonplussed. I did also see Mangé there, and, while he’s not really socializing a lot with the others, he did seem more mellow.

I sat at the bench and let things just unwind slowly. Bolungwa, usually shy and hesitant about coming over, came right over and stared me in the face, looking at me and then at my zipper expectantly until I unzipped completely to reveal little Aketi!

Django was once again jealous (like he had been with Mangé) and attempted the coward’s revenge: smacking Aketi and then fleeing and hiding.

Kathé was much more interested in playing with me, and then, when I seemed more willing to groom her, to have me continue grooming her.

Aketi remained by my side, with Bolungwa to our left and Kathé to our right.

Eventually without being forced, Aketi came down to the ground and started playing with Bolungwa. She seemed to enjoy his company already, and he had been looking for someone to play with while in quarantine, so it seemed a perfect match.

And of course, for the bleeding heart of anthropomorphizing and empathizing and cooing like 30-something women at new babies, they hugged each other so tight, and when Aketi finally broke the embrace, Bolungwa made sad little cooing noises until he returned and they started to hug again!

It did become a bit of a miscommunication, as Bolungwa wanted to just hug all day and Aketi was keen on playing, but they would find suitable compromises, running around after one another in endless loops and circles, and ending the bout with a hug.

Of course, being the littlest of a group of five doesn’t always mean hugging and playing and cuteness.

Bolungwa, convinced of the depth of their friendship, naturally assumed that Aketi would share his banana with her. When a squabble broke out, breaking the banana in half and sending them on another running-playing-hugging cycle, Kathé surreptitiously wandered over and collected both banana halves and ate them up as quickly as she possibly could.

After about 4 hours, Aketi seemed utterly tired and things at the sanctuary were winding down. Additionally, I knew my mother would be calling soon and the danger of pulling anything out at the sanctuary is that some chimp there will steal it!
Even so, Kathé managed to snatch money from inside my pocket, and it was only because I surprised her catching on so quickly that I managed to wrestle it back out of her greedy hands!

We returned back to the house, once again hiding Aketi inside the sweatshirt until finally we arrived home to find him contentedly sleeping inside the sweatshirt against me.

***************************

When he finally woke up, seeing Aketi by himself, playing in the house seemed strange. It seemed so natural to watch him frolicking around with the others, and so unnatural to watch him find entertainment in climbing the porch gate or playing with the motorcycles on the patio.

I had hoped ot make today his second visit and try to get him to spend the night there tonight, but I’m no longer sure about leaving the house today for so long now that Adam is so sick.

But it certainly is tough, watching him alone while Adam is incapacitated!

The Final Distance

It’s now been two weeks since I crossed the border from Goma, DRC to Gisenyi, Rwanda.

It feels like a hundred years ago, and it’s no wonder that, sitting in comfort at the JGI house in Entebbe, that I’m loathe to recount our hurried journey out of Congo.

But here we go.

***************************************************************

Touching down at Kavumu airport outside of Bukavu was like a dream. We’d made it, and though Aketi Kigoma had screamed through the last hour of the flight, refusing to be comforted, the rest of the chimps seemed calm.

We’d given Kathé our water bottles to play with, mostly to distract her from untying the various ropes and vines we’d used to repair her cage, and she was in a zen place, unscrewing and rescrewing the cap to her heart’s content.

Bolungwa and Django were sleeping, though one of them had felt the need to relieve themselves during the flight. Small plane with five chimps and four people, sharing the ventilation system with a dook? Always a good time.

ICCN was at the airport to meet us, along with about 40 other people who all proceeded to introduce themselves to me as I tried to keep my wits about me and make sure that all of our belongings were offloaded and that the chimps were okay.

I got to meet Ainare, the interim manager of Lwiro, who supervised loading the chimps into the pick-ups. Both she and I were unhappy by the number of people insisting on clustering around the chimps, so we tried to move as quickly as possible. To keep Kathé from attempting any escape maneuvers in the bed of the pick-up, Ainare, a vet, tranqed her and Adam and I were hustled to the airport DGM’s office.

I felt extremely bad that there was chimp poop in the MAF plane, but had absolutely nothing to clean it up with. I only hoped Joey and Jon could forgive us!

Adam went first to the DGM’s while I handled the last few logistical things on the tarmac before joining him, only to discover that he was already encountering problems. It was here too on the tarmac that I learned by phone of our staff’s arrest, and of the warrant that had been issued for Adam.

