A cluster of fresh logging tracks soon told us we were getting near to Natai Lengkuas. Here, just a few weeks before, a huge group of loggers armed with machetes had confronted American researchers and chased them away so that they would be free to log wherever they pleased. Our journey had brought us to the front lines of a world-wide struggle, and signs of the most recent battle were still fresh. Now we were going to see what remained of the abandoned research camp. As far as I know, we were the first outsiders to visit the scene. The other boatmen were afraid to come here, we learned later, because the loggers had warned them to keep tourists away.
We tied up at a wooden boardwalk similar to those at the three earlier stations. At this one, however, no friendly apes greeted us; instead, all we found was the broken glass of a notice board whose contents lay on the ground, the announcements it once contained crumbling into the moist earth. There were no humans or animals in sight.
We entered a small wood-frame house. Outside was a whiteboard with the duty roster for the day still marked on it in felt pen. There was a large hole in the screen of the front window, and the doorframe had been hammered in and was toppled over inside. Papers were scattered all over the floor. An empty egg carton and other food debris gave clues that there had been an abrupt departure, and a torn photograph showing a young Indonesian man hung forlornly on the wall near Sierra Club wildlife posters.
Our boys picked up some notebooks they had found on the floor and brought them over to me. A lump rose in my throat as I realized that these were field notebooks filled with data. The children collected all the notebooks they could find, and we placed them all in a cardboard box for safekeeping.
Next we found a building with a sign on it that read “William Mason Center for the Natural Sciences.” We entered it through a smashed window. Everything of value to the loggers had long since been stripped away, but medical supplies, the remains of lab equipment, and reams of papers remained scattered all over the floor. I picked up a wooden machete case that lay abandoned on the ground.
When the loggers had attacked, on July 8, 1999, sixteen people, mostly volunteers, had been working here. Most of them were an expedition of conservationists who had arrived just days earlier on a volunteer work experience program. I picked up one of the prospectuses the Earthwatch volunteers had brought with them, describing their role in saving Borneo’s rainforests. I also picked up the business cards of Dr. Yeager and her husband, Trevor Blondal, which I found among the litter on the floor. I put the two dusty cards in my pocket.
Then we entered the most heartbreaking room of all. It was knee-deep in rubbish. The floor was covered with envelopes, all containing seed samples that had been carefully catalogued and labelled. Thousands of envelopes had been torn down from where they had been carefully stored in shelves on the wall. Samples going back a decade had been trampled on the rough wooden floor. This was someone’s life work, reduced to a messy pile of refuse. I felt like crying.
We continued to make our way through the various vandalized buildings at the camp, feeling more and more depressed at the wanton destruction. The smiling loggers with whom we had shared our candies just an hour earlier had been among the very men who had laid siege to this camp.
I asked Andi if Dr. Yeager was planning to return, and what would happen to her if she did.
“Oh, I don’t think there would be a problem,” he answered. “By the time she comes back, the loggers will have finished here.”
Before we left to continue down the river and home to Northern Magic, we paused to listen to the sounds of the jungle. And there it was: a high-pitched drone, the faint but unmistakable sound of a chainsaw.
13
Magic and Heartache in the Jungles of Borneo
On our way back from our expedition, we came to a family decision that we wanted to give something back to the rainforests of Borneo, a place that had opened our eyes and stolen our hearts. Herbert and I had been having long talks with Andi, who worked as a park volunteer, about what we could contribute. Andi did have a suggestion.
We had learned that the people who were caring for Michael Junior were hoping to find another gibbon to be Michael’s mate. They wanted Michael to establish his own family and thus discourage him from further human dependence. And so, after meeting with the park veterinarian and the Forestry Department to make sure that they supported the idea (“Itu bagus,” nodded the park ranger, “That is good”), we decided to buy an ape.
