Following Fifi

by John Crocker

  “Asante sana,” thank you very much, Hamisi said softly again and again as he stared at it.

  We finally did have time to plunge into Lake Tanganyika before dinner. Tommy had been concerned about the water cobras I’d seen while swimming when I was a student here, but none had been spotted recently. There is also a parasitic disease called bilharzia that is carried by snails in other parts of the lake, but there was none at Gombe, in part because of Jane’s environmental work. Sanitation and erosion-prevention measures pioneered by her organization, Lake Tanganyika Catchment Reforestation and Education (TACARE, or “Take Care”), likely helped prevent this area of the lake from becoming contaminated. The disease, caused by parasites called schistosomes, can be contracted while wading or swimming in freshwater lakes and ponds in many parts of Africa, but at Gombe, the clear waters were safe to explore.

  The dark green-blue water looked irresistible just as the sun was setting, and we dove into the cool depths. As I rose back up to the surface, I thought it felt like a ceremonial baptism for Tommy and a renewal for me, returning to this beautiful habitat. I floated on my back and swam out from shore to gaze at the mountains above Gombe.

  That evening, two Tanzanian cooks prepared a dinner of mushroom soup, fresh fish, and local fruit for the eight visitors at the camp, including Tommy and me and several tourists from England and Germany. It was now official: I was a tourist. I definitely did not eat so well during my time as a student, though our meals had been wholesome and very tasty. This meal seemed gourmet in comparison because of the special sauces and spices used in the preparation. In the past, we typically ate a dish with beans, bananas, and palm-nut oil or fried degas fish.

  At dinner, the camp manager said, “This is Abdul. He’s the field guide who will take you out to see the chimps tomorrow.” The man he pointed to, who seemed to be in his midtwenties, nodded and smiled warmly. Abdul was very articulate, and he spoke English quite well. We took an instant liking to him. Much of the money he made as a field guide he used to support his ailing mother, who lived in Kigoma. Tommy and I connected with Abdul right away because of his sincerity, his comfort with speaking English, and his friendly nature as he described our meeting place for the next morning. We could not have dreamed of a better guide to lead us through the forest.

  As I was finishing my last bites of fish, Hamisi told me, “I’m returning to my village early tomorrow, so I should wish you farewell.” He walked us down to our room, and we said our good-byes. I was disappointed to see him leave, but we were planning to visit him and his family in just a few days. I said, “We are so excited about our upcoming visit!” and he gave me a gentle smile.

  Our room in the concrete building near the beach offered two comfortable beds and running water. When I had lived in my old thatched hut high up in the forest, I would lay awake sometimes, listening to cicadas and branches blowing in the breeze. Here in our modern room, I heard only the soft murmur of conversations from people in the dining area directly above our room. I wished we could have stayed in my forest hut or in Jane’s original rustic house on the beach, which was now available to travelers, but the staff had assumed we would enjoy the amenities of the more modern building.

  I had wanted Tommy to experience the nighttime sounds of the African forest. But battling my disappointment, I reminded myself, I’m sure he doesn’t care—in fact, he probably feels more secure in this solid structure, protected from reptiles, baboons, and other potentially problematic visitors. Right before falling asleep, I smiled with deep contentment, knowing that my son and I would be tracking chimps together the next day, and knowing that my dear friend Hamisi was still here in this extraordinary African forest—and now, so was I.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  BACK TO THE FOREST

  A forceful pounding filled my chest, and my nervous stomach did flip-flops. After three hours of arduous and discouraging search for the chimps high in Kasekela Valley, we had suddenly come across a group of seven chimps, both males and females, right on the path. My jaw dropped when Abdul said, “There is Freud.”

  I had followed this powerful chimp’s every move for so much of my eight-month stay in Gombe. He and Fifi, his mother, had been the main focus of my mother-infant fieldwork. Now, thirty-six years later, the thirty-nine-year-old chimp strode past me. He had become alpha male as predicted, but was past his prime and no longer bwana mkubwa, big man in the community.

