I tried not to dwell too long on everything we were losing – that would be too painful. But even as I tried to steel myself, I felt something infinitely precious slipping away. I would never be able to look out over that vast forest again, or watch black and white colobus monkeys cavorting on vines at the edge of the clearing. I would never hear again the giant casqued hornbills calling, or watch the touracos feeding on the fruit of the parasolier tree. And when we were back in England or Australia, would anyone understand what it was I had left behind? An ache settled in my chest, a longing I knew would always haunt me. The last lesson Belinga taught me was that one could never have the sweet without the bitter. The more one loved, the more one had to lose.
Win climbed in beside Sam and I got into the back seat and wound down the window so I could wave. My last sight of Étienne was of him standing, framed in the doorway of the guesthouse, waving back, still wearing his floral apron.
Kruger had a driver waiting on the other side of the Djadié crossing to take us to Makokou, and the staff at CNRS had invited us for a farewell lunch at the research station. We sat around the long refectory table in the mess with Louise, André, the Michalouds, Hugo and Irene, whom we had met only recently, but who had given us the keys to her Left Bank apartment in Paris to use on our stopover. I had a lump in my throat most of the time. If not for these people, we would never have glimpsed the world of the western lowland gorillas, the bats, the orphaned chimpanzees and the brush-tailed porcupine. I was bursting with the intensity of it, but I didn’t know how to tell them.
Our plane was due to leave in the late afternoon. At the airport, Kruger had checked our bags in with Monsieur Loupin, our old friend the storekeeper, in his other role as the Air Gabon agent. For all his hard-headedness, Kruger and I had reached an accommodation. Underneath his tough exterior he had a kindly heart, and I felt sorry for him stuck there in Makokou, every day a battle against the odds.
The dusty terminal was crowded with women, children, baskets of live chickens and rolls of bedding. We stood in the midst of them, waiting for the boarding call. Then out of the crowd appeared the figure of Mehendje Bruno, Win’s chief carpenter. He had come down to see us off. Win’s face lit up, and I watched the two of them shake hands. Theirs had been a remarkable partnership; together they had done work as fine as any in the world. Bruno had tears in his eyes as he said goodbye. ‘Au revoir, patron.’
‘Au revoir, Bruno. Bonne chance!’
Just as the call to board sounded, a car pulled up beside the terminal and a group of CNRS staff jumped out, there to see us off. There was just time to shake hands before we joined the rush for the boarding ladder. We paused on the top step to look back and wave: our last sight was of Kruger, Bruno and the CNRS people standing behind the chain-wire fence, with the red dust of Makokou blowing in their faces.
Doug and Gina met us at Libreville airport and drove us to our lodgings in the African quarter to check in, before we went on to their new home at Tahiti for dinner. We talked long into the night, and brought Doug up to date with everything that had happened while they were on leave. Just before we left, I took Doug aside and gave him the glass jar with Étienne’s blood in it.
‘I think he has bowel cancer,’ I said. ‘Can you make sure this is tested? I promised him I would look after it.’
‘Sure, Nettie. No problem.’
The next day we spent time with Rodo, who was in transit back to Belinga from leave. The three of us felt like a family. Wherever our lives took us in the future, that bond would not change, because it had been forged in hardship and isolation and through love of Josie. We planned a rendezvous in Europe in a year’s time, once he’d finished at Belinga.
‘Promise you will write,’ I insisted. ‘I want to hear everything that happens.’
He looked sad. ‘It won’t be the same without you two up there.’ I hoped that Carol and Jim would become his family in the months ahead. He needed people around him who cared.
‘Nothing will be the same for us either,’ I answered. Then we left him and set out for the SOMIFER office, where some final paperwork awaited.
The day before we left, Roger drove us to Libreville airport to watch the ceremonial welcome for President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing of France who had arrived at the start of a state visit. Gabon’s ties with France remained strong sixteen years after independence: over 30,000 French nationals still worked in the country, throughout all sectors of the economy and industry.
