Laura has left and it's just ol' me again. The JGI office has a new accountant so I don't have a computer to work on during the week, so I can only do stuff on weekends. The advantage is though, that Anne Laure has agreed to help AWARE with our accounting. Amongst other things, I have been trying to be an accountant. It's not rocket science but I do rather well outside with chimp poo on me!The house is quiet and all the kids are getting on well. I didn't have a chance after I got back from Bukavu, to check our new chimp out. I was rushing here and there to finish website stuff with Laura etc. Today, I went outside and sat with everyone in an attempt to get to know Gari better. After being completely dominated by the Princess Yongesa for about half an hour, Gari wondered over to my feet and bit down hard. He has been chained like a dog for most of his life and the behaviour of biting feet and legs probably comes from people who tease, laugh and kick at him and the only way he can get them to go away, he has learned, is to bite. He has never been explained in chimp language that there is a time and place for biting and if someone is being nice to you, you don't need to do it so hard...... at least I was wearing my gumboots. So I stroked his back and under his arms (chimps love their armpits being fondled) and after 2 minutes he was up and on my lap. I carried on grooming him (no doubt he hasn't been groomed for an awful long time) and picked at his scabs. Most chimps love this. I feed the scabs to them and if you've got a good big juicy one, their mouths are open before you can even get it off! It is a practice that Etaito finds particularly disgusting and when I show him his scabs, his face is something to behold..... utter disgust!!! really funny. Anyway, so I'm grooming Gari and getting a chance to check out his condition properly. The hair around his neck is gone and the hair on his belly is chaffed off too. There are old scars of his previous captivity around his little waist too. (Pictured above when he arrived last Saturday, picture by Laura Darby)So after half an hour and nearly falling asleep, he shifts and pees on me, then gets off, takes three curved sticks in his mouth and waddles over to Bonane (caregiver). He waddles coz his belly is still recoiling from protein deficiency and worm infections. He snaps each stick in half and hands them to Bonane and asks him to scratch his back, which he was obliged to do.Gari still has that shocked look in his eyes. It will take a couple of weeks for him to get into a routine and feel part of a family and know that he will get enough food and be safe from harm. He has bonded well with the caregivers and I think he's going to be alright.After sewing a curtain for the caregiver's room, the gate guard informed me that there were two people at the gate offering to sell me their chimpanzee. They didn't have it with them and the lady explained that it belongs to some police person and he has left and told her to find a buyer. So, in my best french, I am trying to explain a few things...... not only is it illegal for you to have the chimp madame, but chimps are very much like people and need their families around them and you are chaining this chimp, no doubt, so it won't destroy your house and that is not even how criminals are kept in jails. You are keeping an infant (apparently 7 months old) like a prisoner and when it grows up and weighs 70kgs what will you do then. No, I won't buy it from you, in fact you need to be paying me, coz it's going to live for another 60 years and I have to feed and look after it in a sanctuary for that long. How can you live with yourself knowing you are chaining a small infant who needs a mother and good (but expensive) milk formula in order to grow..... it's not fair!!! Believe me, my french is THAT good!..... the guy that was keeping silent was almost in tears!! So we shall see if I was convincing enough and then we might have yet another chimp.Being back in Goma is good. I missed the kids so much when I was in Bukavu. It is good to be at the house doing all my work alone, reading by candle light each night (electricity is a temperamental thing) and having cold showers. My dad is coming for my birthday and then we have new volunteers coming around the 9th July.Keep well all, miss you lotsxl
No comments:
Post a Comment