  Freud had a relaxed and confident manner befitting his heritage. I caught a close-up of him before he began grooming with three other adult chimps twenty feet from us, and I was happy to see that some of his gestures and facial features looked familiar. Then a deep sadness filled me; I realized I had never seen him without his mother. Fifi was gone. She had disappeared four years earlier and was presumed dead. Although I knew she had died, I had really hoped to see her again.

  The chimps came within ten feet of us, and we slowly backed away and sat quietly in the brush to avoid disturbing them. Wide-eyed, Tommy shot me a smile. I leaned over and whispered excitedly to him, “I can’t believe we’re sitting here with Freud. I never thought I would be introducing you to him.”

  “Amazing to see him so close up,” Tommy quietly replied. “I feel like I already know Freud from all your stories about him and Fifi.” Then he just beamed for the next several minutes. Looking at him, I thought, He’s part of the story now.

  The chimps seemed to totally ignore our small group, including a few field assistants who had just joined the three of us. We sat very quietly and observed them before they moved off quickly, heading north. We did not follow. Researchers had been restricted from going beyond a certain point in the northern part of the park because of a northern group of chimps in that region that were not habituated to humans. Unlike the Kasekela chimps, they were dangerous because they hadn’t yet come to trust human observers.

  “One of those chimps attacked a villager, so we are not allowed to enter that area,” Abdul explained. “We can wait here because our chimps never go far into the northern chimps’ territory and will likely return on this same trail.” We waited patiently for two hours, talking and sampling the juicy yellow flesh of the mbula fruits that had dropped to the ground—and then, sure enough, Freud and the others in the group returned. We took off following them again.

  Suddenly, a very different energy developed within the group. In sharp contrast to the quiet grooming and feeding, chimp screaming and calls of excitement started echoing through the trees. Tommy looked confused. One of the field assistants in our group shouted, “Frodo has killed a baby colobus monkey!” Another field assistant who was fifty yards ahead of us had radioed him the news. I had a sudden flashback: thirty-six years earlier, before there were radios at the camp, we would alert each other by producing a high-pitched staccato war whoop that resonated across the valley.

  I remembered that there was always enormous excitement after a kill as the chimps gathered around begging for meat and aggressively fending off other animals. The frightening sounds grew louder.

  Tommy asked, “Shouldn’t we head in the opposite direction?”

  I smiled confidently and replied, “We’ll be fine. We’re not a threat. Just don’t ask Frodo for a piece of the meat.” He chuckled.

  We all hurried to the site of the kill and I immediately saw Frodo high in a tree. He was feasting on the baby monkey and sharing some of the meat with female chimps and a nearby male. I didn’t see Freud, but he might have been hanging out on the periphery, and there was so much commotion that I may have missed him. We heard every type of vocal call chimps use to communicate: pant-hoots, screaming, grunting, and panting sounds as they interacted and shared in the kill.

  Standing protected in the foliage below, watching all the activity and commotion, Tommy whispered, “I can’t believe how fierce some of them are!”

  “Those are fear grins on the chimps crouching and reaching out to Frodo for scraps of meat,” I whispered to Tommy as he stared at the scene, wide-ey
ed.

  Many of the other field assistants and a few researchers gathered to observe the chimps’ behavior after the kill. We ducked under some low branches so as to be less noticeable as the screaming continued in the trees above.

  It was then that I think Tommy realized for the first time that we were truly in a privileged situation. It was something I had understood as a student decades ago, when I was able to watch the lively interactions of the Gombe community of chimps as a special guest. I sensed that Tommy understood that this was a rare and remarkable experience, being physically close to strong, wild animals, capable of sudden killing, and yet we knew that they tolerated our presence and would likely not harm us. Tommy showed intense interest and no more fear of the powerful chimps than most visitors do.