Hundreds of Gabonese women had assembled in lines in the open air, representing the forty language groups in the country. Each group was dressed in distinctive costume, a spectacle of red, yellow, green and blue patterns in the strong sunlight. When the president appeared, they burst into vigorous dancing and song and became a moving sea of colours, upturned faces and waving arms. I climbed a small tree nearby and perched on a branch to take a photo. I would be unlikely to witness such a sight again.
Our Swissair jet lifted slowly out over Cap Estérias, bound for Geneva, then Paris. The Atlantic was grey-green and calm, just as it had been when we first arrived in Libreville the year before. From my seat at the window I couldn’t see the forest: we had left it far behind. The Kombi was already well on its way to Bordeaux, where we would collect it in three weeks’ time.
I thought back to my youth in Brisbane, to myself as a shy primary-school girl. I remembered when my language teacher at secondary school had chosen me to take part in a French-speaking competition because I was the best speaker in the class. I had been fifteen. Paralysed with stage fright, I had declined, never suspecting that fifteen years later my French would open doors to a world I had never heard of. I recalled the night Win and I had met at the Adventurers’ Club in Brisbane six years earlier, and how my life had changed irrevocably from that moment on – how he had inspired me to embrace a life of risk and adventure.
A part of me never wanted to leave Africa. As I sat in the plane with the whine of the engines in my ears and the Atlantic far below me, I knew a part of me would always remain at Belinga. In my role at the camp, I had given of myself as never before. I had battled isolation, culture shock and the privations of a frontier posting, but ultimately I had thrived. I was stronger and wiser, and I had finally grown up. Life at Belinga had shown me a world beyond my imagining. I had held great apes in my arms, and in those moments I had glimpsed eternity. Whatever happened in the future, I would be bound to Josie and Ikata forever. The feeling of Josie clinging to my body would never leave me.
Even then, I suspected that my encounters with the great apes would become the defining events of my life. They would mark me out as uniquely privileged, and form the nucleus of my new identity. Powerful images of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and Biruté Galdikas flooded into my mind. These women had followed their dreams – surely I could too? It would mean a long academic journey – years of study, a significant drop in income, and little leisure time. But the idea of sacrifice seemed integral to it. I would give it my all because that was the only way I knew how to be.
I had no idea whether there would be barriers to my entry into a degree program in anthropology, such as my lack of a science background, but I was committed. I felt responsible to Josie, Ikata and all gorillas orphaned, injured or killed through human ignorance or cruelty. The vision of myself returning to Africa and working with gorillas would sustain me through the long years ahead.
Everything seemed possible as I stared out the aircraft window at the ocean far below. I reflected how important it was for people to take chances in life – to grasp the moment and make a leap of faith. That was what Win and I had done when we went to Belinga. Now I was speeding towards a new future.
I looked around at the other passengers. Many of them looked like French nationals going home on leave. Two Gabonese religious sisters sat together several rows in front of us, and there were businessmen in suits who probably worked for oil or mining companies. I wore my new identity with pride: as someone who had engaged wi
th remotest Africa, I had earned my place in this company.
‘Vous voulez un apéritif, madame?’ The flight attendant’s voice broke my reverie.
‘Je veux bien, merci,’ I replied, almost without thinking. Then I settled back and allowed the western world to draw me back in.
EPILOGUE
Our life at Belinga transformed and inspired us. On our return to Australia we realised we could never settle in suburbia again, so we bought a thickly forested bush property outside Brisbane, where Win built our first home, largely from recycled materials. We have lived here since 1980. It is home to an abundance of wildlife, including a breeding pair of powerful owls, and the forest has grown and flourished. We have watched it withstand fire, frost, drought and flood – each time, it recovers when conditions improve. The gums produce blossoms, the parrots and flying foxes descend on them to feed, and the wallabies graze on our front lawn. Whenever I look out the window, I think of Belinga.