What should have felt like a purely exuberant day of success was already feeling more like a bad film.

Inside the airport DGM’s office, the immigration chief was questioning the visas we had obtained in Buta in January. We’d been issued ATLP’s, which, according to him, weren’t valid unless our passports were sent to Kinshasa to be issued actual visas. None of this, of course, had been told to us when we got the “visas,” which were listed in Bukavu as a $45 document (but for which we had paid $150 per person). We had a receipt, and technically the ATLPs were due to expire on the 2nd of April, but he angrily insisted that we were in the country illegally and was very firm on his plan of taking us to the bigwig DGM in Bukavu this very minute, with police escorts.

As you can imagine, this was the last thing we needed, but, additionally, Kathé’s knockout was only going to last so long and we were now under a time constraint to get back to the Sanctuary before she woke up.

Ainare convinced the DGM that we would return after depositing the chimps, and that, in return, he could hold onto our passports.

I am, in general, extremely reluctant to let go of my passport but I’d rather go without my passport for 1.5 hours than have Kathé wake up in the back of the pickup truck and freak out.

So off we went. I remember being in sort of a trauma-haze, worrying about our guys in jail, and trying to figure out my next move, all while sitting in the flatbed of the second pickup with the other four chimps - Aketi, Mangé, Django and Bo - trying to reassure them as we bounced and jostled through the rough volcanic-rock roads of South Kivu Province, barely managing not to fall out of the truck, my bra, and all the while fielding frantic phonecalls from Cleve, in Holland, who probably felt equally responsible for the predicament of our staff and equally helpless to save them as quickly as we both wanted to.

We did finally arrive at Lwiro, and Adam and I jumped out of the pickup to deposit our bags at the house and arrange ourselves for the trip back out to the airport to deal with our visa issues while the driver brought the chimps to the new dormitory, where they would be quarantined until their introduction with the remaining population of Lwiro.

Time was once again against us -- it was a 45 minute drive between the sanctuary and the airport, and South Kivu is simply not safe to drive in during the night -- we had to therefore hurry back to the DGM’s to retrieve our passports before darkness set in a little more than 2 hours.

I couldn’t reach my mom, but I managed to reach Rachel and let her know that we’d made it alright. She wasn’t happy to hear that Adam was a fugitive and that we’d relinquished our passports, but she promised to just let my mother know that I was “alright”.

When we finally arrived at the airport again, the sun was aglow in the warm yellow haze just before setting, and it illuminated the ridiculous reflector shades of the policeman who stopped our car at the airport gate. Though Ainare had paid for a 24 hour pass into the airport, the policeman was intent on us paying to enter the airport again -- $120!!

Though my patience was at its end and my stress levels near enough to popping my eyeballs from my head, I explained to him that we were only going to see the DGM and retrieve our passports, and then leave.

I must have looked a sight, as I saw my frazzled hair and wide-eyes in the reflection of his sunglasses, but he waved his hand non-chalantly to allow us to pass, as though he disdained us for not wanting to pay again to enter the airport.

We didn’t have as much luck at the second checkpoint. The officer there, luminescent in his safety-cone-orange trenchcoat, refused to let our car pass. When we offered to walk to the immigration office by foot, he pointed at me brusquely, saying in broken English, “You, okay” and, swinging his accusatory finger at Adam, “Him, no!”

Telling Adam it would be alright and leaving him at the hands of the various street urchins begging at the airport gate, I walked to the DGM’s office, imagining that I’d just be able to retrieve our passports and go.

Ha!

The DGM was busy issuing some sort of fine to a UN woman who had (gasp!) taken photographs at the airport. He seemed to relish making her wait, which of course also translated into making me wait, as the sun crept farther and farther toward the horizon.

I’ll never understand how exactly being tricked and bamboozled by immigration put us at fault, but as I struggled to gain sympathy from these airport DGMs, I realized that there was no way that I was going to get our passports back. As a woman, you can get away with more in these sorts of situations, but even crying didn’t cause these two guys to yield.

One of them, who finally broke and did seem to feel bad, offered to accompany us to Bukavu the following day to visit the DGM. He’d rest with our passports that night, but assured me that he’d arrive at our house at 7:30am with a taxi to take us the 2.5 hour ride to Bukavu.

