by Thor Hanson
The trackers motioned for silence as we pressed ahead into the bamboo, stooping to crawl through narrow tunnels and gaps in the dense thicket. Overhead, the long grassy stalks and narrow leaves rattled quietly in an alpine breeze, casting down a gridwork of shadows and stripes of sun. The gorillas had been feeding nearby the day before, and with the bamboo shoots in full season, they probably hadn’t moved far. Twenty minutes later we found the site of their morning meal, an open place scattered with fresh peelings and bits of turned earth. I picked up a leftover shoot and tasted it: watery and slightly bitter, like the rind of a cucumber. The trail led on, but the gorillas were close now, and we moved more slowly single file through the dimness.
Suddenly, we heard a long sigh, answered by the quiet grunt of a gorilla at rest. These vocalizations come from a kind of deep, controlled belch and usually indicate a mood of relaxation. Humans can mimic the sound with breathy coughs, and we often did so to announce our presence or send calm messages to a nervous group. I heard Liz clear her throat and was about to do the same when one of the trackers let out a low, crooning whoop. Liz and I exchanged a startled glance as the other trackers joined in: “Woooop. WooooOOOP!”
“They sound like hyenas,” she whispered, and we stifled a laugh.
The gorillas, however, didn’t react at all. The trackers’ hyena whoops had been a part of their routine for months, a familiar sound that helped them identify their daily human visitors. Across the border, Zairian rangers clapped their hands when approaching a group, and while in Bwindi we had always concentrated on imitating the gorillas’ natural sounds, I realized now that consistency was probably far more important than giving an accurate mock-belch. Anything repeated regularly would have the same effect.
We moved in closer and crowded together, peering through small openings in the foliage. The gorillas lounged nearby in a patch of deep shade, grouped loosely around the silverback. There were two females visible, and a pair of juveniles that tumbled lazily over each other, biting and wrestling through the undergrowth. Their play hoots were barely audible, like faint panting or the chuckle of infants. I glanced at Klaus and saw him smile for the first time. Later, he would invite us to his small house in Kisoro and recount the day with unexpected laughter over bottles of German beer.
We stayed with the gorillas for close to an hour, and they seemed perfectly oblivious to our presence. Habituated several years earlier in Zaire, the group now spent most of its time on the Ugandan side of the border and would begin receiving tourists in a few months. I watched them closely through binoculars and immediately noticed the contrasts that Liz had mentioned. The silverback had a much wider face than Mugurusi, Ruhondeza, or any of the Bwindi apes. His nose print looked more pronounced, with deep wrinkles and ridges of black skin that shone as if constantly wet. All the apes appeared shaggier than their Bwindi cousins, particularly the youngsters. With the long hair swept back from their foreheads in wispy strands, they looked like mad scientists or a pair of middle-aged folk singers.
These subtle variations in appearance confused primatologists for decades. Experts from Schaller to Fossey all mistook Bwindi apes for members of the Grauer’s or eastern lowland subspecies (G. beringei graueri), until a DNA comparison showed the Virunga and Bwindi populations to be nearly identical genetically. A continuous band of forest connected the two areas until only five hundred years ago, when agriculturalists first settled and cleared the valleys around Kisoro. Before then, mountain gorillas were likely part of a single population that covered a much wider range of altitudes. Zoologists still argue whether or not the two populations should be classified as distinct subspecies, a typical confrontation between the “splitters,” who divide the natural world into narrow categories, and the “lumpers,” who use a broader taxonomy. In terms of conservation, the point is moot: they are either mountain gorillas, the rarest great apes in the world, or they are Bwindi mountain gorillas and Virunga mountain gorillas, the rarest great apes in the world. Today’s intensive efforts to preserve them would remain the same.
Less than a hundred miles away, eastern lowland gorillas inhabit the foothills and forests of Zaire’s Kivu region. Apparently, the drier climate of the rift valley floor has acted as a barrier to gorilla migrations, isolating lowland populations from their mountain gorilla cousins long enough for the two to evolve into distinct subspecies. Between two and five thousand eastern lowland gorillas survive, many of them in rugged highland areas similar to Bwindi.
