Job Delusions of Grandeur

“They” say that to channel success, you need to visualize—and more importantly, visualize yourself in that confident and beaming moment, right down to what you might be wearing in said moment. I fancied myself in a somewhat neatly-pressed many-pocketed safari suit, perhaps donning a pith helmet if the job so required.

I would have sweat on my brow and return home redolent of baboon or maybe elephant dung.
My recent dream job fixation was The African Lion Safari, a game park in Cambridge, Ontario with all the makings of a real live safari (3D cheetahs, rhinos, giraffes!) in real live Africa. Six months ago it was the donkey sanctuary in Guelph. The sanctuary is still ranked in the dream category, but, due to geography and a leggy commute, it’s not feasible and would be income neutral. Which means, they only have volunteer positions which are indeed priceless, but, banks like you to pay a mortgage with money, not smiles and pictures of a happy time spent with donkeys.

I applied to the Lion Safari with grandiose amounts of anticipation in December. I outlined my experience making breakfast for 26 chimps, my ability and desire to shovel any type of manure and emphasized my unswerving attraction to any position they might have in animal care. The game park was advertising positions as a direct animal keeper (YES!!!), in the petting zoo filling pellet machines and corralling wayward children attempting to ride goats (I could still live out my donkey fantasy) and, facilitators for the Birds of Prey show. I thought I was a bird shoo-in with my Intro to Falconry course under my belt and my skill in identifying a sharp-shinned from a rufous-sided raptor at 50 paces.

I easily visualized myself with a falcon alight on my wrist. Whistling for its return as it swooped around the audience (first learning curve here: learning how to whistle). I imagined brushing out donkey tails and throwing prime rib to the pacing lions.

So, when Human Resources called, I practically pounced across the phone line. Yes, I was interested, in absolutely anything that they could offer me! Minimum wage? Why be greedy? Besides, if I was having the time of my life, no price could be put on that. Though, I’d have to buy a vehicle of some sort to get me to the Lion Safari, or, ride one of the donkeys home due to the 26 km roundtrip.
However, in my heart-palpitating excitement, I almost didn’t hear the voice on the other end say, “all our animal care positions have been filled—but, we think you’d be more suited for the Tour Operator position.”

Sure, I could operate tours. I could crack corny jokes and tell off-colour stories about terrible park visitors. I could withstand screaming, probably crying children pawing at me, covering my legs in candy floss and dripping ice cream cone hands.

But, this is when my dream job turned into a nightmare. I felt like I was suddenly eavesdropping in on a horror story. My horror! Now, I was visualizing a walking tour I guess, not a tour on a 50-passenger COACH BUS that I would have to learn how to drive! What terrible job description was this? Not only would I be responsible for learning how to commandeer a bus, but, as a tour operator, I’d also have to man the pontoon boat for 10-minute tours on the faux lake and operate the train to boot! I don’t even like driving a car, let alone something as big as my house!

Again, as the kindly woman explained the gory details, I tried to visualize myself in the above-mentioned safari suit, now seated behind the wheel of a bus (which I would have four to ten days to learn how to drive. And then pass an exam to make it official.

I shuddered, I began to sweat in sauna proportions. My excited heart palpitations turned into stroke symptoms.

Did I still want to come in for an interview? Had I been scared off?

No! I wasn’t scared off! This was my dream job! I couldn’t wait for the interview!
We scheduled it for March 2nd.

I immediately canvassed my friends and polled family members because my girlfriend wasn’t home. Kim is definitely my voice of reason at all times. I love her rational brain, but, I also get swept away in fantasy jobs and wanted to have a diverse collective group answer.

I invited hilarity, caution, advice and cheerleading. Of course, I received all of what I encouraged, in equal amounts. There was no definitive answer. My mother held her breath and said nothing (she visualized me driving the bus into the watering hole and killing a herd of zebra en route). Heidi thought the pontoon boat had serious potential for fun and would negate the bus droning. My brother shot back a rapid fire email: “You’re competing with Kiley now.” This was in direct reference to our sister’s oddball resume of jobs which have included everything from fly-fishing instructor to cookie baker to delivering sermons on Disney Cruise Lines.

Close friends weighed in with carefully crafted thoughts/support and OMG’s—did I really want to drone into a microphone over and over again to a bunch of screechy kids hopped out on sugar and wildlife? My dad thought it might be the catalyst to getting to the core of my dream job—in the lion cage.

When my Voice of Reason did get home, I barely had to finish relaying the conversation I had with the Lion Safari.

“Babe, you don’t want to drive a bus.”

See? Voice of Reason. I don’t. And, yes, it’s important to listen to your instant gut reaction but, it’s better when you can get someone to second that motion. I didn’t want to be all defeatist right off the bat, or unwilling to chomp at a new learning curve.

I’m now in the process of refining my dream job terms. What I have learned from this is that I’m still okay with multi-pocketed khaki wear…but the reality may be that I just want to GO on safari again, not necessarily work at one.

So, now I’ve set my sights on a career in baking buttertarts, “a logical transistion” as my dear friend Kay would attest.

Tarra & Bella: Love Conquered All

In the olden days (the 1980s to me), I imagine people played records, maybe even cassettes to fully engulf themselves in an emotion. It’s easy to entrench ourselves in despair by cueing up music, that’s universal. There are movie titles that are guaranteed to stir up the quality of weeping reserved for weddings and funerals (Beaches, Fried Green Tomatoes, Love Story). Some books can trigger laughter, but, more easily, melancholy (The Art of Racing in the Rain, Marley & Me—okay, any book about a dying dog).

Sometimes we want to find that emotional rock-bottom place, and dwell in it. We put Jann Arden on repeat and watch reliable broken-heart movies like Out of Africa or Love Affair on Christmas Day. It’s easy to encourage sadness and hopelessness. Rain helps too, a lot.

Now we can go a step further, and instigate crying jags instantaneously with the help of viral YouTube videos.  Who hasn’t found themselves in a sporadic sleep pattern, typing in the words “Christian lion reunion” or “Damian and the gorilla”? How about “orangutan & dog best friends” or “dog and dolphin”?

If you have watched any of this sob-inducing footage on repeat, surely you have also put “Tarra and Bella” on your “I feel-like-drinking-more-wine-and-having-a-good-cry” list.

Masai Mara National Park, Kenya

 The relationship between a stray dog (Bella) and an elephant (Tarra) at The Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tennessee found instant fan fare on YouTube. If two species, divided by size alone, could embrace each other, what was our problem as humans?

Tarra was one of the sanctuary’s first elephants. Her devout canine sidekick, Bella, found her comfortable place in Tarra’s shadow in 2003. They were inseparable and appeared like lovers from another lifetime.

The viral video that had viewers wiping tears from their necks showed a distraught Tarra, grieving for the company of her dear dog who had suffered a spinal cord injury and was unable to walk. As Bella was recovering in the sanctuary office, Tarra kept vigil for three weeks, until her best pal was carried down to her enclosure. Tarra’s exuberant trumpet, and her trunk gingerly touching and reassuring injured Bella was heart-splitting. I have probably watched the video 30 times.

Today, my friend Karen sent a link about the tragic news of Bella. Tuesday morning Bella was missing, and sanctuary staff initiated an immediate search that continued until Wednesday.  Her body was found near a barn that Tarra and five other elephants share. The Sanctuary’s vet, Dr. Scott , determined that Bella was a victim of an animal attack, most likely coyote.

But there’s more.

Due to the extent of Bella’s injuries, staff believe it would have been impossible for Bella to be found where she was, without any evidence of struggle around the area. Tarra’s trunk had blood on the underside, which led sanctuary personnel to wonder if she had found her friend and carried her back to a safer resting place.

There are parts of the story that will never be known. Did Tarra witness the attack? Did she arrive too late and in her desperation to protect Bella, carry her from the awful scene? I can’t imagine how heavy her heart felt. The anger she would have in herself for not saving Bella. The rage she would have that a precious life and friendship could be severed so unexpectedly.

Concrete evidence exists that elephants mourn. They experience debilitating sorrow and have their own funeral rites. National Geographic has documented elephants in Kenya as they discover matriarchal bones by a water source. Silently, they created a defensive circle and then elaborately touched the surface of the sacred bones before them, every crevice and notch. They held the bones in their trunks and touched them gently with their hind feet.

Similarly, a BBC documentary showed a herd that happened upon an elephant corpse. It was as though they were paying homage to the deceased with closed eyes and complex thought. They fondled the bones in a way that indicated they were fully aware of not just life, but death.

Tarra was given the opportunity to pay her last respects to Bella, but showed little interest. This is why staff suspect that she may have already said her goodbyes, having endured the night with the knowledge that her friend had passed on to another world.

Their relationship is a confirmation that regardless of our species, we are intimately connected. It would be ignorant to think that only humans could experience the crisis and hollowness of a life lost.

Dog, elephant, man—we are sharing a fragile planet. Our relationships to and with each other define us. They evolve and present a continual opportunity to change, and be better. When we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, remarkable things can happen.

Bella’s life should be a reminder of just that.

 

http://www.care2.com/causes/elephant-tarra-mourns-bella-the-dog.htmlI

Coffee & Chimps

I can’t wake up. My down duvet and the darkness are holding me hostage. I set my alarm forward to what I hope is 15 more minutes and not 15 hours. I’ll soon find out.  The subway rumbles by, as it does. Behind my house the incessant jackhammering in the underground parking garage is already full tilt. The upstairs tenant is busy doing her usual morning laps on the hardwood in army boots.