We’d originally hoped to spend lots of time at Lwiro -- but it seemed this visa problem was going to stymie any hopes we’d had of just relaxing and celebrating our success. With each new roadblock we encountered, it was feeling less and less like success anyway.

Additionally, though I played it close so as not to worry him, I didn’t know what Adam’s arrest warrant would mean for our departure plans. I mean, I couldn’t imagine that it could make its way east in less than 2 years, but it’s not the kind of thing you want to bet on and then lose. As I say often, there are lots of things in Congo that can be thought of as funny, but Congolese prison is just not one of them.

Our new plan was therefore to head to Bukavu the following day, see the DGM, and then board the boat to Goma and cross into Rwanda before the expiration of our fake visas on April 2nd.

It was probably fortuitous that I ran into a man in the DGM’s office whose name was literally “Of the Forest” -- and who was indeed a jungle savior, not only for his detailed knowledge of the boat schedules, but for his friendliness and offer to book us two places on the Wednesday boat at 11am.

Heading back towards the car, I ran into Adam, who I suppose had finally been deemed Not a Threat by the technicolor policeman (Adam was, after all, wearing the Peter the Penguin shirt I made him. Not very threatening) and allowed into the airport grounds.

He too was not happy about our passport situation, but there are some things you can fight constantly and lose or just accept that you’re not going to win and move on from.

We sped back to the sanctuary, and managed to arrive just as the darkness had finally descended. We sat for a long time with the Coopera girls and vented our day’s frustrations. It’s also always a bit jarring when fellow Congo-workers turn to you and tell you you’re brave, and that they’d never have gone through what you did. It, at least, puts things into perspective.

I’d been up since 3 am, but couldn’t sleep quite yet, so we went down to our beautiful room, where Adam took a much-needed hot shower and I flopped on our tiny, ever-so-comfortable bunkbed. My mother called me, and as I recounted the day’s events I felt myself getting more and more upset. Cleve and I spoke too, never a moment to pause and reflect, always more to do, never finished.

Our workers were still in jail, so I didn’t feel right even celebrating the triumph that was getting the chimps to Lwiro, and instead I just lay in the bed, crying not out of sadness but out of the overflow of emotion from the whole day.

Dinner was delicious - spaghetti with sauce and CHEESE and we had great company with the Coopera staff of Lwiro. We didn’t head back down the hill to our room until around 9:30 or 10, and I realized that if we left at 7:30am the following morning, it would be extremely difficult not only to say goodbye to our babies, but I wouldn’t even get to see my kids from Goma.

We texted the airport DGM, and asked him if he could come with the taxi later in the day -- maybe 10:30? Thankfully, he agreed, and not only did we have a schedule the following day that was more lax, but we could sleep in a little, too!

The next morning we had CORNFLAKES (!!) and milk! and I got to catch up with one of my original caregivers from Goma - Balume - who is now one of the HEAD caregivers at Lwiro and doing spectacularly.

We headed over through the mud to see our kids first, who seemed to be adjusting quite well! Kathé was a bit miffed at being indoors, and Aketi was more shell-shocked than anything else, immediately clinging to Adam and falling asleep, but Django and Bolungwa were delighted by all the new foods they were being offered!! And Mangé was, well, still Mangé.

It certainly made ME realize, in any case, how much we’d accomplished, and our goodbyes -- our last goodbyes for a long time -- were extremely hard. Bolungwa didn’t want to let me go, and though we had to rush to be ready for the taxi at 10:30, the feeling was mutual.

Before heading back to the house, we also stopped at the enclosure of the other chimps, and to my great delight, coming over to the enclosure’s periphery, were my kids from Goma. They recognized me, reaching out, curious, wanting me to come over ... ignoring the food that was being proffered at the other end of the enclosure. They were SO BIG I could NOT believe it! I could barely recognize Yongesa, she’d gotten so big! But Kanabiro and Gari and Shege had the SAME faces -- and once again, I found my face streaming with tears, wanting to hold them, seeing them happy, healthy... such a rush of emotions.

Because I’d been around chimps who were in quarantine, it was a bad idea for me to interact with my Goma kids. I had to watch from a distance, encouraging me all the more to come back sooner.

As we hurried back to the house to bring up our bags for the taxi, forgetting that time is forgotten in Congo, I realized too how sad I was to leave Ainare, whom I’d only just met but was already extremely fond of.