I have to say now, after having learned so much more about the conservation of endangered species, that purchasing the gibbon was wrong. While it’s true that we had official approval, and it seemed this was, in Indonesia, the way things were done, by buying the animal, even if from private people, we helped establish a market value for the gibbon that would only encourage more to be captured from the wild. We would have been horrified to learn that for every live gibbon that survives to be sold or held as a pet, nine others have been slaughtered. Most baby gibbons die when their mothers are shot out of the trees. Others die in the traumatic first days and weeks after capture.
But at the time we didn’t know much about the issue. We hoped and believed we were doing some good. Certainly, we offered this one young gibbon a chance at a better life.
Late one afternoon, we followed Andi down the main street of Kumai, handed over eight dollars for the use of two motorcycles, and went off in search of a gibbon. Andi drove on one bike with a friend, Mr. Ambon, and Herbert and I doubled up on another.
After a fifteen-minute drive on our rented motorbikes, we drove up to a large fenced property containing a prosperous-looking white house with a red tiled roof. Three young children, two boys and a girl, played in the barren front yard. In the middle of the dirt driveway was a wooden post. Chained to that post was one forlorn little gibbon.
The ape was only about a year old, not fully grown, and perhaps the size of a large, but very thin, cat. She had the same long, long arms, dainty black fingers, and endearing round face that we so loved in Michael Junior. It was a sweet, curious face with huge round eyes that you couldn’t look at without breaking into a smile. Except there was no smiling at the pathetic little creature we found cringing in the dust at our feet. This animal’s resemblance to Michael was purely physical; in total contrast to that other confident, gregarious, hilarious character, it was clear that this gibbon, in its short life, had known nothing but fear.
It turned out that this was the same gibbon we had earlier seen in the Kumai market – terrified, dirty, and yanked along at the end of a chain by a young boy oblivious to its anguish as it clung fearfully to everything in sight. The same young boy now regarded us inscrutably. We saw that even the gibbon’s owners couldn’t come near without the little animal baring her teeth and backing away to the limit of her short chain. Her owners told us some friends had found her abandoned in the jungle six months before. We knew, however, that the only way she would have been separated from her mother was to have been pried off her dead body.
Magic screamed in terror as her chain was cut away, as if she were about to be killed. Once freed of her odious chain, the gibbon just crouched there, with long arms wrapped around her knees, looking for all the world like a scared little girl. Her large round eyes darted nervously back and forth at the menacing people who towered around her. She was too frightened even to try to move away, and just cowered there passively as if waiting for the executioner’s axe to fall.
The gibbon’s owner produced a cardboard box, and I wondered how we were going to get her into it. But she was happy to take refuge inside and climbed in on her own, although her furry black-and-white gibbon face once popped out through the flaps as we closed them. Later, as we were tying the flaps down with string, five long elegant fingers with manicured black fingernails snuck out and tried to pry them open.
We had left the kids playing with their friends on Nanamuk without being sure we really were going to buy the animal that day, and not considering at all that we might ac
tually be bringing it back to Northern Magic. But here we were, with one black-handed agile gibbon in a cardboard box marked Mi Goreng Ayam – chicken fried noodles.
Our three kids, plus the two on Nanamuk, shrieked with excitement to discover we had actually brought the gibbon, soon to be named Magic, back to the boat. We opened the box and tied the end of Magic’s rope near the cockpit. Immediately, she jumped up onto the stainless steel rigging of the mizzenmast and climbed as high as the rope would allow her. Dangling by one hand and one foot above our heads, she looked quite comfortable as she surveyed her new surroundings nervously but with obvious interest. She wanted nothing to do with any of us, but was happy to go looping around on her long arms from one wire to another, as if she had spent all her days growing up on a sailboat.
Soon, Magic no longer looked like a terrified little girl with large round eyes, but like a real ape. Jonathan sat himself on the boom nearby, patiently watching her, offering her bananas, and resisting my attempts to get him inside for dinner. Eventually, Magic started to approach him, and by bedtime was actually sitting in his lap, letting him pick through her fur as we had so often seen monkeys do in the wild. Magic still didn’t like big people, but gradually Jonathan, and eventually the other children, too, gained her trust.