I pull on a hoodie, do a visual weather check and in one swoop turn on my laptop, the gas fireplace and the left stove burner for the kettle. Scooping towers of coffee grounds into my Bodum I start thinking about how different mornings were in the Congo. Coffee was not a leisurely event with a daily paper spread out before me. In the Congo, provided there was electricity, coffee happened quickly as there were 23 chimpanzees patiently waiting at the sanctuary for hot milk. My alarm routinely sounded at 5 am, not 9:30 am as my Toronto life permits.

I felt like a wayward Starbucks barista in Africa. Dozens of one litre plastic bottles dominated the space beside the sink in the crowded prep kitchen. The six youngest chimps had their own personal bottles with pacifier tops as they were still bottle fed. I never imagined that I’d be making breakfast for chimps. However, pre-sunrise and bleary-eyed, I was stationed in the kitchen, boiling water, carefully measuring honey, propolis, vitamins and powdered milk into a narrow funnel.

This was serious business. Chimps are as particular as we are; if the milk was too hot or too cold, they pushed it away in disgust. Not enough honey or too much propolis and they balked. Tall, full-fat, no-whip, extra honey or else! The adults accepted the warm milk poured into tin cups with handles in a semi-mannerly way. The shrill feeding time pant-hoots and excited displays were deafening.

As I plunge the French press and pour my first cup I stand in two worlds, as I often do. I’m drinking coffee in downtown Toronto, but am transported back to the dust and din of the Congo. All I have to do is look at the enlarged photos hanging on the wall in my kitchen. I step into a sunrise in Masai Mara and stare into the eyes of two curious Congolese children.

I wait for my bagel to toast with crossed arms. I miss waking Micah, the youngest chimp. She stayed with us at the house near the sanctuary because the July nights were too cold, and she was already suffering from bronchitis. After the milk bottles had been filled, I’d wake her (rousing her earlier was too chaotic—imagine a four-armed child on the loose!).

Micah slept in a large dog-type carrier, swathed in blankets, in a tiny t-shirt to keep her core warm. She would gently coo and begin to blink at the light as I folded the blankets back that kept the carrier dark. As I unlocked the carrier door, she instantly reached out for my neck as though it were a tree trunk and gripped me tightly. Her body would be so warm from sleep. Her diaper would be soggy, but, in that moment, she could do no wrong. She’d yawn so innocently and examine me, sometimes reaching her fingers to my mouth to trace my teeth.

Minutes later she would be on a tear. Changing her diaper would turn into a chase scene. She’d have the powdered milk container popped open. She’d be squeezing honey from the bottle when I turned my back. The cat would be hiding behind the curtains avoiding unexpected tail yanks. Micah would appear with matches in her mouth. A bar of soap.  My lip balm. Red paint—from where? I never found out.

I pour more coffee and add too much cream. The chimps would send it back. Micah would have her fingers in my mug already, threatening to tip the contents, her eyes hovering just above my counter, scanning.  She would love my barstools—four of them to swing between. In no time she’d find my porcupine quills and beluga bone. My cowhide rug would have tiny chimp teeth marks at its edge. The wine bottles tucked in the recycling bin would be out and rolling around after she sipped the last sips.

Grabbing the peanut butter from the middle drawer I see all the things Micah would ransack in less than a minute. Spaghetti noodles, oatmeal, popcorn, Nutella. She was a sucker for sweets and would be in the fridge searching for cordial or Coke.  Her guilty face and temporary disappearance always gave her away.

Even though it’s louder here in Toronto, it’s somehow quieter. I should be getting ready for work but somehow find myself scrolling through my Congo photos instead.  It’s a side effect of sharing breakfast with chimps.

Geography Lessons

Yesterday I was at Hanlan’s Point, my GPS location for self-imposed exile. Here, I lie supine and allow the lake to pull my mind away. The trembling aspens rustle and cicadas buzz at a pitch that is more of an alarm to me—summer is already gathering up its carefree days in fast pursuit of the fall. The cicadas are early this year, they are usually indicative of sizzling late August afternoons where humidity hangs like a wet duvet on our shoulders.

The sun is already setting a minute earlier each night. Yesterday the sun set at 8:45, tonight, 8:44. While the sun was still blistering hot and turning the pale-skinned gingers into Maine lobsters, I snapped open a beer. The bathtub-warm Mill Street Lemon Tea beer was effervescent in my mouth, and the tepid temperature hurled me several latitudes over, to Simba beers in the Congo sun.

Two men walked past me at Hanlan’s as I skimmed the condensation off the beer can and dragged my hand across the back of my neck. The men were holding hands, laughing without inhibition, ankle-deep in the lake water. They were the colour of teak furniture. A Porter jet took to the sky with a distant growl—Boston? New York? Chicago? It banked and slid into the atmosphere and pillowy clouds beyond the aspens above my head.

I dog-eared the 37^th page of The Outport People, a book about the zany brood that breathe life into a seemingly uninhabitable island called Baleena. There are no roads, no cars, no telephones. It’s Claire Mowatss best-selling memoir based on the five years she and Farley lived in Newfoundland. My mind was already in too many places to focus on Newfoundland.

Again, I disappeared to the Congo despite staring at the Toronto skyline and the sailboats skating across the surface of the water in front of me. Just one year ago I was popping the remaining Malarone anti-malarial pills out of their foil seal into my cupped hand, sad to see the numbers dwindle by day. My eyes were strained from trying to absorb all the jacaranda trees, brilliant hibiscus and termite hills as tall as flagpoles. I was desperate to take in all that surrounded me. I studied the texture of Mikai’s hair and cool skin. I searched for the history and future in her eyes that were as dark as the African coffee I sipped. The chimp I held in my arms would be a mighty adult next time I saw her. She would no longer be gently accepting spoonfuls of strawberry yogurt and sucking on warm milk sweetened with honey.  In a year, she would find her place among the troop, no longer coddled and fussed over as the babe in arms.

A year ago I was running around the fairways of the Lubumbashi Golf Course, listening to the same songs on my iPod that fuel my route through Riverdale Park and along the Don River in Toronto today. Chantal would meet me after my run and we would sit in the still of the morning, watching the copper mine bigwigs teeing off in ill-fitting plaids and stripes. More often it was the wives of the bigwigs in wide-brimmed hats and equally wide-rimmed sunglasses.

Days later, far from the idyllic morning runs around the greens with the fanfare of grinning, waving Congolese children, I was touching down in Harare, Zimbabwe and Nairobi. All that was familiar and quintissential Africa grew smaller and smaller, until it seemed like a child’s train set, not a real world, below the plane. The dust was still under my nails, in my nose, and deep in the stitching of everything I had worn.

I was leaving, again. And returning. And leaving. My brain needed sutures to hold everything I had seen together.

A  year ago, I held a hastily stamped Kenya exit visa in my hand.  My passport felt heavier with the miles that it had permitted. I landed in Toronto, elated and exhausted. I shared startling stories with my parents like a kid strung out on Halloween candy. I pulled up the photos on my laptop and sat in disbelief that I had actually been to such a place. I described each of the chimps, all 23, their names, their quirks. I watched my mom laugh until she couldn’t breathe over video footage of Mikai clobbering the kitten with a stuffed animal. I felt like I was describing someone else’s life.

We drank champagne in my parents zen backyard with Yanni and the babbling fish pond and citronella candles creating a path that replicated a parade of fireflies. The humming mosquitoes were a nuisance, but not a constant worry like their African counterparts.

I said goodbye, again, to my parents, to Dax, to the backyard that I hadn’t sat in long enough. I didn’t know what my five year plan was. Hell, I wasn’t even sure what my five day plan was.

The urban sprawl of paved Toronto lit up like the most fantastic Lite Brite display, glowing and blurring until I let myself find sleep on the flight to the west coast.

A year ago, and a week from now, I was in BC. The Fraser Valley spread wide below the plane’s wings in a neat patchwork quilt of blueberry and raspberry fields. The snow on Mt. Baker’s peak bounced the glare of the sun back onto my window.

I was coming home, but felt split between the provinces and the peace found in the burning sunsets of the Congo. Home was a sharp slap of reality. My stories stalled in the face of Mila, the most darling lab in the world. She was dying and I felt like I had five hearts beating in my chest, and still, not enough blood for all my limbs.

I unpacked from Africa, and packed again for Toronto. For good. A once familiar life and routine was dissolving and passing through my hands that could only grasp the immediate moment. I spent hours in the grass with Mila, crying like a fool, begging her to slip away. It would be okay. I’m not sure who I was reassuring– myself, or her. Both of us, I think.

I felt like I had live goldfish living in my stomach. My eyes burned like they were full of poison ivy. A year ago and a week from today, I wondered what was right. What was wrong?

Nothing felt right, even my skin felt unfamiliar over my bones. Jann reminded me, “life is fleeting.”

And I touched down at Pearson a week later. Mila died the very next day. I found solace in unexpected places, and comfort, even on the hardwood floor of Dax’s condo.