Western lowland gorillas (G. gorilla gorilla) make their home in the sweltering jungles of the western Congo basin. During glacial periods in the late Pleistocene, Africa’s climate dried out periodically when atmospheric moisture became trapped in the expanding polar ice caps. The great rain forests of Central Africa shrank into small pockets, separating western gorillas from their eastern counterparts by nearly one thousand miles of dry savanna. Although the forest has long since expanded again, gorillas have been slow to recolonize the area, and vast distances still separate the two species. Short-haired and smaller in size, the western population has adapted well to their hot, humid environment. Thousands still roam the forests of Gabon, Cameroon, Congo, and other West African countries, but they face increasing threats from commercial hunting and large-scale logging throughout the region, and have suffered dramatically from outbreaks of Ebola virus. While the total population is unknown, researchers estimate their numbers have dropped a staggering 60 percent in the last twenty-five years.
As the first gorillas “discovered” by the outside world, western lowlands still make up the vast majority of zoo and museum specimens. A zoo in Antwerp, Belgium, supports the only captive population of eastern lowland gorillas. No mountain gorillas have ever survived long in cages.
Moments before we started back to camp, the silverback suddenly roused himself, tilting his body upright in the gloom like an oversize mastiff. He shambled away from us down the slope, and the rest of his family rose to follow, the youngest juvenile clinging to its mother’s back, little fists knotted firmly in the long, dark hair. Days later, the group ventured out into the open, crossing several hundred yards of abandoned fields to reach an isolated patch of bamboo, remnants of a village farm slowly returning to the forest. Within a year, the gorillas would reinhabit over 80 percent of the reclaimed land, feeding and even sleeping in the open meadows, as if enjoying the view of southwest Uganda spread out like a map before them.
12
Royal Backwash
Many primate societies have an excess of males, some of which may be encountered leading a lone life away from organized groups.
—George Schaller
The Mountain Gorilla, 1963
“Mr. Tour, the baboons!” Ephraim shouted, running up the path to my house. “They are destroying everything!”
I dropped my coffee and charged outside, stooping to pry a few good rocks from the muddy soil. Ephraim grabbed his panga, and we sprinted together down the garden trail, where a growing clamor of barks and wails announced the presence of Bwindi’s most notorious crop raider, the olive baboon.
Typically a savanna and woodland species, the olive baboons around Bwindi had retreated slowly into the rain forest as surrounding lowlands gave way to cultivation. They still preferred open places, and spent most of their time on the periphery, foraging in people’s shambas and retreating to the safety of the park at night. Farmers stationed their children in the fields to drive the large primates away, but with more than forty animals in an average troop, the baboons could wreak havoc in minutes, stealing everything from millet and maize to chickens, and even small goats.
Bakiga customs and folklore offered dozens of theories on baboon control: chase them with dogs, plant tea at the forest edge, tie bells to their tails, shoot the dominant male, or catch one and paint it white. This last method was said to work the best. When the ghostly-pale baboon ran back to join its troop, they would all flee in terror and never return. Unfortunately, another local belief made it impos
sible to put this technique into practice, as everyone in the village knew that any fool who painted a baboon white would surely die from lightning within the month.
Weeks before Ephraim interrupted my breakfast, I had joined in one of CARE’s most promising agroforestry experiments: the baboon-proof fence. For several years, they had cultivated live thornbush fences around a series of forest-edge garden plots in Buhoma. Twice a month, a skinny, angular man named Katanguka arrived to tend the one near my house, pruning and winding the tall shrubs together into a dense wall of thorny branches. He assured me that no hungry baboon could penetrate his handiwork, and I agreed to sow the plot with something enticing. Soliciting seeds from neighbors, the Peace Corps, and even my family at home, I took this as a golden opportunity to expand my Buhoma diet. With ample rain and tropical sun, the plants grew quickly, and I soon began anticipating my first taste of eggplant, carrots, broccoli, zucchini, string beans, lettuce, and other exotic vegetables.