We had made a little shelter for Magic to sleep in, but she made her own nest on top of the mizzen sail, right where the boom meets the mast. Although it was soft, it didn’t offer any protection from cold or rain. As we went to bed, it tugged at my heartstrings to see Magic huddling beside the mast, her arms around her knees in that same sad pose that had brought tears to my eyes before. As I tucked Jon into his nice cosy bunk down below, I could see my eleven-year-old was also troubled.
“I don’t like where Magic has to sleep, Mom,” he said sadly. “It’s not a good bed at all. She’s going to be cold and lonely out there on the boom.”
“I don’t think that’s the way Magic feels about it, Jon,” I answered, groping for a way to make my kind-hearted son – and myself, too – feel better. “Where do you think gibbons sleep in the wild? In trees, of course. But where Magic lived, they didn’t even give her a tree to climb in – only an awful wooden box on top of a post.
“But now, for the first time since she was a baby, Magic has found a kind of tree – our mast. And she has a nice cosy branch to sleep on – our boom. And as we rock in the water, the boom moves a little, just like the branches of a tree would in the wind. So right now her instincts tell her she has found the perfect place to sleep.”
The next morning, with our little gibbon friend swinging in the rigging, Northern Magic left the Kumai waterfront and headed up the river into the Borneo jungle, tracing the same route we had taken in our wooden longboats days before. Behind us motored Grace and Rob Dodge on Nanamuk, from British Columbia. Our guide, Andi, was with us also, as well as a park volunteer. As far as we know, we and Nanamuk were only the second and third sailboats to have ever gone up this narrow, uncharted river. And we were definitely the first to do so with a black-handed agile gibbon dangling from the mast.
For one glorious day we had our very own little ape. It warmed our hearts to watch her transformation from the frightened creature of the day before to the curious little personality who watched the jungle scenery go by from her favourite vantage point, hanging under the cockpit awning. Although she still didn’t like to be approached by adults, she was now quite tolerant of the children. It was thrilling to be bringing her back into the jungle, and to know that she had a chance to be happy again after her traumatic start in life. Magic’s wild primate cousins, the proboscis monkeys, looked down at us from the treetops as we made our way up the narrow, chocolate-coloured river, dodging floating islands of dislodged jungle vegetation as we went.
After three hours, we tied up at the wooden dock of the first station, Tanjung Harapan. The staff were expecting us, and it didn’t take two minutes before Michael Junior had swung onto our boat to check out his new playmate. We’d spent hours speculating on exactly what would happen when our two prospective love birds met for the first time. Michael Junior didn’t disappoint us. He was so excited to see Magic he practically did flips in the air, racing over to see her as she sat uncertainly under the cockpit table, and tapping her lightly on the shoulder in a gibbonish game of tag.
Magic tapped him back, but the contact wasn’t exactly friendly, and each time Michael Junior approached, Magic swatted him away. They continued their game in the rigging, where Michael Junior had a big advantage because he wasn’t tied up. Finally, he tried a different tactic and sat quietly beside Magic, showing her his back in a primate gesture of friendship. Magic was supposed to respond by giving him a friendly grooming, but she didn’t get the hint and continued spurning his overtures. It wasn’t exactly the joyful first meeting we had dreamed of, but it was, we hoped, a start.
When it came time to bring Magic ashore to her new home, she really didn’t want to leave. With the abundance of things on our boat for her four hands to cling on to, we had a hard time getting her to let go. Finally, her best friend, Jonathan, coaxed her away. Once disentangled from the rigging, she grabbed her rope as though holding someone’s hand, wobbling beside Jon in her side-to-side gibbon gait. They were a funny looking, mismatched pair as they trotted down the jungle path together, with Magic standing only a little taller than Jonathan’s knee.
