Pink Boots and a Machete

by Mireya Mayor

  We set out to track the gorillas, and by the time we found them my skin was so oily, I might as well have rubbed myself all over with my spam and mayonnaise sandwich. It was brutally hot and humid. Kingo was resting against a tree eating mangos that were falling out of it and crashing dangerously to the ground around him and us. If I was going to die on that trip, I hoped it wasn’t a mango that did it. How embarrassing would that be?

  Kusu, one of the juveniles, wandered over to my backpack lying by the trail, and while I fussed with my camera, he peeked inside. One of the trackers yanked it away. Distracted by that for a moment, we didn’t see another gorilla group arriving. Kingo and the male began vocalizing, and in an instant we were in the middle of a face-off. Kingo’s females tried to lead him away, but he headed right for the intruders. This was a sign of a supremely confident silverback. Kingo puffed up to almost twice his size and began chest beating. Just like that, the intruding gorillas were gone. Busting with pride, Kingo walked down the trail, his huge, muscular body strutting through his wild kingdom. He then turned and slowly walked toward me, stopping less than five feet away. Just close enough to get my blood pumping.

  Rain interrupted the moment, and Kingo headed back to the group. In the pouring rain, we rushed back to camp and arrived an hour later, me looking like a mop. There was a small stream running through my tent. The sponge mattress I slept on was soaked to the core. It continued to rain for hours, and my only consolation was that dinner did not contain sausage weenies, sardines, or spam.

  Back in my tent I noticed that the red bump on my leg was looking dicey. It was swollen and oozing, itchy, and sore. It was a filarial bite. Mosquitoes transmit larvae, which in adult form live in human blood and lymphatic tissues, causing inflammation and obstruction. The latter can lead to elephantiasis, a disease characterized by the thickening of the skin and underlying tissues, especially in the legs and male genitals. The name refers to the resemblance of the victim’s skin to the thick, baggy skin on the limbs and trunks of elephants. In some cases, the disease can cause certain body parts, such as the scrotum, to swell to the size of a softball or basketball. Elephantiasis (commonly referred to as elephantitis) caused by lymphatic filariasis is one of the most common causes of disability in the world. I stared at my legs, intently looking for any additional signs of swelling.

  It was then I noticed that I hadn’t gotten the tick completely out of my inner right thigh. I fished out more tick parts with my tweezers and the aid of a headlamp. When I was finished with the tick, I went outside to brush my teeth and got smacked in the face by a bat. Then it was time to go to sleep on my wet mattress. I hoped that as the last straw elephants didn’t come stampeding through my tent. Mostly, I hoped I didn’t start to swell into one.

  On our way to the gorillas the next day, we heard chimps and saw elephant dung near camp. At the gorilla site, it seemed that Dad had been left to babysit, as the females didn’t show up until the afternoon. One of the little ones, which had not yet been weaned, spent most of the day crying for his mom. We heard another silverback in the distance, and Kingo hooted several times. His posture and demeanor changed, becoming tense and upright before he led his females off to a neighboring feeding site. Ugly and her baby sat about ten feet from us, and I was mesmerized watching the baby feeding on fruit. This was the first time anyone had seen a baby sharing food with his mom. As I sat there surrounded by gorillas, I felt my Dian Fossey Gorillas in the Mist moment had at last been fulfilled…wild hair and all.

  Genetically, gorillas are 98 percent related to humans. In such close physical proximity, it is easy to see just how similar we are to our hairy cousins. A gorilla’s hands and feet resemble those of humans more than the hands and feet of the other apes do. The most striking similarity is their eyes. I’ve looked into the eyes of leopards and sharks. They are steely and cold. Gorilla eyes look human, capable of showing fear, mischief, trust, and love. It feels as if you are looking into the eyes of your friend, or your brother, not a stranger. Their eyes are the windows to their souls, and I am certain they can see into ours, too.