  After watching more of the chimps’ excitement, Abdul led us away and we finished the afternoon by hiking along a streambed. My muscles were tired; I was no longer accustomed to scrambling up and down the valley through the dense foliage. When I caught sight of the beach, I gratefully assumed that our day of trekking and observing had come to an end, and I started eyeing the water.

  After forty-five minutes of resting on the beach and talking, however, Abdul said, “Are you ready to find the chimps and watch them build their nests for the evening?”

  “Ndiyo,” yes, I told him, reluctantly abandoning the idea of a plunge in the lake and instead stretching my legs for another trek high into the valley.

  The forest was definitely quieter now, except for the many birds chirping and calling. Though most visitors to Gombe are required to return to the beach camp by five o’clock to ensure all visitors and field assistants are accounted for before dark, because of my experience as a student, Tommy and I were allowed to stay with the chimps until sunset, around seven thirty.

  Abdul worked hard to try to locate a group of chimps so we could watch them build their nests. We finally found a group around six, but after feeding for an hour they suddenly took off and rapidly moved deep into a thicket, making it impossible for us to traverse the rugged terrain and witness their nest building. The disappointment was overwhelming.

  And yet the hour prior to their exit had left me with one of the deepest feelings of connection to the generations of chimps at Gombe. Tommy and I were able to observe Frodo, who was part of this group, lounging on a grassy hillside. As the sun settled on the horizon, we watched him sprawled out in the long grass, munching on dark orange fruits. We were also sprawled out, no more than twenty-five feet away from the legendary chimp, peering at him through the dry foliage. Knowing that he had been the largest and most powerful alpha male but was now in “retirement,” we both thought he looked very much at peace. At that moment it was hard to imagine we were looking at the same Frodo who had once been perhaps the most skillful hunter and fiercest leader of the Gombe chimpanzees.

  Frodo ascended to alpha male status in 1997. He was huge, with an unusually strong physique, and according to Jane, had overthrown his older brother, Freud, with brute strength and ruled the community with an iron fist. Frodo once attacked a primatologist who was observing him, and even pounced on Jane when he was in his twenties, nearly breaking her neck—an unusual occurrence, since the chimps were accustomed to her presence and had not been aggressive toward her before.

  In 2002, Frodo snatched a fourteen-month-old human girl from her mother. The mother was passing through Gombe National Park with her niece, who had the baby wrapped onto her back, the way many Tanzanian women carry their infants. Frodo grabbed the infant, took her up into a tree, and killed her. As gruesome a tragedy as this was, to Frodo the child probably looked like a baby colobus monkey, which was among his natural prey and thus occasionally on the menu. He was a very good hunter and probably did not distinguish between species. None of this helps console a mother in the unbearable loss of a child; rather, it was a terrible warning to keep infants and young children far away from the territory the chimps call home.

  Several months after this incident, Frodo contracted a parasitic illness that weakened him temporarily. During that time he lost his place as head male and over time became more complacent. There was no declared leader of the Gombe community for two years until Sheldon became bwana mkubwa. Abdul, Tommy, and I knew that Frodo hadn’t lost his skill as a hunter, however, as we had witnessed the aftermath of his killing a colobus monkey earlier in the day.

  The scene we now watched on the hillside reflected a milder side of Frodo. “He looks so self-satisfied right now,” Tommy commented. “He looks like he needs nothing else in life except the fresh air and milk apples. Maybe we’re all working too hard back home.”

  “I agree,” I said, thinking about my long work hours.

  I felt very connected to Frodo, being so close to him, and having known his brother and mother so well. When Frodo was in his twenties, the adolescent males would watch him closely and observe his ferocious displays and confidence within the chimp community. As I watched him now, I wondered if I could have projected more confidence—leaving out the ferocious displays—as a father figure to my two sons.