I began my degree studies in anthropology in 1978, and graduated with first-class honours from the University of Queensland in 1983, when I was thirty-seven. Anthropology was just one of several pathways into primatology, but the only one open to me. Afterward I worked as an anthropologist for several years, teaching in universities and doing some consulting.
Although in my heart I still wanted to work with gorillas, I had to face some harsh realities. Dian Fossey had been murdered in her bed at the Karisoke Research Center in 1985; Win and I needed to establish a solid financial future for ourselves; my salary as a junior academic paid me less than I had earned as a secretary; and we needed to spend some time with our families after so many years abroad. The prospect of spending years in Africa isolated in a forest seemed to run counter to all the personal priorities that pressed in on us.
So I set aside my idealistic dream, and took a job as an administrator in a university. Win was approaching sixty and I had become the primary breadwinner. For sixteen years, photographs of Josie and Ikata adorned the walls of my office, and everyone who came in asked about them. When I told the story, many choked back tears. They all said I should write it down. So when I stopped being a university administrator, I dusted off my diaries and began writing.
My time with Josie and Ikata remains at the core of my identity even today – I have been where few others have trodden. I still want to give something back, partly to honour the gifts these great apes gave me, so I provide financial support in various ways. I am a zoo parent of the western lowland gorillas at Taronga Zoo, I have adopted an orphaned juvenile orangutan in Borneo through the Australian Orangutan Project, I belong to the Australasian Primate Society, and I support gorilla conservation and research through membership of the Berggorilla & Regenwald Direkthilfe in Mülheim, Germany. And whenever I can, I talk to people about gorillas, how gentle and sensitive they are, how desperately they need our protection, and how close we humans are to them in so many ways.
In 1996, twenty years after we left Gabon, an outbreak of Ebola virus killed twenty-one people in the village of Mayebut II. They had eaten the flesh of a dead chimpanzee they’d found in the forest. In the cruellest twist of fate, the killing process had reversed – instead of people killing the apes, the ape’s flesh killed the people. The virus is believed to have been responsible for the dramatic fall of up to fifty per cent in the population of western lowland gorillas and chimpanzees in the upper Ivindo region and adjacent areas of the Republic of the Congo. But fresh hope for the long-term survival of western lowland gorillas emerged in August 2008 when wildlife researchers announced that an estimated population of 125,000 of these endangered animals had been discovered living in an area of remote forest 18,000 square miles in extent in the Republic of the Congo. Subject to independent verification, this discovery would double previous population estimates.
As for Belinga, the iron-ore deposit was never mined at the conclusion of SOMIFER’s exploration program in the 1970s, partly because the world steel price plummeted. However, all that is changing now. The Gabonese government has signed an agreement with Chinese mining interests to re-explore the Belinga deposit, mine the ore, and build a railway to transport it to the coast. Work has already commenced on road construction and the establishment of worker camps. Despite the world economic downturn, the Belinga project appears set to proceed.
Win and I continued to receive news of the camp and its people long after our departure. As promised, I wrote to M’Poko Lucien from London and still have two letters written in his clear hand in perfect French, asking when I planned to return. We were deeply saddened to learn that Nganga Étienne had died of bowel cancer in the late 1970s.
Travelling in France, we visited Jacques Poussain and his family at their home, and were treated to a lavish traditional French lunch prepared by his wife. Jacques had found work elsewhere, and they were looking to the future. We also stayed with Roger Bonnet and his wife at their home in Toulon, on the way back from our holiday in Greece. As always, Roger cooked for us, and in return Win did some carpentry on their house. Roger subsequently took up a posting in troubled Chad. I corresponded with him for many years afterwards.
Carol wrote to us in London, her letters full of the chaos that faced her daily, but she never lost her sense of humour. We had no further contact with Eamon after we left Belinga, but we heard he’d returned to live in the United States earlier than planned.