But as Ephraim and I rounded the corner, I saw the neighborhood baboon troop hard at work, laying waste to my culinary dreams. The garden looked like a bacchanal county fair, with a chaos of huge monkeys chasing one another through the beds, rooting up plants, fighting over yellow tomatoes, and stuffing fistfuls of green into their wide mouths.
“Wraaagh!” I let loose with a primal whoop, and they froze for an instant, turning our way with looks of wary guilt, like dogs caught licking the butter dish. A large, surly-looking male barked twice, and the smaller baboons scooted easily through gaps in the fence. The male paused to tear up the last of my lettuce, then leaped casually over the hedgerow like an Olympic hurdler crossing a coffee table.
Still running, I reared back to hurl a stone after him, but my sandaled feet hit one of Buhoma’s ubiquitous patches of oily mud, and I slid straight into Katanguka’s jagged wall of thorns. My howl of pain quickly dispersed any lingering baboons, and even Ephraim looked startled.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” he mumbled as I cursed and dragged myself out of the shrubbery.
The baboons disappeared quickly into a patch of tall elephant grass, while Ephraim and I picked our way through the fence and surveyed the damage. From beans to broccoli, the garden was a complete loss. Whatever hadn’t been eaten lay strewn about in trampled, forlorn little clumps. I felt a sudden sympathy for farmers like Behuari, who regularly lost their crops to monkeys, forest pigs, and apes, but I tried to be objective. After all, every torn-up bean sprout and zucchini vine meant important data for the CARE project, and I would be glad to pass on my conclusions.
“Tell Katanguka the fence is no good for baboons,” I said to Ephraim, then looked down at my bleeding legs. “But it works very well for muzungus.”
Ephraim laughed and we had just started back to the house, when Philman Agaba walked hurriedly up the path. He took the situation in with a curious glance and the hint of a smile.
“Enkobe,” Ephraim said simply, the Rukiga word for baboon, and Philman nodded in complete understanding. Then he turned to me.
“Dr. Liz is standing by on the radio. She says the message is urgent.”
I sighed, and followed him down the hill. It was the start of a long day.
At the office, I found Medad sitting outside with his pants rolled up, wringing water from a pair of dripping socks.
“The Munyaga is flooded,” he told me, referring to a river that bisected the Buhoma valley. Medad lived several kilometers away in the village of Mukono and crossed the stream every morning on his way to work. The day before, a heavy downpour had lasted all afternoon, and even the small creek beside my house was muddy and high.
“The water is too much,” he continued, gesturing toward waist-level with the wet socks. “I think the bridges must be finished.”
“Ahh.” I nodded, as if expecting this. “We’ll check them later.”
The Waterfall Trail, our most popular forest walk, crossed the Munyaga several times as it climbed toward the falls, a series of three picturesque cascades near the river’s ridgetop source. We’d lost the bridges once before, and parts of the trail had been closed for a full week while we repaired them.
“Oriaregye, Hope,” I said in greeting as I entered the office and sat by the radio. It was a cloudy morning, and Hope wore the hood from a ski parka to ward off the chill. Separated from their jackets during shipment from the States, second-hand hoods sold well throughout Uganda, even in the dry season. This one, however, didn’t seem to be doing Hope much good against the weather. Overworked and eight months pregnant, she’d been fighting bronchitis for weeks and looked exhausted. The park, the community campground, and the women’s group all relied on Hope to keep their books, and with maternity leave fast approaching, they had her swamped with extra work.
“Good morning, sir,” she answered wearily, clearing her throat with a deep cough. “The radio is somehow bad.”
Under heavy clouds, our radio reception dwindled to a fitful metallic murmur. Liz was only calling from Kabale, but I had a hard time picking up the frequency. Finally, her faint, tinny words started drifting in through the static.