  When I got back to camp, I gave an English lesson to one of the young trackers, while he prepared a dinner of rice and beans with a choice of the inescapable weenies or sardines. I did some laundry and took a much needed jungle shower using two buckets of hot water. It was a small luxury, but, more than that, hot showers help in the removal of passenger ticks. When I am in the jungle, I almost constantly feel something crawling on me that may or may not be there but is, nonetheless, maddening.

  Five minutes after my shower I was again soaked in sweat. Once more I lay in my tent on the damp mattress with thoughts of being crushed by a stampeding elephant. At night, the sounds in the forest are so loud that I am convinced an elephant is approaching. Rain began to crash down on the tent, not helping to ease my fears. I know there is only a small chance of being crushed by an elephant, but there is a chance.

  The next day began pretty uneventfully. I know most people would deem any day with wild gorillas eventful, but after ten days, watching them munch and sleep and munch and sleep leaves you longing for a good gorilla wrestling match. The juveniles, on the other hand, were never bored or boring. They jumped on each other, ran around in circles, and annoyed the females, giving us hours of entertainment.

  Then things got exciting.

  Kingo began his “mating whinny,” a call silverback gorillas make when they are ready to mate. And mate he did. His first tryst, with an independent, high-ranking adult female named Mama, lasted no more than 30 seconds. This was scientifically significant because it had been four years since Mama Kingo had mated, following the birth of their son, Kusu (the mating interval following the birth of a lowland gorilla baby was previously unknown). When he finished his business, he unromantically stepped on her as he dismounted. A few minutes later, he mounted another female and did the deed. That one didn’t last very long, either, but still I was impressed.

  But Kingo wasn’t finished.

  Emilie, a beautiful young female, started shaking a branch. This is the female’s way of letting a male know she’s in the mood. Kingo approached her, and things got steamy. Emilie wrapped her arms around his neck while lying on her back. They were mating face to face! This behavior was not typical of gorillas, and in this group it was apparently reserved for Kingo and Emilie exclusively. Observers have witnessed hundreds of mating events amongst this family of gorillas and never seen this—every other time the female has faced away from her silverback. Kingo and Emilie liked to look each other in the eyes. The entire lovemaking session lasted a record 40 seconds, but it was exciting. It was full-on gorilla porn.

  We left camp at dawn the next day and found the gorillas in the trees. Kingo made several of his mating vocalizations, but none of the girls was interested. What the females wanted was to go to the swamp to feed on herbs and fruit. Kingo, like me, didn’t want to go and changed course. At the swamp gorillas are more likely to encounter other groups, and he probably preferred to avoid other males.

  One of the females suddenly let out a chilling scream.

  Kingo made a run for her. Andy and I began running after him in the direction of the swamp. When we got to the female, we were cut up from branches and out of breath, but it appeared that nothing was wrong. The entire group ended up going to sleep once all the females arrived; they never sleep away from the silverback.

  Researchers have long believed that when it comes to gorillas, it’s all about the male. The silverback’s weight of more than 400 pounds is more than double the weight of females. Evolution has sculpted silverbacks like Kingo into the very figure of masculinity, nature’s prize sumo-wrestler. Brawn is everything to a silverback; their dominance depends on it. Kingo is solely responsible for the group’s protection against leopards, human hunters, and, most commonly, marauding gorilla males that will kill his offspring and steal his females. Even in the daily domestic routine, Kingo is in charge. He decides where the family goes and wha
t it eats, and he always gets first pick of the food. He also settles any disputes.

  Likewise, the prevailing thought has been that female gorillas are, without question, the weaker sex, forced to play by the rules. At least, that is what researchers had been reporting for decades. However, most of those researchers were male.

  So, I wondered, had this female screamed deceptively to get Kingo to the swamp? She couldn’t physically force him there. But she could outsmart him. This could help support my theory that physical inferiority encourages mental superiority. Had she just manipulated the silverback? Clever.

  The next morning, upon the insistence of the females, Kingo went into the swamp. We were forced to follow. If I haven’t said it before, I hate the swamp. Everything bad lives there. It’s easy to fall in, and you can’t reach out to nearby branches because the thorns are almost as long as your index finger.