When the exploration program at Belinga concluded, Doug and his family left Gabon. Doug wrote regularly, visited us in London and later sought us out in our forest home in Australia. A diligent correspondent, he wrote to us from all over the world for decades.
Our bond with Rodo has remained unbreakable for over thirty years. He wrote to us regularly from Belinga with news of events great and small, and I have kept all his letters. When his tour of duty there ended, we drove from London to Germany to spend time with him. Now retired, he phones, emails and writes from his home in the German countryside. The photograph on the cover of this book shows Josie clinging to his legs on the day she left us.
Shared experience would link me to all of these people; nothing could alter that. Time, the great deceiver, still tricks me even now when I think of our life at Belinga: surely it was only yesterday …
GREAT APE CONSERVATION ORGANISATIONS
In the three decades since we left Africa, great ape conservation has become a global issue. All great apes – gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans and bonobos – are endangered in the wild and need human support if they are to survive. Jane Goodall, Biruté Galdikas and countless others have devoted their lives to this cause. Dian Fossey paid the ultimate price.
There are many organisations dedicated to this conservation task. They rescue orphaned and injured apes, care for them in sanctuaries, teach them the skills they need to survive in the wild, and, where possible, release them into protected areas. At the same time, they conduct education programs, lobby governments to preserve native forest habitats, raise funds to support their work and engage in many other vital tasks including field research. They also encourage members of the public to adopt or sponsor a great ape by making an annual donation which is used to provide for their needs.
The following list is by no means exhaustive, but for those wishing to know more about the work being done to support the survival of great apes, or to become involved in some way, these websites will provide an excellent starting point:
The Jane Goodall Institute (JGI):
www.janegoodall.org
The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International:
www.gorillafund.org
United Nations Environment Programme Great Apes Survival Partnership (GRASP):
www.unep.org/GRASP
The Australian Orangutan Project (AOP):
www.orangutan.org.au
Orangutan Foundation International (OFI):
www.orangutan.org
GLOSSARY
atelier du bois
woodworking shop
bâton
&n
bsp; stick of manioc
cantines
lockable tin trunks
cas de passage
visitors’ lodge
combinée
multi-function wood machine
débarcadère
landing stage
économat
village shop
fourreaux
midges
ghiques
jiggers (parasitic insects)
glacières
iceboxes
infirmerie
infirmary
magazinier
shopkeeper or warehouseman
méchant
wicked
mouche rouge
red fly
pagne
printed cotton cloth
pinnassier
boatman
sous-préfêt
deputy district governor
vivres frais
fresh food
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am deeply grateful to many people for their advice and encouragement in the writing of this book. First and foremost I thank my husband, Winston Henderson, for his unswerving love, support and belief since I wrote the very first draft in 1977. I thank my dear friend Rodo Krol, who shared our life at Belinga and was eager to read everything I wrote. My special thanks go to Amanda Lohrey who inspired me to pick up the manuscript I had set aside decades earlier and embark on the long process of turning it into a book. The University of Queensland, through the grant of an Australian Postgraduate Award, provided financial support allowing me to work on the book full-time for two years. I am grateful to my agent, Lyn Tranter, for her enthusiasm about the manuscript and her energy in finding a publisher for it. Stuart Glover read many drafts, and brought expert editorial advice to bear on my text. Bronwyn Lea helped me to grow as a writer through her sensitive readings of my work. Kim Wilkins and Jay Verney generously afforded writerly advice before I began. Members of the 2006–07 M.Phil (Creative Writing) class at the University of Queensland provided insightful feedback on my drafts. My special thanks go to Alison Urquhart and Elizabeth Cowell, my wonderful publisher and editor at Random House, for their wholehearted commitment to the book and for being such congenial colleagues. I thank Emma Collier-Baker for the time we spent discussing our mutual love, gorillas. Many others – family, colleagues and friends too numerous to name – have helped through their constant interest and enthusiasm to keep my faith alive along the way. They know who they are.
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