A year ago, I stood at the edge of the quarry in the Congo, knowing life was changing as fast as the landscapes would be under my feet in that week. I stood on a ferry the next day, crossing Lake Ontario to Ward’s Island with my anxious parents, who didn’t expect to see me again until Christmas. The next day I was at Hayward Lake, BC, watching Mila swim out into the cool depths for the very last time.

And I return. To Lake Ontario, with my feet in the sand. I still see Hayward Lake, I see Lake Victoria too. I see the quarry and all of the Congo. My mind revisits the year and all the geography in between. 

I am lucky not for what I have seen, but for what I have felt.  And there’s no passport to show for that. Just this.

What On Earth Are We Doing?

An "eco-tourism lodge attraction" in the Congo

My original intention was to Google the story about the 32 monkeys that died when a Nevada lab overheated. Charles River Laboratories is one of 26 registered US  importers of primates (others on the list include zoos, universities and private labs). An article on Foxnews.com indicated that 27, 388 primates were imported into the US in 2008, with an average of 25,000 primates being imported in the last four years. In 2008, Charles River housed over 10,000 primates at their facility alone.

Ikia's arrival at the Lubumbashi airport

The company’s history traces back to the 1940s when veterinarian  Dr. Henry L. Foster bought a Maryland rat farm for breeding purposes. Later, on a trapping expedition in the Himalayas, Foster returned to the states with several Rhesus monkeys to create a quick-breeding stock of 800. The monkeys were bred on two Florida islands where workers captured 400-500 a year to be sold to labs worldwide.

When I keyed “monkey” into the search engine, “monkeys for sale” immediately appeared in the drop-down list. Curious and appalled, I clicked on it. Monkeys for sale in Canada? I clicked through the pages and found a Japanese Snow monkey for $6,500, posted by Northern Exotics near Sudbury, Ontario. “This is a legit sale and not a scam as so often seen with monkeys.” There was also a baby female Snow monkey for $3,500, OBO.

The Northern Exotics site also boasted Jamaican Fruit bats, armadillos, sugar gliders and Fennec foxes.  In Montreal, Quebec, Pastor Emmanuel and his wife Cindy have an advert that says they “are giving out cute baby marmosets for adoption to any Christian, pet loving and caring family.” The babies are house-raised, diaper and leash trained, wear clothes and like to watch TV.

The primatestore. com had a Christmas special on infant black-handed spider monkeys—only $9,000 each. Tentatively, I keyed in “Chimps for sale.” I was stunned. There were several listings for chimps in Texas and Ohio.  One of the links led me to a 2008 SPCA report on the rescue of Henry, a 23-year-old chimp who was found at an emaciated 60 pounds (half the body weight of a healthy chimp) in a cage so small that it caused him severe spinal deformities. The cage was littered with empty soda cans and cigarette butts.

On the site PRLog Free Press Release I came across this headline: “We Sale Big Monkeys, Chimpanzees, Orang tuans, Gorillas.” They advertised worldwide delivery in two to three working days to America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Europe. Here’s a cut and paste of the ad at http://www.prlog.org/10564281-we-sale-big-monkeys-chimpanzees-lion-orang-utans-gorillas.html :

PR Log (Press Release) – Mar 08, 2010 – You need a monkey babies or old ?  a chimpanzee, orang utans, gorillas, big cats, panter  please call us tehn we can get it done within 2 working days deliver to your home  or you can pick it up payment upon receival   we can also trains this animals for you  in additional 6 weeks  time.

I remember the day Chantal, Sevrine and I were driving out to a quarry for a picnic (in the Congo). We saw a sinewy Congolese boy in his early teens at the roadside. As our vehicle approached he lifted a dik dik in the air (a dik dik is a small, antelope-like animal). He began shouting at us as we slowed down. The dik dik was for sale. I hadn’t even seen a dik dik in the wild the entire month I was there, and was saddened to see a young one for sale that would most likely be bought as a pet by an expat, or slaughtered.

The image of the dik dik still haunts me, as does the arrival of Ikia, the chimp who was flown to the J.A.C.K. chimp sanctuary where I volunteered in Lubumbashi. She arrived dehydrated and limp-bodied, and died less than 12 hours later in the arms of Augustin. She was bought for $120 US on the roadside of Kalemie in a burlap sack bound with twigs.

Ikia, sold for $120 in Kalemie, Congo

Writing this post, I feel the dull pulse of a headache. It’s one that stems from frustration, and when I find another ad for a chimp for sale in Yellowknife, posted December 28^th, I am exasperated. For $700, “King,” an eight-month-old chimp comes with a complete instruction book and other toys and accessories.

http://yellowknife.olx.ca/lovely-8-month-old-chimpanzee-for-adoption-iid-61143568

I need Jane Goodall on speed dial. Chimps and monkeys are not intended as pets. We can all easily recall the disturbing images of Charla Nash who was attacked by her friend’s chimp in Stamford, Connecticut, can’t we? The chimp was eventually shot by police due to his aggression. Nash is suing her friend, Sandra Herold, for $50 million saying she “was negligent and reckless for lacking the ability to control a wild animal with violent propensities.”

Travis, Herold’s chimp, had lived with her for 14 years. He had appeared in several TV commercials and a television pilot, as well as promotional events for Herold’s towing business. Nash is left blind, wearing a veil so she doesn’t scare people with her unsightly appearance.

I returned to the article on the Nevada research monkeys that were killed by human error. The company was charged just last year when a monkey was scalded to death after it was accidentally sent through an automatic cage washer.

Ikia at the J.A.C.K. sanctuary

Andrew Westoll, author of The Riverbones had posted the original article on his Facebook profile page. Westoll, a former biologist and primatologist who decided to focus on his dynamic writing talent is to publish Thirteen Chimpanzees in the spring of 2011. The thirteen chimps he writes about have spent decades in US biomedical research labs and have now found a safe haven at the Fauna Foundation in Quebec. The chimps share the farm with over a hundred other rehabilitating animals rescued from the entertainment industry, research labs or agriculture. Fauna is their forever home. As the home page for the Foundation promises, the animals are provided with companionship and enrichment, “free from the fear and hardships they have known.”

I clicked on the chimp In Remembrance page, knowing that I would be inconsolable. I read about Donna Rae, the chimp who came from the Animal Kingdom Talent Service. She learned to ride a bike and how to play the guitar. In her last five years at a lab, she was used in HIV studies that involved lymph node and bone marrow biopsies. Following one intervention, she actually went into shock from the pain. The obituary reads: “constantly mutilating herself, Donna always looked as though she had given up all hope.”

I read about Pablo who chewed off one of his fingers, clearly the direct result of being darted over 220 times, enduring 30 biopsies and being injected with 10,000 times the lethal dose of HIV.

In 1959, Annie was stolen from her family in Africa. She became part of the circus before spending 21 years in the lab as a breeder. Billy was often found having panic attacks so violent that he would be left convulsing. His teeth had been knocked out by a crow bar. After 15 years in the entertainment industry, he was knocked out 289 times for 40 liver and lymph node biopsies. He eventually chewed off  his own thumbs. Jean was inoculated with HIV after several cervical biopsies. After a nervous breakdown she removed all of her fingernails. Her aggressive seizures led to “floating hand and foot,” a condition that led her to attack her own feet and hands, as though they were not her own.

Fifteen years ago I wrote a feature for Cockroach magazine, a publication of the Environmental Youth Alliance, where I worked in Vancouver, BC. It was an expose of the bear bile and bear part trade industry in China. There are currently 7,000 bears on bear bile farms in China, caged and exploited for their bile which is used in traditional Chinese medicine. The bears have surgically implanted tubes in their gall bladders and are “milked” twice a day. Once they stop producing bile (between five and ten years of age), the bears are left to die of starvation or illness, or killed so the farm can sell their paws ($250 each). In the15 years since I wrote that article, the farms have grown in size and production.

In the documentary The Cove I watched the waters of Taiji, Japan turn scarlet red with the slaughter of dolphins. Over 20,000 dolphins and porpoises are killed every year, driven to shore by the fishing boats where they are harpooned. Due to suffocating media pressure and response to the documentary, Taiji actually called for a temporary ban on killing bottlenose dolphins.

Exposure brings education, hope and change.

The news seems to be littered with abominable stories of animal abuse lately. Like the 11 rare Siberian tigers who died at a zoo in Beijing. There is speculation that zoos in China may be deliberately breeding more animals than they can afford, selling the carcasses to the black market for use in traditional medicines and liquor. An article in the Hamilton Spectator reported the tigers starved to death, having been fed nothing but chicken bones. Since, there have been reports of tiger farms steeping the bones of deceased tigers in liquor which is then sold to visitors.

There are 300 Siberian tigers left in the wild, 50 in China. Five thousand more live in captivity on farms and wildlife parks across China.

I could go on.

However, there is hope. Jane Goodall says so. She is lecturing in Toronto next week, celebrating the 50^th anniversary of her plight to bring the story of her chimps in Gombe, Tanzania to the world. Her latest book, Hope For Animals and Their World, How Endangered Species are Being Rescued From the Brink (co-authored with Thane Maynard and Gail Hudson) spotlights the enormous efforts of several individuals and field biologists who have truly saved several species from the brink. Her message is uplifting, and instils motivation. She dedicates the book to “the memory of Martha, the last passenger pigeon—and to the last Miss Waldron’s colobus monkey and the last Yangtze River dolphin. As we think of their lonely end, may we be inspired to work harder to prevent others suffering a similar fate.”