  The bugs are worse in there, too. I had a nest of ants fall on me as we were leaving that day. They bit me like mad and were caught in my hair, my pack, under my clothes. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. After a two-hour walk back to camp and a hot water bucket later, I finally felt ant free. Sort of.

  The next morning at 5:30 a.m. I woke up to thunder and a downpour. A few minutes of heavy winds and rain created several rivers big enough to be named, which naturally ran through our camp. I realized how dangerous it was to stay in my tent given the likelihood of a tree falling (a common cause of death in these parts), but my cozy sleeping bag beat out the worries.

  When I crawled out of it at last, I was extremely itchy from our recent visit to the swamps, and then I noticed that a worm was living in my foot. That’s what I said. A worm was living in my foot. The area kept getting redder and more swollen and itchy as the hours went by. Roberta confirmed that it was indeed a worm, either from the swamps or elephant dung, that had taken up residence. In an attempt to serve eviction papers to my worm, I soaked my foot in scalding water mixed with salt, then applied an antibiotic cream.

  That night, the BaAka drummed away on buckets, tins, and canisters, while dancers wearing grass and leaf skirts emerged. As usual, I danced the night away. The worm danced, too, as I wasn’t about to let a worm get in the way of tradition. I woke up in an unusually good mood, considering it was 5 a.m. and I still had the worm, the filarial bites, and the infected tick bite.

  Andy and I set out to film the less habituated group of gorillas referred to as Bukka’s group. The forest was so thick, sunlight barely shone through. The trackers led us to gorilla nests, some built in trees so as to avoid ground moisture, others on the forest floor. I took the liberty of lying in one, seeing how it was unoccupied. Spongy and bouncy like a mattress, I was envious of how much more comfortable it was than my own soggy mat at camp. Having learned from experience I got out carefully, as gorillas defecate around their nests before leaving. Clearly, they only use them once.

  The trek in search of these gorillas felt tense, and I was much more vigilant than with Kingo’s group, as they could ambush us at any moment. But when we finally found them, hours later, they were in the midst of a fruit feeding frenzy, and, though it appeared they wanted to charge us, they seemed unwilling to take a break from their sugary snacks. I spent the rest of the afternoon dodging fast-falling mangoes. I also managed to run into a five-and-a-half-foot termite mound. Impressive.

  Back at camp, I again soaked my worm-infested foot in hot water. As I lay in my tent, I could hear an elephant trumpeting. Once again I was apprehensive about falling asleep and having my recurring, elephant-stampeding nightmare. But I knew I had to rest before heading out early the next day. I finally dozed off, unsure of whether I was hearing my heart pounding or an elephant’s footsteps approaching.

  The next day, Andy, the trackers, and I spent five hours searching for Bukka’s group, but we didn’t find them. More than once we thought we were hot on their trail, only to come face to face with an angry silverback, which would charge from behind a thicket and then run off. None of those were Bukka. Because we had to walk hunched over to get through the vines, my back was killing me. Bukka, it turns out, means “back breaking.” No kidding. The BaAka trackers would cut vines out of the way, but since they’re five feet tall at the most, we giants still had to crouch. I couldn’t help but think that this would be far easier if we had taller trackers.

  The evening was hot, muggy, and buggy, and I still had a worm in my foot. In my bed a spider awaited me, so apologizing in advance, I killed it. I’m territorial like that. I was already covered in enough bites and bruises. At two in the morning I was awakened by one of the trackers assigned the duty of “elephant watch guard.” He was walking around my tent impersonating an owl.

  The next morning it took us only two hours to find Bukka’s group—we were more persistent than we’d been before. They seemed really agitated by our presence. One of the females with an infant charged us twice, one time nearly jumping over a wall of thickets to get at us. She tried recruiting Bukka to charge us, but he was too stressed from what he perceived as our threatening advances. We held back and gave them some distance. After the gorillas had scampered off, I noticed that Bukka had left a pile of diarrhea where he had been standing. Our close advances had stressed him more than I’d thought. Like Bukka, my producer had nearly pooped his pants when we were charged.