Our taxi did indeed come, though, and it took us nearly 3 hours of struggling through the mud, rain, and rocky terrain to finally arrive in Bukavu.

Compounding all of our other worries was our shrinking cash - we’d paid salaries and helped out people before leaving Aketi, including our “fee” to leave via plane to our “friend” the extortive official. And, though my mother had agreed to Western Union us some money to Bukavu, we decided it was best to receive the money after our meeting with the DGM.

The airport DGM, however, was sort of nice and friendly during our 3 hour taxi ride, and we talked with him *somewhat* liberally, though still leaving out pertinent parts of our harrowing journey. Out of all the DGMs we’d yet encountered, I’d probably trust him most with our lives, though all of them are technically mandated in the job description to protect us.

The DGM’s compound in Bukavu was not-so-surprisingly nicer than any we’d yet encountered in our tour of Central Congo. It had four walls, a lack of goats or miscellaneous poultry in the lobby, and instead, was furnished with ornately posh white leather sofas. (Why people in a hot country always go for leather, I’ll never know)

Upon entering the office, however, it seemed routine and familiar. Papers were stacked everywhere with tiny hand-written labels saying things like “Protestant Missionaries” (a big pile) and “Catholic Missionaries” (an even bigger pile), this office held FOUR desks, each with a man dressed in a fine suit.

We weren’t exactly sure which one was the DGM, so as I explained our situation I tried to look each of the four men in the eye. Somewhat less powerful, but hopefully more useful.

Predictably, while two of the men stayed silent, the other two broke off into the “Good Cop, Bad Cop” routine.

Bad Cop was intent on us printing more of our documents, sure that we had somehow conspired to be against the law.

Good Cop conversed extensively with the other 2 mutes, in Lingala, and I picked up maybe 60% of it, unbeknownst to them, mostly a conversation about not wanting Congo to look bad.

Bad Cop suggested that we get 2 1-month visas at $90 each, despite the fact that we were leaving the country the next day and our existing paperwork didn’t expire until the 2nd.

Even though I cried on cue, the fact of the matter was that we had paid FAR more for some documents that were illegitimate, but not yet expired. Not only was it not fair to penalize us for being tricked, but we’d already paid $100 more per ATLP, and they wanted us to pay $180 on top of that?!

I explained too that we had no money, which was true, despite our having money waiting for us at the Western Union. Bad Cop, infuriated by the fact that we were not cushioning our pith helmets with Benjamins like perhaps other whites he’d encountered, stormed from the office, claiming he was off to find a solution.

For me, at any rate, I felt that inner tension rise as Good Cop insisted that he call the DGM in Kisangani, the boss of the DGM who issued us the fake visa, to inform him of his lackey’s treachery! I wasn’t sure how far Adam’s arrest warrant had made it, so imagine my relief when they seemed to talk of nothing but trickery and less of our Wanted status.

Bad Cop eventually came back in, a proud smile on his face, claiming that he’d found a solution... for us to get 2 1-month visas at $90/each. Hadn’t I heard this one before?

I explained to him again that we didn’t have the money and that we would leave the country tomorrow, but no one ever said conversation in Congo was efficient. Oh, and he also said that we would recoup our money from the Buta DGM once their investigation was finished, somehow trying to encourage us to cough up the $180. Um, recoup our money that was trickily thieved from us? Try not to laugh out loud at THAT one!

They asked us why we weren’t leaving via Bukavu, and continually peppered us with questions about why we’d gotten fake visas, as though we’d had a choice, and why chimpanzees were important at all.

Trying to keep calm and under-the-radar, even after Bad Cop came back into the room with a “new solution” (2 1-month visas at $90 each), it was slightly disturbing to have a new gentleman come into the room and start talking to me about how there was a different sanctuary in Congo that was going to seize all of Lwiro’s chimps. What?!

Not a time to start a fight, I just pretended that I didn’t really understand him.

We waited and waited and waited. At the mark of the third hour, my crocodile tears only partially dried, and with one additional visit from Bad Cop once again suggesting his $180 bailout plan (that was once again rejected), Good Cop finally said that he couldn’t give us new visas for free, but that he would enable our departure from the country the following day, calling all of the relevant people to make sure we wouldn’t have problems.