Please watch The Cove. Read about the Flora Foundation. Become a fan of Andrew Westoll’s Thirteen Chimpanzees on Facebook.. Buy tickets to see empowering speakers like Jane, a woman who has given her life to a crusade that should remind us all of the fragility and interconnectedness we share with animals on this Earth.

“The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope.” –Barbara Kingsolver

Andrew Westoll’s site: http://www.andrewwestoll.com/bio.html

Jane Goodall’s Hope For the Animals: http://janegoodallhopeforanimals.com/

More on the bear trade industry: http://www.hsus.org/wildlife/issues_facing_wildlife/wildlife_trade/the_unbearable_trade_in_bear_parts_and_bile/

The Cove http://www.takepart.com/thecove

Fox News article on Nevada research monkeys: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/03/17/ghastly-slaughter-research-monkeys/

Christian marmosets for sale: http://www.montreallisting.ca/ads/montreal-baby-marmoset-monkeys-for-adoption-ad-98655/

Northern Exotics: http://www.northern-exotics.com/mammals.htm

The Fauna Foundation: http://www.faunafoundation.org/

Up in the Air, Elephants and Entebbe

By now all the rabid George Clooney fans have oooh-ed and ahhhh-ed over his schmoozy Ryan Bingham persona in Up In the Air. The Golden Globes are always a convincing force, pushing everyone else into the theatres to see the greedy award-grabbers like Avatar, The Hangover and Up in the Air for themselves.

So I went, because I like to be pop-culturally informed. If you are holding out for the rental so you don’t have to pay $12 for popcorn, there’s no spoiler here. Ryan Bingham’s life revolves around flying. In fact, being grounded leaves him unbalanced and twitchy. However, when love tempts him, he begins to reconsider his whole life. Maybe everyone else has it right. Maybe love, permanency and a home with a full fridge and drawers is attractive and natural. Bingham’s solace had long been the routine and simplicity of airline travel.  He had no baggage other than what he checked in at the airport. Or did he?

His motivational speeches on the absurd weight of the physical and emotional baggage that we carry turns as flat as an open Coke left on the counter overnight. His sister’s impending marriage reveals his estranged relationship with his entire family. When he meets his match in Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga), Bingham re-evaluates his life spent in the sky, travelling 320 days of the year.

The movie should have convinced the audience that baggage is good. It represents a life well-lived, friends and partners well-loved, dogs, cats, the whole sloppy and gorgeous mess. 

So, why did I find myself in the travel section of Indigo Books minutes after the movie ended? Up in the Air reminded me of the anticipation that pulsates in airports. I wondered where I would/should go next. I pulled a guide book from the shelf on volunteer opportunities abroad and decided to play a game with myself. I let the book fall open to a random page, and decided that would be my next destination. I averted my gaze (to avoid cheating myself). I looked at the page that fate had opened to:  Thailand’s Elephant Sanctuary.

Because I’m a Switzerland when it comes to making decisions, I’ve decided this will be my new tactic. The 100-acre sanctuary is located 50km from Chiang Mai in the Mai Taman Valley. Many of the elephants are rescued in an injured state from poaching activity, as seen with one individual who arrived with only one tusk. Once rehabilitated the elephants are released into “Elephant Haven,” a 2,000-acre natural forest where they can live safely with the herd of 25 that has already found a forever home in the Haven.

Volunteers stay in bamboo chalets, collect fodder with machetes during the dry season and can accompany a vet on the “Jumbo Express.” Working elephants kept by remote hill tribes receive veterinary care during such missions. Mornings begin with car-washing the elephants in the river. Because they are prone to parasites and other skin conditions, they require a daily squeegee job. At noon, when the pick-up truck rolls in with papayas, pineapples and bananas, “you are covered in fruit pulp and elephant snot” in minutes. Awesome!

J.A.C.K. Lubumbashi, Congo

I walked home from Indigo in the spitting rain, inspired and imagining elephant snot. I went online and read more. I checked out the Tennessee elephant sanctuary again and made notes in my not-so-official Five Year Plan book. Then I saw a Facebook posting from PASA Primates in need of volunteers at the Drill Ranch in Nigeria, working with orphaned chimps and mandrills. I jetted off an email immediately for more details.  Then I received news that the J.A.C.K. sanctuary in the Congo (where I volunteered in July) has three more chimps arriving after being found at an abandoned captive facility in DR Congo. That made me want to fly back to Lubumbashi tomorrow.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I will probably volunteer more than I will work in my life.

It was just over a year ago that I watched Entebbe, Uganda disappear below me. The tears in my eyes made the few lights of the ‘city’ double. Landing at Schipol and taking the train into Amsterdam was a rude slap. Winter! That hospitable African sun no longer warmed my skin. I immediately forgot about the nuisance red dust that came with that lovely sunshine.

I rented Out of Africa the very next day. I looked at all 800 of my pictures on a regular basis and cried for the dogs and pals that I left behind. I missed the frenetic pace of the Tuesday night market. Having a warm Nile beer with a bowl of salty grasshoppers as the sun dropped into Lake Victoria. I wanted a Stoney Tangawizi (fiery ginger beer) and a rolex (an omelette with chopped cabbage and tomoato rolled into a greasy chapatti) from a shifty street vendor. As I ran in the sopping BC rain along McKee creek, I wanted to feel that stupid dust in my eyes and ears. I was sad to not be dodging scrawny goats and fleet-footed chickens and ‘boda-bodas’ (mopeds) with 400-pound Nile perch flapping on the back.  I missed Africa in an almost pathetic way. Like a heart-broken lover.

And then my friend Heidi reminded me of all the things I had casually forgotten about when living in Africa. Travelling as a videographer with World Vision, she spent the last two weeks in Entebbe, Gulu and Kampala. I was thrilled to tell her about each place—what she had to eat (pizza at Anderita Beach, Nee’s green curry at the Gately) and how the sunsets would catch the sky on fire. My only warning was about the darling vervet monkeys who were prone to stealing bananas from your hand, or anything else that they assumed was edible.

Taxi??

And I think I mentioned that Kampala was a zoo, but I didn’t want to be like a movie reviewer with a spoiler in the first sentence. I did send a photo of the Kampala taxi park as a subtle warning though. It’s a football field of ‘matatus’ (mini-van taxis), each with a horn which is blared in response to other blaring horns. Just like barking dogs, one starts, and the rest join in. But Heidi had been to Zambia, she knew the drill.

The flight to Entebbe alone is enough to cause exasperation in any sane person. Sitting upright for what seems like 108 hours is the first hurdle. Sleepless and rattled by disappearing time zones, you arrive in the vacuum cylinder that is Entebbe. It smells like one big armpit. The skeletal dogs you pass by are like a non-stop Humane Society commercial with some achy Sarah McLachlan song cooing in the background.

The dust begins to blow, the sweat begins to drip until you feel like you’ve taken a dip and are stuck wearing your wet swimsuit for the rest of the five hour car ride.

Heidi’s first post mentioned her exhilaration in finally arriving in Uganda, despite the cold shower (yeah, I forgot about the frequency of those too). She was looking forward to sleeping on her single bed with the lumpy foam mattress. I nearly spit wine all over my laptop screen. I remembered the foam mattresses well. They make you sweat so much that when you wake up, you think you’ve pissed the bed. And then there’s the mosquito net to wrangle with.  If they are hung from the ceiling on a hoop, there is a fantastic chance that by morning, there is a huge gap somewhere in the netting and 500 malaria-carrying mosquitoes are trapped inside the net with you.

Heidi’s Twitter-ed dinner reports were the most dramatic (and realistic). I think after being in Entebbe for four months, I had become used to the starch intake. A typical lunch or dinner would include: matoke (steamed green plantain), potatoes, yams and rice. Served with, as Heidi eloquently described it, “chicken parts.”

Yes, there were always mystery parts. I think I had part of a goat’s stomach in some broth once. But I conveniently forgot about the stench of fish for sale on the sidewalk in Kampala. The body odour that permeates all air molecules. There were several matatu rides where I had to do a lot of self-talk in tandem with my iPod and The Killers at a deafening level.

And then there was the internet and electricity issue. The patchy communications home made my mother routinely WRITE IN CAPITAL LETTERS. In Entebbe, the power went off in the airport as soon as I arrived. The luggage carousel was halted, but speech was not! The airport was alive with the raised voices of wilting missionaries and UN workers and Tilly-hatted tourists in safari suits fanning themselves as they complained to anyone who made eye contact.

I forgot about the crappy internet connection. I forgot about the stretches of three or four days without electricity. And the hurried cold showers that accompanied them.

When Heidi returned to Nashville, I relived my return home. Clean sheets, clean surfaces, meat without flies on it, ice cubes, soap! Deodorized people! No one yelling “Mizungo! Mizungo! Give me money! Mizungo, buy this!”

And I had space. I have probably only yelled twice in my life, and not even at a dog the other time. However, when I was flying out of Lubumbashi in July I had to yell against my will. Maybe it was more of a really loud voice than a yell, but, the man behind me had his passport pressed into my back. His jacket was practically slung over my shoulder and I could feel his hot, stale breath on my neck. I could feel myself cracking my own molars, trying to resist an eruption. “STANDING CLOSER TO ME DOES NOT MAKE THE LINE GO FASTER.” I erupted. It happens to the best of us when travelling.