“ . . . the prince . . . tomorrow . . . Netherlands . . . visitor center . . . you copy?”
I looked at Hope. She shrugged and shook her head.
“Uh, negative, Liz. Come again?”
After ten minutes of garbled transmission and translation, Liz’s message still made little sense: tomorrow morning the prince of the Netherlands would arrive in Buhoma with his entourage, hike to the waterfalls, and break ground for Bwindi’s new visitor center. What?!
I remembered something vague about Prince Bernhard, an honorary president of the World Wildlife Fund, who spent a lot of time traveling around cutting ribbons and planting ceremonial trees. If we’d had a visitor center, he would have been the perfect man to inaugurate it. But so far, our plans hadn’t progressed beyond Liz and me tromping around in a field with Philman, two pangas, and a tape measure.
I looked at my watch: ten-thirty. Unless we worked all night, that left about seven hours to somehow resurrect the Waterfall Trail, arrange a groundbreaking ceremony, and make it appear as if construction was well under way on a completely imaginary visitor center.
“Medad,” I called out. “Can you go down to Buhoma for me?” He looked in the door and answered yes. “Good. Go into the village and hire every person you meet.”
An hour later we had tripled the park staff. Some of them smelled a little drunk, and Medad admitted doing most of his recruiting at the local tonto bar. But they could still swing a hoe and quickly began leveling a large rectangular building site. Phenny took another group up the hillside to gather eucalyptus poles for our bridge repairs, while Betunga William and I headed into the forest for a look at the trail.
As we walked down the road from the office, we passed Buhoma’s first tourist lodge, a small local house owned by the African Pearl Safari company. With the addition of window curtains, bunk beds and a hot bucket-shower, they had converted the building into a rustic but comfortable hostel for their guests. And with Mubare and Katendegyere groups both receiving daily visitors, business was good. We saw the manager seated on the porch, having lunch with a group of tourists, and William paused to greet her.
“Agandi, Stephanie!” he called out, and the young Australian put down her plate to wave back. I felt a twitch of nerves deep in the pit of my stomach and stared straight ahead. She did not greet me. I did not stop to chat.
Over the past few months, Stephanie and I had learned one of the unfortunate but vital lessons of expatriate life in rural Africa. When the Peace Corps later asked me for a contribution to their training program, I had one simple piece of advice for new volunteers: never date anyone in the same village.
It’s an easy and tempting mistake. Writers from Dinesen to Hemingway have peppered the literature with tales of grand love set against sweeping African backdrops. Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart immortalized the theme on film, but even The African Queen pales next
to the celebrated relationship that developed between two of East Africa’s first muzungu visitors, Sir Samuel and Lady Florence Baker. Together, they explored and mapped such notable Ugandan landmarks as Lake Albert and Murchison Falls, evading local armies and outwitting treacherous slave traders along the way. The unparalleled romance of their situation, alone in the wilds of the dark continent, led one biographer to title his version of the story Lovers on the Nile. In her journals, however, Lady Baker recorded a far less poetic experience: “We had a great deal of rain this afternoon—how I do hate this country! There is not a clean or dry spot to be found anywhere, nothing but vegetation, together with mosquitos.”
Stephanie and I had moved quickly through the romantic phase and plunged straight into the mud and mosquitos. When she first arrived, the appearance of a single and attractive woman just down the road had seemed like divine intervention—and it gave me a chance to use a truly unique pickup line: “You want to go see a gorilla sometime?” We hit it off immediately, taking idyllic hikes together in the forest, picnicking by the waterfalls, even panning for gold in distant streams. But Stephanie’s enthusiasm for Buhoma began to wane as she spent more and more of her time catering to demanding tourists, while I spent my days with mountain gorillas and a staff of close friends. We found our conflicts aggravated by cultural stress, lack of privacy, and other barriers to intimacy in village life. Stomach worms, strange fevers, chickens in the bedroom . . . it was enough to exhaust anyone’s romantic patience. By the end of her short tenure we were no longer on speaking terms.