We even got his phone number, and piled into our taxi to head away, our passports in hand. (HURRAY!) The first hotel, run by a conservationist in Bukavu, was sadly full, so imagine our relief when a nearby hotel, THE HORIZON, had room for us - a big, luxurious room with a bathtub and a TV and a huge squishy bed.

I left Adam to load our stuff into the room, and rushed with our cab driver to the Western Union to pick up the money from my mother. It was, however, closed, and as we raced through the traffic of Bukavu looking for one that was open, I realized that the poverty I claimed in the DGM’s office was perhaps realer and DID necessitate real tears... all the while wondering whether THE HORIZON took IOU’s.

Finally, we found an open Western Union, and our problems were, for the moment, solved. It still didn’t leave us much money to get out of the country, we had to pay the $50/each for the boat ride, and we had to buy our Ugandan visas.

Eating food at THE HORIZON that night was a dream -- bedraggled in our locally-made Congolese outfits, the few bits of clothing we hadn’t given away -- mushrooms on toast for me, BEEF for Adam, cold beers! Things that shouldn’t be tear-inducing sometimes are, despite your tough veneer.

We had only one day left to go -- one day left in Congo -- one more day susceptible to the arrest warrant -- and though there was only one day left it dragged on and on and on.

We did get to the boat docks by 10 am the next day to make our 11 am boat to Goma, and, thanks to De La Forêt, our two reservations were indeed already booked. No one had mentioned to us, however, that we only got 10kg of luggage a piece, but thankfully I had just barely had the extra $43 to pay in excess baggage charges.

There was, of course, a DGM at the docks, to whom we had to explain the whole story ... again. More alarming, however, was the HORDES of military and policemen at the docks. Maybe under regular circumstances it would just make me uncomfortable, but considering our urgent departure needs, it was all the more disquieting. Not helpful was the fact that they all hung around us, asking for money. At least regular beggars don’t have guns! (but do they have *bullets*?)

My heart did stop, however, when a man ran over to us, wearing a bright pink and red shirt that had lots of prints of different kinds of ladies’ shoes on it.

“Are you Lola?” he panted at me.

How much I wanted to say No and run, (RUN, LOLA, RUN!!) but considering I was between a fence and a lake, I had to concede that yes, I was “Lola” and waited for whatever bad news or obstacle he had in store for me.

Imagine my surprise when he was not a harbinger of doom, but an envoy of the Good Cop from the day before, making sure that we were okay. He’d apparently been sent down to the docks at 6 am to wait for us, but had missed us (who knows how), and wanted to make sure we hadn’t had trouble with our Fake Visas.

How nice, as a sendoff from Congo, to have Good Cop been true to his word. Of course, ShoeShirt man still asked for money, which we didn’t have to give him, but hey, it is Congo.

When we finally boarded the boat, it was SUCH a relief, despite one particularly large military man claiming that “Mama Lola” was “abandoning” him (I’d refused to give him money). Despite the boat being full though, it didn’t leave, and as I sat with a front-row view of the countless military and police officers on the dock, my stomach dropped and I was reminded of that moment on the plane in Aketi, just willing the driver/pilot to GO GO GO before it was too late!

It turns out the military & police were there to wish a farewell to some big official, who showed up predictably late, holding up the boat, and as the military guys goosestepped to greet him on the docks, we couldn’t help but snigger. Funnier too was the camera man who accompanied him onto the boat as he took his seat, filming him with great interest. It’ll be a box office hit for sure!

And, as the boat took off across Lake Kivu, the volcanoes at its periphery silhouetted in the grey morning, we were finally on our way.

I would imagine that airlines have a “no” list of movies they shouldn’t show on airplanes, like Con Air or United 93 or maybe even Soul Plane.

Why this $50 luxury boat travel company chose to show Speed 2 then is beyond me (it’s about a cruise ship being overtaken and all the passengers being evacuated, etc). Why not Poseidon or even better, Titanic? At least Titanic is more watchable than Speed 2, and as we watched with the bizarre French dubbing, we couldn’t help but laugh at inappropriately dramatic places.

Worse, however, was the local standup comedy DVD afterwards, performed by a Congolese guy who’d traveled to Belgium. As you can probably guess, most of the jokes were about how CRAZZZZZYYY white people were. I’d equate it with being at the Apollo. Every time this stand-up guy would make some comment about white people in Congo, everyone in the boat turned and looked at us.