  Back with Kingo’s group, we spent the most arduous day yet chasing after them through the thickets. Kingo slept a total of only four minutes, which probably explained his grumpy mood and frequent charges. He had a much more intimidating charge than Bukka, and he shot me a look I would not soon forget. But it wouldn’t be his worst.

  Finally, after 11 grueling hours of observing them, Kingo and the group took off at an incredibly fast pace in the direction of the swamp, but it was too late for us to follow them. I wasn’t exactly disappointed.

  A half hour into our walk back, we turned a bend and stopped dead in our tracks. An elephant, a male bull with two enormous tusks, was in the center of our path. The trackers quickly motioned us to go back. Andy and I fumbled for the camera. In front of it, pulse elevated, I described what was happening for TV viewers and walked forward so he could get better shots.

  The trackers, one in particular, were hysterically urging us to run in the other direction, but Andy and I insisted on getting closer. When we saw the bull bat his ears, a common threat display, we knew it was time to start running. We took off at full speed, the elephant rapidly gaining on us. We ducked onto another path and hid behind a tree, knowing the elephant was capable of detecting our scent. My adrenaline soared. Fortunately, the elephant passed us and kept going. Eventually, we came out of hiding and continued back to camp drenched in sweat. We later learned that the hysterical tracker had lost his mother when he was three years old. She was killed by an elephant as she protected him.

  After my jungle shower, I tended to all my wounds, bites, and the worm. Repeated hot soaks and antibiotic treatments finally banished it. I gave Roberta some medication for a terrible staph infection on her leg. I then gave Andy some Cipro for the diarrhea he’d been experiencing all week. James came by and showed me the awful rash he had all over his back and butt. A bottle of Bactine and some antibiotic ointment later, I had performed my duties as Congo nurse. I was beginning to see this place less as a camp and more as a petri dish.

  I was reading John Irving’s Hotel New Hampshire in my tent with the usual fear of an elephant foot being the last thing I see on Earth. It was an odd book and particularly upsetting when the mother and son die in a plane crash, the worst possible book to read only days before I’d be boarding a commercial flight in the Congo. Congolese airlines are not exactly known for their maintenance or high standards.

  I had spent considerable time wondering how I’d say goodbye on my last day with the gorillas. After peering into their lives for a month, it seemed so anticlimactic, not to mention rude, to just stop showing up. I would never do that to neighbors. But I soon learned that you don’t s
ay goodbye to gorillas…they say goodbye to you.

  I imagined that the gorillas would think their maintenance people—we were always trimming vines—had just stopped appearing. They might be perplexed by our absence, or relieved to be able to argue and mate in the privacy of their own forest again. But I should’ve known everything is on their terms. On the last day, during the last camera take, Kingo said goodbye his way.

  As I crouched only a few feet from him, Kingo crouched in front of the camera, feeding on vegetation, seemingly undisturbed. I looked at him and then turned to Andy’s lens and said, “Clearly, the silverback is the dominant member of the group.” I was about to add, “But females still exert power,” when I felt tension brewing behind me. I turned back to see an angry-looking, canine-baring, 400-pound silverback coming straight at me. I guess he disagreed.

  Textbook instruction to just sit and look submissive when a gorilla charges went quickly out the window. I jumped out of his way, narrowly escaping. As I scrambled away, I heard him at my heels. I thought this might be a brief and painful goodbye. But then he stopped. He grabbed a tree and broke it in half, as if to show what might have happened to me had I abided by the textbook.

  I knew I would never forget the look on Kingo’s face, or the speed with which he moved toward me. In that sense, it could not have been a more perfect goodbye. It was on his terms. Calmly and indignantly, Kingo disappeared into the thickets, and that was the last contact I would have with the gorillas.

  But it would not be the last time I came close to death on this expedition. For it was on our way back to Brazzaville that our plane went down in the jungle.