And this is another blessing of North America (besides meat without flies and reliable wi-fi). We give each other personal space. It’s an unspoken rule that doesn’t exist everywhere in the world.

But, if we don’t travel and put ourselves in unfamiliar landscapes, how do we ever appreciate laundry detergent, $5 coffees and toilet seats? Or being served chicken instead of chicken parts? Distance from comfort, family and friends refines gratitude.

Public washroom in Kampala, Uganda

Even though I was reminded of all the nerve-fraying aspects of African travel, I am still halfway there in my head. I can always come home to a toilet seat and pocket-coil mattress again. It might be time to rent Out of Africa again. Apparently I miss corruption, using 500 Q-tips a month, parasites, starch and riding in matatus with 19 people, 6 chickens, blaring gospel music and an oily car-engine half on my lap.

Doesn’t everyone?

“Once you have travelled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.” –Pat Conroy

Heidi’s World Vision Zambia footage featuring “All the Days” by Jann Arden:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYidUQIY0r4

Elephant Sanctuary in Thailand: http://www.elephantnaturepark.org/

Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee: http://www.elephants.com/

The Drill Ranch in Nigeria: http://www.pandrillus.org/projects/drill-ranch/

J.A.C.K. in Lubumbashi: http://jack.wildlifedirect.org/

Chimp Rules of Engagement

1. If a chimp bites you, it is imperative that you bite back to show dominance.

2. Beware of Bashi—he likes to throw fistfuls of stones and dirt when you least expect it. And Shasha, she has shit in her hand most of the time, but there is no need to worry, she eats it. As she defecates she catches it in her hand as it’s best served warm.

3. Chimps are very curious about blemishes, moles and anything on human skin that shouldn’t be.  Pasa has nearly picked a mole completely off my leg while the others distract me. Mwisho was more fixated on the veins in my hand. With great determination he tried with all his chimp might (which is a lot) to squeeze my veins between his fingers. Surely he thought I had a severe case of worms.  Africa was also occupied with my freckles, scratching many of them to see if they were removable.  Upon discovering my tattoos, she licked and sucked at the ink, desperate to remove them.

4. When first being introduced to a chimp, you offer the back of your hand, much like meeting Prince Charming.  You will be well sniffed and stared at with gentle eyes the colour of hazelnuts.

5. Chimps are as particular as we are. The morning and afternoon milk must be at a consistently palatable temperature. Tall, no whip, full fat, shot of honey and propolis. If it is too hot or too cold they push the bottle away in utter disgust at the barista (me).

6. A morning in the baby enclosure with six young chimps will prove to be the ultimate test of Q-tips, Irish Spring and Tide. The settings of my Filth-o-Meter had to be altered to accommodate the dry season in the Congo—and the somersaulting antics of dusty chimps for several hours.

7.  A one-year-old chimp is like a bowling ball with four arms. Nothing is safe—forget the Royal Doulton collection and bananas at waist-level.

8. Pockets provide ongoing scavenger hunts for chimps (as do nostrils and ears). Cell phones, keys, lip balm and ob tampons are always great discoveries that require exchanges of fruit, bread, or something better than their new-found treasure.

9. Beware of Kimo who enjoys flinging himself at the most unexpected moment on to your head. If a flying leap isn’t possible, watch out for the thwack of the branch that he has pulled to the ground to smack back in your face.

10. Your neck will become a reasonable facsimile for a tree trunk in no time.

So, you wonder—what is a typical day in the life at J.A.C.K. (Jeunes Animaux Confisques Au Katanga) chimp refuge?

Weekend mornings begin at 5:30 when the equatorial sky is still black with stars. Mornings can run as smooth as pudding as long as there is electricity, which, generally there isn’t. If there is no electricity, there is no running water.  Even when the power is on, the stove top isn’t optimal—bringing a pot of water to a boiling point is exasperating–a task that takes over an hour and a half.

Like a Starbucks employee, I prep an order for 23 chimps. Fourteen one litre bottles with six scoops of milk powder, a big dollop of honey and a propolis capsule for each.  Six 200ml bottles are prepped for the babies: Africa, Dian, Pasa, Santa and Kimo. Micah, the darling one-year-old still in a diaper gets her own special order of half homo, half hot water. During the day the chimps also hydrate with water mixed with a teaspoon of sugar and salt (Gatorade for chimps). Kimo gets a bottle of diluted raspberry grenadine as too much milk gives him the shits.

We actually share 98.7% of the same DNA as chimpanzees. I often wonder why some smarty-pants dietician hasn’t introduced a chimp knock-off diet that would rock our ever-fattening world. The chimp menu is actually quite appealing—hot milk, papaya, watermelon, mango, apples, pears, oranges, bananas (#1 pick), pumpkin, kale, radish, broccoli, cauliflower, turnip, carrots, leeks, bush onions (my taste-test results:  vinegary, sour with a lime juice punch, with fiery seeds like peppercorns), peanuts and buns from Le Brioche bakery. The  bukari balls made of manioc (similar appearance to a yam) are also a crowd pleaser—the chimps and Congolese alike eat them with the same zest as a North American near a bag of Doritos during Superbowl.

The chimps have their lattes around 8:15 am, followed by a bread toss into the enclosure around 9 am. It’s a mad scramble for the buns and many of the chimps end up walking around on two legs with their bread cache safe in their arms. At 11 am and 4:30 they are fed the fruit and vegetables.  Medications are given as necessary while the chimps are preoccupied with the dinner entree. For runny noses they get a swipe of Vicks Vapo-Rub, for coughs—cherry flavoured human-grade syrup. Eucalyptus essential oil is applied externally, as curious chimps will inevitably taste and lick anything that is on their body. The eucalyptus has proven to be a successful remedy for the many bronchial infections and common colds that the chimps suffer during the colder months.

Micah

When the chimps are ill with snotty noses, it is a sad sight. Like a children’s daycare, the cold passes chimp to chimp like Hollywood gossip. They seem so helpless, unable to blow their noses into Kleenexes. Instead, they rub the back of their arm against their nose and watch as the snot sticks to their arm, still connected to their nose in a long string. Then they eat it. Micah is a nose-picker at the best of times, totally unaware of the social taboo. She picks, examines it and eats it. Or, sometimes she dips her booger-clad finger into Chantal’s coffee if it is within reach. And if you’re not paying attention, sometimes that same finger finds its way into your mouth.

Micah stays with us at home as she is too young to overnight at the refuge with the extreme temperature drops. During the day, temps can reach a favourable 28 degrees, but at night, there is a plummet to 15 teeth-chattering degrees. Chantal tells me now that I have arrived during the African winter. No kidding! I can see my breath most mornings, and not because I have eaten goat testicles the night before!

The J.A.C.K. refuge is a short drive from home, located within the Lubumbashi Zoo (which is ranked as the number one place to take your hot Congolese date). Micah joins the others in the baby enclosure during the day—losing her diaper and tiny t-shirt to become a member of the wild again. She climbs as high as the others, and walks in tandem with Santa on the ground–as though they are practicing for a three-legged race. Dian is the cry baby of the lot, she sticks to Africa like Saran Wrap and wails if they  are separated. If she doesn’t get her bottle fast enough, or a banana is stolen from her hands, she is crying like a kid sister.

Pasa is easily picked out of the crowd. As soon as he is within your tickling reach, he is on his back, squirming, desperate for a good tickle. He laughs and pulls all his limbs into a tight ball—but begs for more.

Cyril, a French vet student and I in the baby enclosure at J.A.C.K.

I tell you, there is no greater feeling than holding a little chimp in your arms. If only they could talk for but a moment, and tell their story—all that they have seen and suffered. Like Santa who was the “lucky star” of the Congolese military, bringing them good luck and protection in battle in Kivu.  She would be carried at the front of the line as they went into combat. Coco belonged to the Congolese President’s family and when the President learned that keeping a chimp was illegal, he brought Coco to J.A.C.K. (with a camera crew in tow). Wanza arrived at the refuge as an alcoholic who refused to accept milk for the first six months.

Each chimp has a history that makes my stomach turn in angry knots. The humans responsible for such atrocities may receive a week in jail, but this has only happened once since Chantal’s involvement with the refuge two years ago.

Timid Kala was owned by a Chinese copper mine big wig who carted her around to the bars as a circus act. She has a scarred, hairless patch on her right shoulder where cigarettes werebutted out on her skin. Other chimps have been caught and injured in wire snare traps. The traps are set on the ground, and because chimps walk on their knuckles, they easily step into the hidden wire loops and become dangerously and sometimes fatally entangled.

Many are victims of the pet trade, where up to 10 chimps can be violently killed in order to capture the infant to sell on the roadside for $600 U.S. in a wooden crate the size of a bread box. Driving home with Micah in the front seat of the Landcruiser doesn’t spark any reaction from locals who see her sitting on my lap. The lack of response indicates that owning a chimp is acceptable.

Unfortunately, the J.A.C.K. refuge doesn’t have the authority to seize a chimp off the streets, or from wealthy expats keeping them as pets.  In the Congo, if you have money, anything can be bought—and if you illegally have chimps in your house, certain higher-up individuals can be paid off to ensure no further hassles or confrontations.