Always fun!

But we did finally arrive in Goma, and, our savior, Don, who works at the US Embassy was there to greet us. He stood by as we visited our second-to-last DGM at the port (can you believe how many we had to see just to get out of the country!?), making sure we were alright. This DGM was a bit more enterprising/weasly than the previous 2, and tried to tell me that there was a mandatory fee for every white coming to Goma, a lie I didn’t buy for a minute (and I had a burly Embassy guy to back me up).

With the proper names thrown around, however, he released us without paying a nickel, and Don’s driver drove us away from the port and towards Rwanda at last.

Goma has changed SO much since I was last there -- they’ve built it up considerably and even the elephant graveyard is covered in huge buildings now! The Lebanese restaurant is gone, and Don was eager regardless to get us OUT of the country instead of having lunch there anyway.

It was wonderfully familiar, though, and I was almost sad I couldn’t stay longer.

...Almost.

Arriving at the border, I saw that it too had changed. Last visit, it had been a drab, grey building riddled with bullet holes. They had since painted it bright blue and yellow and red (the flag colors) and they even had a COMPUTER inside the office, though it didn’t seem like anyone knew how to use it.

We, once again, had to explain our situation, and Good Cop in Bukavu hadn’t quite gotten around to calling anyone at THIS post, so a few tense minutes were spent as the border guard eyed our paperwork suspiciously.

He insisted that we leave the receipt and the ATLPs there so that they could “investigate the fraud” -- however much of a joke this may or may not have been, we had gotten out of Congo without having to pay a dime, and if it cost 3 pieces of paper, so be it.

We got back into the car, Don and I both encouraging Adam not to dance until after we GOT to Rwanda, and zoomed through the barrier.

Rwanda was, of course, easy. I know my passport number by heart after filling out so many of these little cards, but for Americans, Rwanda is FREE ENTRY because it’s just that cool.

Don dropped us off at the hotel in Rwanda, and we excitedly made plans for lunch there the following day together. The hotel brought us hot towels to wash our faces, and cold champagne.

It was then that we knew we were free. Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.



****************************************************************

We’ll be posting more entries eventually, organizing posts and fixing old tags and uploading more photos once we get back to America. I’m also hoping to post a “hilarious search terms that found my blog” entry.

Thank you for tuning in. Once all the research stuff is squared away, I’ll also post an entry thanking the people who helped me immensely with that. But for a while, this will be the last entry.

Questions? Comments?

Email me at laura@primatologist.me


Interested in helping chimpanzees? Please consider making a donation to Lwiro!!

Without Even Knowing It!

Adam and I actually both slept through the night last night -- perhaps we were both so exhausted that our bodies gave up!

The funny part was waking up with Aketi suckling the skin between my torso and my arm as though it were a nipple. He left me a hickey!

But he had managed to come into the bed with us without us waking up at all. We’ve been spoiling him a little extra of late, and we let him stay, because we know that it might be one of our last nights with him!

We’ll take him over to the sanctuary to join Kathé, Django Mayanga, Bolungwa, and Mangé on Monday. If he’s doing really well there, we’ll let him spend the night there, but we’re taking it slowly ... Malembe, malembe (in Lingala).

Still, after tonight, that’s only 2 or 3 more nights, and I am already sure that our twin bed will feel huge without a little hairy bedhog sprawled in the middle of it!

...Okay, well, maybe not huge.

You Be the Boss

One of my responsibilities here is to manage the sanctuary and staff.

During this past week, I’ve been mulling over ways to better protect our little interim sanctuary here. One of the plusses of Cleve having hired competent people is that they have developed many of their own systems, which is great, but my real goal overall is to make sure the chimps are safe.

For example, we currently only have two caregivers, who live full-time out at the sanctuary, which is ensconced in a tiny bit of forest at the far end of Aketi. We have the cooperation of the nearby villagers, and a security guard (and a makeshift barricade) but as anyone who has worked with chimpanzees knows, it’s incredibly important to limit their levels of exposures to new people -- for both health and safety reasons.

If one of our caregivers were to get sick, it would leave us with only one caregiver out at the sanctuary -- a real problem! While we’ve just got 3 kids there now, it will be an even bigger problem when Mangé and Aketi head out there.

So the first job on my plate was to remedy this situation, and start trolling for a third caregiver, who, if necessary, could also fill in for Papi, our gate guard.