After a little rest in a tree, it was time for Magic to get her check-up from Dr. Gede Suarsadana, a slender young veterinarian from Bali whose name sounds like “g’day.” Gede’s was the first adult hand able to comfort and calm poor Magic, who was once again cowering in fear. Gede was helped by Andi, whose sturdy Dayak body seemed equally adapted to soothing a frightened little monkey as it was to hunting wild boars in the jungle with a blowgun – which he also did, on occasion. The two men worked patiently for a long time to soothe Magic’s jangled nerves. She needed some anti-worm medicine and a shot. Both men worked together with infinite patience, talking to Magic gently, patting her, and getting her calmed down before Gede, in a practised motion so swift as to be almost invisible, pinned her down on the examination table and quickly gave her the injection she needed.
This time, Magic did not scream or make a sound. In a minute it was over, and she was free to return to the outdoors, where Andi carefully tried out several possible spots before finally tying her to a chair near the edge of the clearing. For an ex-logger and jungle man whose people have traditionally eaten orangutan as part of their diet, Andi had an amazing empathy for Magic. I loved him for it.
Magic took to the trees and crouched there in the branches, looking down on the rest of us with her big round eyes. The plan was to keep her on her rope for a few days so that she would realize food was available to her if she wanted it, and then to let her go free. Over the next days, Michael Junior got more and more frenetic in his efforts to impress Magic. The more hyperactive he became, the more Magic withdrew. Surprisingly, it was Nyo, the macaque, who had earlier attacked Christopher, who became Magic’s first primate friend. We knew this for sure when the sun rose one morning on the sight of Nyo and Magic grooming each other companionably.
The hoped-for friendship between Michael Junior and Magic just didn’t develop. Magic wanted nothing to do with him. Finally, she was forced to seek refuge from Michael Junior’s over-eager advances by hiding inside the rangers’ cabin. The rest of us tried to release some of Michael Junior’s unspent energies by tossing him up and down and spinning him in the air until he became dizzy and staggered around the clearing like a little drunken sailor. It was only the next day that we discovered why Magic and Michael Junior weren’t hitting it off. Rather sheepishly, Dr. Gede released a bombshell. Our little Magic wasn’t a girl at all: she was a he!
In that instant our whole delicious, elaborate fantasy of being god-parents to a bunch of adorable baby gibbons collapsed around us like shattering glass. Magic, a boy? But, but, but – we had checked! They told us she was a girl!
/> Soon, we were laughing in disbelief. What bozos! Instead of a mate for Michael Junior, we had brought him a rival! No wonder Magic felt so uncomfortable!
Eventually, Magic would be pronounced fit, healthy, and possessed of sufficient wild instincts to be able to make a go of it on his own. For many months, there was no news of him, and we began to fear that he had not survived. But a year later, a young male gibbon the veterinarian felt was almost certainly Magic, briefly returned to the station. So we feel comforted that for one animal at least we made a small difference.
We were so impressed by the tender care given to Magic that Herbert and I approached Dr. Gede and asked him how we could help in his work. We learned that Gede’s practice was funded by a small non-profit organization named Friends of the National Parks. The group operated on a shoestring budget of less than four hundred dollars per month from donations made by passing tourists and by a few conservation-minded travel agencies. We began questioning Gede about his needs. I had imagined he would say he required medicines or special equipment, but his wish list was much more simple than that.
“We need food,” he answered immediately. “Not for the animals, but for us. We need to eat. We have nothing for ourselves but rice, and not enough of that.”
We were shocked to discover that Gede, a highly trained veterinarian, was living and working in the park seven days a week, in a simple communal wooden house, for not much more than a plate of rice at the end of the day. That his most urgent need was something as basic as food for himself and the other volunteers boggled our minds.
In our time at Tanjung Harapan, we came to know Gede quite well, as well as Wanto, another volunteer in his early twenties. Unlike the mild, clean-cut Gede, Wanto looked a little threatening at first glance, with a great shock of long wavy black hair that he often left loose around his shoulders, and a small carved bone tusk around his neck. We kept on teasing Wanto that he was the original Wild Man of Borneo, until we discovered that he was, in fact, a university graduate in economics from Java. He had left the corporate world behind to fulfil his ambition to work in the park.
The Voyage of the Northern Magic: A Family Odyssey Page 19