Unfortunately, agreeing to buy a chimp for sale (which might seem logical to ensure its immediate safety and future) only contributes to the exotic animal trade. Such a purchase would confirm that there is a demand for chimps, and locals would respond by finding more chimps to sell on the streets.

The Minister of the Environment must approve each seizure, and sometimes this involves bribe money to speed up the process. The media is contacted and the local (and only) vet assists in every new chimp’s arrival to identify any health concerns. The quarantine period for new chimps is usually two to three months, depending on their response to care, feeding and socialization.

The J.A.C.K. refuge, established in 2006 by Frank and Roxanne Chantereau (supported by six highly attentive Congolese staff and Chantal, co-director) is a unique haven for chimps that have fallen prey to human greed and ignorance. At the sanctuary, they orphaned chimps are introduced to a group that will provide companionship, stimulation and camaraderie.

Some of the chimps have arrived at the refuge with no knowledge of how to groom or make a nest because they were taken from their mothers at such a young age. They are provided with hay to make nests in their night enclosure where they sleep, but there are also tarpaulin hammocks available. Chantal has observed remarkable progression among the newly introduced chimps as they teach one another and mimic skills that their mothers would have taught them.  

Tongo, the smallest and youngest of the adult group, is constantly being pulled between Seki and Mwisho. They fight over her, wanting to take care of the youngster.  Mwisho, who doesn’t like bread at all, actually collects bread for Tongo and keeps it protected in his arms while the others prowl for pieces to steal from the younger ones.

Cheetah and Seki who arrived at the refuge together are attached at the hairy hip, and walk as though they are wearing a donkey costume. Cheetah is the head and Seki pulls up the rear. Two years ago there was a tragic fire in the night enclosure. An arsonist set fire to the dry hay in the cage and two of the chimps died—one of smoke inhalation, the other of severe burns to her entire body. When bush fires burn in Lubumbashi, Cheetah and Seki become extremely anxious. The smell of smoke terrifies them, a painful reminder of the night they escaped, and two of their family members perished.

Watching the chimps interact, there is reassurance that they are truly content.  J.A.C.K. has recently obtained a parcel of land that will allow for future release of the chimps into a wild space. This is the ultimate goal. Because chimp groups are impenetrable by outsiders, it would be impossible for an individual chimp to be released and accepted into another group. The J.A.C.K. group will be released together and be slowly weaned off food rations. This will be a phenomenal success, if the chimps can resume an independent life in the wild, with their adopted family.

I am incredibly lucky to be part of this organization. The faces of the chimps, their comical antics and pant-hoots of excitement when we arrive with bottles of hot milk are unforgettable. Each morning, as I hold Micah, feeding her spoonfuls of strawberry yogurt, I feel the beginning of a terrible ache that will split my heart the day I have to leave. 

Micah and I

The memories will remain solid in my mind. The way the sun sets in a hazy blur of smokey orange on the horizon. The wide-eyes of the five nocturnal bushbabies at the refuge as they crawl down to feed on cay eggs, tomatoes and papaya. Long after I go, I will hear Pasa calling out to us, wanting company as he falls asleep. I will feel Santa’s lips on my neck and her pot belly in my arms.

Yes, I am hooked on a feeling. Where this may lead, I don’t know. Does it have to lead somewhere? Can’t I just have this experience for the purely selfish exhilaration it brings? Maybe I’ll look into a zoology program, maybe I’ll write a book on the chimps that have found a home in J.A.C.K.—maybe I will simply tell stories for the rest of my life about the time in the Congo when time didn’t matter. When I spent my days with the chimps, absorbed and consumed by the fragility and beauty of life.

At night, when I close my eyes, the Congo will be there, alive and vivid. Kimo, Coco, Micah, Santa, Pasa—they will all be there too.  The chimps who have made my heart beat so fast and hard will always be with me.

 

To learn more about J.A.C.K. and how you can help (like adopting a chimp for $150 US a month) visit:

www.jackdrc.org

And if you missed the post about Shelia and Dave Siddle and the Chimfunshi chimp sanctuary in Zambia: http://julestorti.wordpress.com/2009/06/22/an-unexpected-life/

Nairobi Nights

I had spent the last seven hours issuing threatening glares to the rambunctious SpongeBob SquarePants kid “seated” behind me who had Riverdanced on the back of my seat from Toronto to Amsterdam. Luckily I was able to turn my fixation to the burning sky of electric orange and grapefruit-flesh pink as the plane chased an eternal sunset. Crossing time zones at 800km/hour allows for such remarkable displays, creating skyscapes suitable for inspirational posters. The clouds looked like they could be walked upon, billowy white like my great-grandmother’s hair in the morning, and then, to the west–ribbed like sand from ebbing ocean waters.

My fidgety seatmate was like a Jack Russell, minus her tongue up my nostrils and exploring my ear canals. She was deaf in one ear, and because I am a fantastic mumbler, she quickly gave up on communication with me and read all the information tucked in the seat pocket in front of her, including the barf bag and how to exit the plane in case of emergency. Is that even an option?

The KLM flight attendants were as lovely and manicured as Bob Barker’s Price is Right wing-women. They passed out smoked almonds with pearly smiles, and I shot a pearly smile back. Thank god for European airlines and their pooh-pooh reaction to the peanut allergies that have created frantic high-alerts in North American elementary schools and airlines (who serve garlicky Bits & Bites as a shoddy substitute). Now, even packages of peanuts come with disclaimers: “This product may contain nuts.” And everything that doesn’t have an iota of a relationship with peanuts, like popsicles and tampons, also come with a disclaimer, “This product may have come in contact with tree nuts or dairy.”

When the plane touched down at Schipol in Amsterdam at 6 a.m., anticipation, the fuel of dreams, longing, cravings and travel, percolated under my skin that was beginning to feel like ever-tightening sausage casing. My whole body had become a whoopee cushion of puffiness. The blood that should have been inching towards my feet was leaking into my eyes, making them as pink as an albino rat’s.

My head had felt like a shook-up snow globe since I left Abbotsford on June 22nd, and now, finding myself on the Leidesplein in Amsterdam, walking through extended whiffs of skunky pot, calm was returning. I didn’t even care that I spent most of my day completely lost. I had 12 hours before my flight to Kenya, and I didn’t stop walking for 10 of them. I tried slimy smoked eel and cod at a herring shack near the Singel canal, had a sleeve of Palm and a “tosti” (poor excuse for a grilled cheese) along another houseboat-studded canal and poked around some supermarkets in between (discovering Paprika Lays potato chips, cans of already mixed gin and tonic and brie wheels as big as the tires on my Suzuki). I wrote reassuring postcards to indicate my aliveness to potentially fretting family members and Wanda, walked through the Red Light District with a non-averted gaze and took a cruise along the ambient canals in a four-language guided tour. At this point my head was snapping back uncontrollably in a narcoleptic-type sleep. The girl beside me must have thought I had Tourette’s, without the swearing part.

I returned to Schipol airport confident that I had avoided a deep vein thrombosis with all my walking. I was unscathed and proud of myself for not getting smucked by a bike or a moped. They both seemed to be coming at me from all directions the entire day as I navigated the cobblestoned streets with names a minimum of 26 letters long, all ending with “splein,” “strecht” or “straat.”

I boarded the plane again, taking my coveted window seat with leg room adequate for a chihuahua and watched dreamy Amsterdam go poof under the cloud cover. Drifting through another eight-plus hours of flying time, I arrived ruffled and cramped in Nairobi, where everyone deplaned in a non-orderly fashion. Like the crush of excited children wanting to whack a birthday piñata. It was like the mobs you read about where six people die from getting trampled. I not-so-kindly told the guy behind me that standing closer to me didn’t make the “line” go any faster. It was one of the survival lines I frequently used in Uganda.

I had completely forgotten about the miniature personal space bubble that Africans manage to maintain. My brother Dax and Wanda would have already thrown punches. Instead of inching forward in line, I purposely leaned back into the guy leaning on me—ha! Reverse psychology, but I bet he didn’t even notice, or care. I was sleepwalking to the Lubumbashi gate when I learned that my Kenya Airways hop-over to the Congo had left an hour and a half early–proving that the concept of “African time” can still be predictably unpredictable.

The 20-hour flight delay I had in Toronto barely registered now as I had to digest the news of the hitch that came with missing the connecting flight. Unfortunately, because the Congo isn’t exactly a tourist mecca, outgoing flights don’t run at the same Westjet-greyhound-pace to sun-soaked destinations like Hawaii and Puerto Vallarta. I was told by a hot and bothered gate agent that the next outgoing flight was in two days, on Saturday morning. I could have flown to Addis or Johannesburg, but that would only take me further from my destination, to pace in a different airport.

Tired, without energy to battle and bitch, I made arrangements for Saturday with the backpack on my back slowly compressing my last remaining discs. I had intentions of crying, but was too dehydrated. I accepted my fate gracefully while the angry woman at the wicket beside me vocalized what I more accurately felt. She yelled so loud for so long that I had a ringing in my ears like one gets after a rock concert. I asked Hot and Bothered where I could find a phone and was told that there weren’t any. Baggage lockers? Nope, none of those either due to security reasons. Internet? Two dollars a minute—oh, and that guy, who sells magazines at Gate 9, he will let you use his cell phone for $4 a minute. Phone sex operators don’t even charge that much!