Problems like this are somewhat easy to solve; I’ve participated in and witnessed enough competent sanctuary management that all I really have to do is duplicate procedure that’s been successful in the past. Sure, the primary caregiver here bristles a bit at the change, but once he’s assured that it is, in no way, a reflection on the quality of his work, nor will his salary be garnished with a third person, everything slides onto the road towards copacetic.

Some decisions are not so easy. We have two staff here, and for anonymity’s sake, we’ll call them Sam and Annie.

Sam has been with the project a long time, and is essential to the work at the sanctuary. Not only is he extremely responsible, but his love for the chimpanzees is evident, and oftentimes in this culture, hard to find.

Annie was his girlfriend, and when we came to Aketi it was suggested that she be hired as our femme des menages -- to do generally laundry and tidying-around-the-house-type-stuff.

Annie’s work has been okay. We often have trouble communicating with her, and she doesn’t tell us when she doesn’t understand what we want her to do.

But when Sam came to us and told us that Annie had stopped sleeping in his house, and that he wanted her to be fired. He said that since she had started working for us, she had been a disobedient girlfriend, and, I guess, uppity.

The feminist in me roared. I am the only woman in this house, aside from Annie, and I felt like by firing her I’d participate in the subjugation of ALL Congolese women!

We talked to Annie, and she said that Sam was jealous, and treating her badly. Even worse, he had yet to go to her family and legitimize their relationship (usually with money) and she was furious.

We left for Yoko Forest after talking to Polycarpe, who assured us that he would take Sam to visit Annie’s family and smooth everything over.

And when we returned from the forest, everything seemed fine. Sam was still working here, so was Annie, and the daggers they had been shooting at one another in the yard.

Then we find out yesterday, that Annie has left Sam, and is sleeping with another man, and Sam’s heart is broken.

...or so he says.

He assures us that he is not ALSO sleeping with someone else (as is often the case here) but it is “too difficult” to continue coming to the house with Annie here.

I’m torn. Yes, it is shitty that she got a job through Sam and then left him. But shouldn’t she be allowed to exercise her right to choose?

Maybe Sam was a bad boyfriend. Maybe he beat her. I don’t know, and probably never will.

But if I’m honest, Sam’s work is a lot better and more valuable to the project. I don’t want to lose him.

What’s a feminist to do?

Sleep Well, Mangé

Please remember that however cute this photo may be, this chimp is
still an orphan who should have been allowed to stay in the forest
with his mother.

Funny Expressions

We spent the day chilling outside with Mangé and getting him
accustomed to our presence. He's still slightly wary, but he's so
young that in the wild he wouldn't have spent much time away from his
mother anyway. I estimate that he's probably 6 months old, and Cleve
rescued him from the people who were trying to sell him after his
mother was killed nearly 3 months ago. He's so young to have already
had such a tough life!

Ready and Waiting

Our daily visits to the sanctuary have been such a boon to our happiness of late, as we continue to work         on the flight east.

The five chimps there -- Kathé, Django Mayanga, Bolungwa, Aketi Kigoma and Mangé -- are doing superbly, and it is such a joy to watch them play with each other, climb and feed in the trees, and well, act like chimps.

The caregivers are sad to be saying goodbye to the chimps as well, as they’ve grown so attached to them and so involved in the well-being of their wards, and lovingly attentive to that purpose.

It seems hard to imagine how long ago I started this blog, intent on documenting my adventures, yes, but also extremely committed to raising awareness to this region, where chimps are being slaughtered freely and no one outside of the region, let alone the country, seems to know, or care.

It’s thusly been so rewarding for me to see in our visitor logs the people we’ve reached, and to receive emails from those people who enjoy reading the blog and are now too seized with the want to help the chimpanzees here.

We may not be a huge movement, but little by little, I am so hopeful that we are making a difference.

And as I have the extreme honor of watching our sanctuary five - “The Aketi 5” - grow older, more confident, unconstrained by the terrible circumstances that brought them to our door ... that it is really all that matters.

The First Bottle

What a day this was! The guys at the house had assured me that Mangé
couldn't drink from a bottle, but once he got the sucking action down,
it clearly calmed and soothed him!

Disclaimer: chimps shown here are orphans, not pets, in a sanctuary
environment designed to minimize any additional trauma. Chimps do not
make good pets.