  My father was more like Frodo in his conduct—high energy and definitely in charge, both at home and at work. I responded by becoming more reserved and less assertive; as a father, I tended to incorporate my mother’s inquisitive and sensitive style of parenting. I requested a certain standard of behavior and order in the household, but my parenting would likely be considered lenient and forgiving rather than commanding. I was drawn to jogging, kayaking, and swimming rather than to competitive sports. I didn’t enjoy aggressive male competition.

  Relaxing quietly next to Tommy as we watched Frodo, I had time to think about how my relationship with Tommy and my ten-year-old son, Patrick, had evolved. Although Patrick was too young to join us on this trip, he had loved hearing the chimp stories earlier in his life and was confident around animals and in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. We shared a similar tactic in life for coping with stressful situations: escaping into fantasy. For Pat it included dragons and Samurai warriors in books and daydreams, while for me it had always included thoughts of the Gombe forest. We also bonded over using humor to get through tough times.

  Tommy was heavily immersed in most of the major team sports from age four onward, and had the ability to stay focused in a soccer or baseball game for long periods. He later branched out to add music (drum, piano, and guitar) to his life, but continued in competitive sports, especially soccer, even in college. My wife, Wendy, commented a few months after Tommy left for college, “I never find the sports section in the bathroom anymore.”

  I felt sad thinking about that, not only because it symbolized Tommy’s leaving home but also because it highlighted our markedly different interests during his formative years. I must admit that the real estate and entertainment sections were my preferred parts of the newspaper. I loved attending Tommy’s baseball and soccer games, and even coached his earlier sports teams, but he was a competitive athlete and I wasn’t.

  On this trip to Gombe, though, Tommy and I were finding common ground. Being dropped into a diverse and primitive setting had brought us closer together. We were comrades on a mission. All the past differences in our interests and childhood experiences seemed to be less important now, as we watched Frodo calmly eating plums in the golden-red sunset light. Tommy seemed completely at peace, as was I. Our father-son relationship began to feel more like being the best of friends.

  I could easily see parallels between Frodo and me at that moment: I too was a retiring male (more beta than alpha) and—I hoped—the wise teacher who could share his life experiences with his sons. Though it wasn’t clear to me yet when I was a student at Gombe, it still amazes me how much I’m influenced by my days there. Studying early childhood development in college and then observing the chimps in the wild inevitably influenced my image of myself in various roles—from medical student to bachelor, husband, father, and doctor.

  The sight of Frodo also sparked memories of old Hu
go, a chimp named after Jane’s first husband, and how he was treated by the other chimps at Gombe. At age forty-eight, Hugo was obviously no threat to the other males, and was even allowed to scoop a banana out of the mouth of Figan, the alpha male at the time. I never saw him threatened or spurned. Old Flo, the grand-matriarch at Gombe who had died before I arrived in 1973, was also treated with respect. When she was in her late forties, the adult males even found her quite attractive during her estrus.

  After about an hour, Frodo rose as his small group stood and started passing by, coming close to us. One by one, with Frodo last in line, they descended rapidly into the thicket to find suitable trees for nesting. Abdul sighed, and my heart sank as I realized the dense vegetation would make it impossible for us to keep up with the agile chimps and see their nest building. Watching them disappear, Tommy’s face fell too.

  Without saying much, we turned and hiked back toward the beach, watching the purple sky change to a deep blue. As we walked, I started to feel better. Though we never saw nest building, we had met up with Freud and leisurely observed Frodo. I was grateful to see how two of Fifi’s offspring had turned out. Taking a deep breath of the fresh air of the forest, I felt deeply connected to the familiar primates. A wave of emotion overwhelmed me thinking about my reunion with Freud, who had helped shape my life four decades earlier. I smiled gratefully at my son’s back as he descended the trail in front of me.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  JANE’S PEAK

  After a refreshing night’s sleep, Tommy, Abdul, and I met up again in the morning, outside of our concrete building. By eight o’clock, we had eaten fresh papaya and cereal and chatted with Abdul about the day. There was little chance of rain this time of year so when we returned to our room, we dressed lightly and placed only containers of water in our small backpacks.