I phoned Chantal in the Congo, who was anticipating my arrival that morning. I emailed everyone else to vent and moan and illustrate my new surroundings. Missionaries and dusty travelers, barefoot and curled up in balls along the hallways, the ripe scent of armpits, like wasabi striking my brain. There was a mosque and a meditation centre being used as surreptitious napping quarters, stores selling giraffe carvings and beef samosas being sold for close to the same price as a carving and a one minute phone call. By now, my bags had already become a part of me, and delirious from lack of sleep I skulked to the Transit Lounge where I was told I could sleep for four hours for $25US.

This is where I found Betty– who herded me into her tourism office of faded safari posters from the 70s. She force-fed me the idea of staying at Central Park Hotel downtown. Her first quote was $170US a night, and we’re not talking Royal York glamour and rose petals floating on the bathwater. The dated pictures she pressed into my hands showcased a bed as big as a tennis court (which turned out to be true), wi-fi in the rooms (not so true), a FREE gym (not true) and a bright bathroom that would allow me to take a shit and shower at the same time due to the proximity of both.

Betty insisted that I would be bored anywhere else and pushed the Central Park digs on me. And she would only accept cash and quickly escorted me to an ATM where she calculated how many Kenyan shillings I would need. I trusted her, but entering 25,000ksh into the ATM key pad made me quiver a little. It was the equivalent of $350US she told me more than once. When I asked about cheaper options she assured me that I would be robbed. “See your laptop—GONE!” She snapped her fingers for emphasis. “Everything you own, if you stay somewhere that I do not recommend, will be gone. Then you will say, Betty, why you not tell me about this and I will say, I did, Jules Trotsky. I did.” I corrected Betty on my non-Russian last name and she asked if I was racist. Then she asked where I was really from, and when I said Canada, she had already guessed it. “You have all this hair on your face that I could shave. It is for the cold in Canada I guess.” Betty was obviously a charm school grad. She then went on a rant about developed countries like Canada bringing the swine flu to Africa. “But, I will live longer than you, probably. My skin makes me resistant—you go pink and get rashes like the other white people, not so resistant. Like Michael Jackson, he tried to go white, and now—look—dead.”

Betty did overextend her customer service by coming with me to the hotel with the hired driver, to tuck me in properly. I was pleasantly surprised with the interior and after a tepid shower under a showerhead that emitted water like a fireworks display, I ordered a room service: a buttery omelette, sausages sweet with nutmeg, milky tea and then collapsed in bed for five hours. Desperate for a workout when I regained consciousness, I went to the gym (the #1 reason why I picked Central Park over the other hotels where I would be robbed) and spun on a bike for an hour listening to Kenny Rogers, Africa`s hero. I had also forgotten about Kenny, Dolly and dear Celine Dion being blared in all the bars and buses.

Feeling brave and dismissing the tragic massages I had in Uganda with the woman who had me lie on a bed covered with a red checkered tablecloth while she made my hair into a bird`s nest with oil, I booked an hour with Priscah. “She is the brown one, not the dark one,” I was informed at reception. “Selena is the dark one.” It was euphoric and all-encompassing massage, meaning, if I were a Thanksgiving turkey, I was basted everywhere. There are no borders or polite draping with African treatments. In fact, I didn’t even blink when Priscah climbed on the table to straddle me and massage my ass while Kenny sang “The Gambler,” again.

Content after a kaleidoscope day of emotions, I made my way to the hotel bar for a warm Tusker and a curious chicken curry that came with a baseball-sized serving of ugali (maize flour with water). Before returning to my room I asked a staff member about a local wildlife orphanage called Sheldrick`s that I was interested in visiting. He gave me sketchy details, but I thanked him profusely anyway. “Maybe you would like to show your appreciation with a payment, madam. I will accept US dollars for my help.”

Ahhh, yes. Everything has its price in this world. I remind myself that I am in Africa and that what I spent on my flight is more than a nurse’s annual salary in Nairobi. And so the adventure continues. The only worrying part is that due to the unexpected delays over the last few days I have almost finished my first book (Attachment by Isabel Fonseca) which leaves me with two books—Growing Pains (Emily Carr`s autobiography) and Love in the Time of Cholera (which I assume will slow me down a little). Worst case scenario? I’ll write a book if I run out of words to read.

Until the next dispatch, hopefully from the Congo…

I remain, Jules Trotsky.

To read all the naked details of my Ugandan massage experience:

http://julestorti.wordpress.com/2009/05/07/marriage-proposals-muslims-and-massage/

Sliding Doors

My back feels like it has been tenderized by the ever-hostile Chef Ramsey. A week on top of an inflatable (deflatable?) air mattress simulated the experience of sleeping on a very large water wing with a pinhole. The couch accommodations at my brother’s proved that cushions will inevitably divide in the middle creating an inescapable quicksand vortex at some point in the dark of night.

But I have been sleeping without moving, until the sun pours through the windows around eight in the morning, gently roasting me underneath the duvet when I awake, my skin ready to catch on fire. My mind is exhausted from pacing. I was supposed to fly to Amsterdam yesterday, with an overnight at the Amstel Riverview Bed & Coffee before a connecting flight to Nairobi. A few weeks ago I scoured the Lonely Planet bed and breakfast listings online until I found such a gem, clicking on 109 pictures of toilets placed conveniently inches from the sinks and snapshots of the curiously frightening  floral and brass decor of over a hundred B&B’s until my pupils turned square.  But with a 20-hour flight delay, I will now arrive at 8:30 am and fly to Kenya the same day. The dreamy Amstel canal view, pancake breakfast and extensive clog shopping will have to be saved for another stay.

In a week of transient life and underwear recycling, it is a minor setback. Travelling tests not only physical flexibility, but emotional bends and stretches too.  I have visited the important branches of my family tree, seen my VIPs and returned to all my favourite Toronto haunts. There were greasy lamb burgers, cold pints on steamy patios, hot curries, sugary indulgences at Pusateri’s and many glasses of champagne.

 Hellos and goodbyes have collided, leaving my intestines in a tight French braid.

I’ve been running around sleepy Cabbagetown and along the soupy Don River thinking of how the terrain beneath my feet will change in just two days. I will leave the concrete familiarity of Toronto for the dusty roads of Lubumbashi, Congo. Here I dodge dogs in Riverdale, wearing snappy little Burberry jackets and strollers as wide as Hummers with kids sucking on Starbucks frappacinnos.  In two days there will be goats and chickens running at breakneck speeds beside me, the slow whir of curious Congolese on bikes behind me and monkeys eyeballing me from the mango trees.

I run and try not to think of the Comoros Airbus crash that snapped short the lives of 153 people. I think of the 9/11 stories of those who survived, or didn’t because of some last-minute decision to sleep-in that day, or grab a muffin on the way to work. All our decisions, non-decisions and unexpected delays change the course of our lives on a daily basis.I have always loved the movie Sliding Doors for that very concept. The 1998 film shows the unfolding life of Helen (Gwenyth Paltrow) when she catches the train, and in a parallel story—what happens when she doesn’t.

Mitch Albom’s The Five People You Meet in Heaven played on a similar idea, but instead of time altering the path of our lives, the story suggested how certain people change our life forever. Eddie, a lonely war vet, lived what he felt was an uninspired life, fixing rides at a seaside amusement park.  When he dies on his 83^rd birthday in an attempt to save a young girl’s life, he awakes in the afterlife where he meets five people who were affected, forever, by his decisions, actions, words and love.

The book naturally forces you to evaluate your life and wonder, who are my five people? And in a Sliding Doors frame of mind—what would have happened if that flight did fly out of Toronto as scheduled? Was the conversation I had at the airport with the Swedish businessman for a greater purpose? Why did we becoming engaged in conversation? Why not the guy in line behind me that was flying to Saudi?

 When I board the plane this afternoon it will be with a furry head of mixed emotions. Faces of those I love will be like a whirling dervish spinning before me. I’ll think of my dogs, of course, and all that is secure and familiar disappearing beneath me as the plane climbs in elevation.  But the pull of adventure is magnetic to me, and as easy as it would be to stay, it would be harder for me not to go.

Africa has embraced me like a lover, and her grip has followed me across the oceans. I hope you’ll follow me, vicariously, to yet another landscape, the Congo.

Come walk with me through my sliding door…

And if you haven’t heard why there’s all this talk about Africa:

http://julestorti.wordpress.com/why-all-the-talk-about-africa/

An Unexpected Life

When a local game ranger brought a malnourished and sickly chimpanzee to Shelia Siddle in Zambia in 1983, she never anticipated that one day her cattle ranch would become the largest chimp sanctuary in the world.

With only a copy of Jane Goodall’s In the Shadow of Man to refer to, Shelia and her husband Dave committed to the daunting task of nursing “Pal” back to health, following parenting instincts more than anything else.  After Pal came Liza Do Little, Girly, Junior and Charley, each with their own troubling story of abuse. When Shelia’s book In My Family Tree—A Life With Chimpanzees was published in 2002, her Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage had welcomed over 85 injured and abused chimps, dozens of monkeys, baboons, African grey parrots, bushbucks and a hippo named Billy.

For Shelia, who was ready to embrace a golden retirement on the Kafue River, Pal and those who followed forever changed the path of her life. Shelia had moved to Africa in 1947 with her wanderlust-driven parents and became a race-car driver, contrary to what her generation accepted as a traditional female role. She had five children and a cattle ranch, and never dreamed that her life would be dedicated to chimps.

Mac at Ngamba Island, Uganda

Chimps arrived at Chimfunshi addicted to cigarettes and beer from young lives spent as circus performers in local bars. Some chimpanzees didn’t recognize their own kind after being raised in human households. Others struggled for dominance, or sometimes just acceptance amongst the motley crew. Wide-eyed in their new territory, some of the youngsters had to watch the older chimps for lessons on how to build nests. The Siddles had built large enclosures so the chimps could sleep in the cages at night, or, in the open acreage in trees as they would in the wild.

Rita preferred the company of humans, and their shoes. She would remove the laces of every guest’s shoes, then carefully attempt to relace them, missing a few eyes, but would attempt to tie them up again. An artistic soul, Rita also used American scientist Mark Wright’s notepad and pen to draw. When other chimps were around though, they would annoy Rita by stealing her artwork. Eventually, Mark would wait until the other chimps were napping before he passed Rita the notepad. She would sometimes sit and draw for half an hour or more.

Pal was more concerned with Shelia’s complexion than doodling. Chimps love to groom one another, but Pal became consumed with the hairs on Shelia’s face. He would use his lips and teeth to pull out offending hairs and even squeeze pimples between his fingers!

The antics of Sandy had me laughing out loud. His natural reaction was to throw anything he could get his hands on at whoever might be in range. Oranges became perfect weapons, and Shelia finally realized she was perpetuating his behavior by returning the thrown objects back to him. When she held on to the thrown orange longer than usual, Sandy became sharply aware of the consequences. Shelia eventually returned the orange which Sandy immediately ate—quickly throwing the wadded-up orange peel at Shelia as she walked away.

Sunday at Ngamba Island

When the Siddles began offering sugarcane to the chimps to eat, Sandy found a dual purpose. He took great pleasure in thwacking unsuspecting chimps in the back of the head with the sugarcane stalks, creating instant chaos.

“It wasn’t long before mealtimes became a regular battlefield with Sandy around, as bits of fruits and vegetables filled the skies like V-2 rockets. Sandy eventually became a connoisseur of throwable food, preferring more solid bits like apple cores or apricot pits, or fruits that had peels that he could was into a tight ball. He clearly eschewed leafy foods like lettuce and cabbage though. The few times Sandy threw those, the leaves just fluttered harmlessly to the ground, and he trudged away disgusted.”

Sandy eventually found a partner in crime, Tara. The sanctuary was open to the public, and Sandy and Tara were known to pounce on visitors from their hiding spots on low branches. Other times they would pull back saplings like catapults and release them in perfect time to slap an unsuspecting visitor. Sandy also liked to race ahead and then quietly double back from which point he would dive on to the shoulders and heads of somebody. Many guests returned from the bush walks with bruises and torn clothing, but always full of smiles and stories.

Sandy was also dramatic—nearly convincing Shelia that he was near death one day.  He had refused his morning milk and was incredibly mopey. He appeared too weak to stand and “spent the entire day on the verge of death.” The following morning Sandy showed Shelia the source of his moping– his tooth had fallen out and he showed her by pulling back his lips with his fingers.

Rita was known for her nursing sense. When she couldn’t remove a splinter from Tara’s foot, she thrust Tara’s foot through the bars of the cage to show Shelia. When Donna had a thorn in her foot, Rita was first on the scene, placing her hand on Donna for reassurance as she prodded the tender area.

In 1990, Jane Goodall contacted the Siddles, asking if they could take another chimp. Milla had been a barroom attraction at an Arusha hotel in Tanzania. They arrived in a single-engine plane with a UK vet. Jane and the vet rode in the back of the truck on a pile of sugarcane , wrapping blankets around Milla’s cage to keep her warm. Milla “went one better: She pulled the blankets through the bars and wrapped herself in them.”

Ngamba Island Chimp Sanctuary

Milla was discovered in a meat market in Cameroon when she was a very tiny baby, tethered alongside the body of her dead mother, and was bought by a very generous British couple, who brought Milla to Kenya and looked after her as their own child until she was about five years old. When the Brit couple had to leave the country, they left Milla with caretakers in Arusha, where she was introduced to the bar lifestyle, smoking and drinking.

Shelia’s description of Millla’s adjustment to Chimfunshi is tremendously emotional—she eventually  integrates, retaining her curious habits of walking upright on two legs, and carrying her blanket with her everywhere. Milla found several uses for her blanket—once flicking it through the bars of the cage to hit a dog who had his nose in the chimps’ food. She would also flick peacocks or geese if they were out of reach. Once she filled her blanket with six sweet potatoes, two guavas and an orange. She neatly folded the corners up and made the blanket into a small parcel so she could pick up her meal and find a quiet place to eat away from the other chimps.

When Billy the hippo arrived, Shelia could no longer be surprised at the evolution of her life and purpose.  Local hunters had killed the mother, and at 10 days old, survival in the wild would have been impossible. The crowd that had gathered has inflicted several wounds and severe gashes on the baby with sharp sticks. With little guidance on how to care for a hippo, Shelia and Dave bravely attempted to help her thrive. In three months she weighed 330 pounds and followed Shelia around like a dog, wagging her stubby tail. Most of the older chimps were terrified of Billy, but she grew incredibly fond of The Infants—Trixie, Diana, Doc, Zsabu and Violet. Billy adopted the chimps as her own and nap beside them or  would be found “gazing happily at them through the wire mesh.” The chimps would slap her hide playfully, pull her ears, and jump down from the trees onto her back.

Billy also became attached to the dogs at the sanctuary. She would mimic their behavior and grab automobile tires like chew toys, flinging it around as the dogs did with their smaller toys. Her closest companion was Gretchen, a Rottweiler who she slept with at night. When Gretchen died in her sleep Billy was inconsolable. She kept nudging Shelia, begging her to do something to revive her friend, Gretchen. For two days Billy refused to eat or take milk and “kept a silent vigil near the kennel.” In her lonesome state, Billy broke into Shelia and Dave’s house three times looking for comfort.

Then there was Ole, a tiny barred owl who had fallen from his nest. For two months he’d swoop tentatively around the livingroom of Shelia’s house, test-driving his new found wings. Ole soon learned how to dive bomb their dinner plates as well, grabbing fried eggs and currant bread to eat from the safety of his curtain rod perch. Eager that he return to the wild, Shelia left all the house windows open, and Ole took short flights to neighbouring trees, always returning to the safety of the house. His longest sojourn was three nights, and then the days between his visits stretched even further with only rare appearances around their house.

Billy eventually discovered his wild instincts too, and when Shelia finally successfully coaxed him into the Kafue River she was like a porpoise. Shelia lured her further into the water while she sat in a boat (nervous of crocodiles, otherwise she would have been in the river herself). Billy soon established a pattern of roaming, joining other hippos in the Kafue, feeding and courting with them as she should.

Not all of the animals that arrived at Chimfunshi survived, and the stories of abuse are tragic. More often though, hope is renewed in chimps like Leben and Choco who arrived from the Tel Aviv Zoo. When they first arrived they were both sullen and unresponsive and “clung to each other like magnets. Only when a visitor from Israel spoke to them in Hebrew several months later did they spring to life and begin hugging one another and laughing out loud. It turned out that they spoke Hebrew, not English.”

In 1995, Sheila and Dave bought a neighbouring farm , a 13,000 acre property. The thick jungle, fruit groves and open grassland would allow the chimps to establish territory, and roam as they would in the wild. It would be the largest area ever set aside for captive primates. “It wasn’t freedom—we knew that—but in a world where chimpanzees are hunted for meat and forests are decimated daily, it was probably as close to freedom as any of our chimps might ever get.”

When it came time to release the chimps into the acreage, Sheila was only able to focus on one chimp, Pal.  Nobody thought Pal would survive, and his scars and droopy lip reminded her of how he arrived 18 years before, desperate, with his face split open and broken teeth.

“My heart was in my throat as I placed a hand on the sliding metal door and peered into Pal’s cage. I leaned in close. “I promised you this,” I whispered. “Now off you go.”

Before Pal rushed off with the others, Tobar and Spencer, he turned to look back at Shelia. He was “staring straight into my eyes. And maybe it was my imagination, but for just that magical second, I believe he was thanking me.”

In My Family Tree is a remarkable book that reminds us of how moments that seem accidental can change the course of our lives. Thank you to the Shelia and Dave Siddle for their unswerving determination to provide a safe haven for orphaned and abused chimps (and even a darling hippo) to frolic and thrive.

David Siddle died  in June 2006, at age 78. “We shall miss David terribly, of course, perhaps no one more than I,” said Sheila Siddle. “But we must keep working for the chimps. We must make sure they are well cared for. That’s what David would have wanted.”

More about Chimfunshi: http://www.chimfunshi.org.za/

Ngamba Island Chimp Sanctuary: http://www.ngambaisland.org/

Where I’ll be in July (J.A.C.K., Congo):

http://jack.wildlifedirect.org/

And, for more info about the woman who introduced the world to the plight of the chimpanzees: http://www.janegoodall.ca/