Surgery at the Bonobo Health Clinic

11/10/09, Kokolopori, Congo. 
Martin Bendeler , Bonobo Conservation Initiative Australia, Director and Founder

The rooster crowed outside my door at about 6.00am this morning and I tried to both ignore it and decide whether we should eat it before it could wake me up again tomorrow. Shortly after, there was a knock on my door. Dr Saidi had arrived to invite me to an appendectomy commencing shortly at the Bonobo Health Clinic (run by local conservation NGO Vie Sauvage and supported by the Bonobo Conservation Initiative, Indigo Foundation and the Kokolopori Falls Church Sister City Program). I had appendicitis when I was 13 and have never experienced anything so painful, before or since, so I had a personal investment in seeing this. 

I threw on some clothes and made my way over in the morning cool. Already some mothers were out, their babies in jackets, making morning fires. Girls were headed towards the forest to gather, large wicker baskets slung across their foreheads. Other girls were returning to their huts with firewood or water. Men slept. 

In the sparse room, where a few days earlier I had seen a baby born, sat Bebeesh Bikoma, 28, with her worried husband, Antoine Lokonga. She was stoically enduring what I knew to be immense pain. Bebeesh and Antoine are both primary school teachers, but Bebeesh was working in her house when the pain in her abdomen became so strong that it paralysed her right leg. She searched for antibiotics but the pain would not go away, so Antoine pulled her 37kms on a bicycle across cratered jungle roads from their village of Yalokengi to the Bonobo Health Clinic of Yalokele. This was her only option. The next nearest hospital was100kms away in Djolu, and even if she could have reached there, it would have cost much more than she or her family could afford. 

The delivery chair reclined and became an operating table (the stirrups discarded to a corner), and the table from Dr Saidi’s consulting room was carried in and covered with a table cloth and the necessary drugs and surgical instruments. The honeyed orange morning light came in through two paneless windows in the mudbrick wall and the large space where the steel roof hand not been sealed (perhaps deliberately for ventilation?). Tubs of water rested on the dirt floor and had been brought by women from the source of a spring, 3 kilometres away, and then purified. A large donated cistern was waiting in the nearest river port of Bifore, 50 kilometres away, but there was not the funds or the fuel to transport it to Kokolopori. I stepped out while the medical staff scrubbed up and prepared Bebeesh for surgery. 

When I returned, she was lying on the table, a blanket of sorts covering her abdomen except for the area of operation. Around her were Dr Saidi and three nurses- Eduard Limboto Losase, Nestor Baelonganoi and Albert Alukana (visiting from Yettee, where he oversees a dispensary)- who were administering a local anaesthetetic (lidocaine?). 

Before making the first incision, Dr Saidi raised his hand and made an impassioned prayer in Lingala, and during the operation he and the nurses sang hymns in beautiful harmony. Dr Saidi later told me he was both seeking God’s blessing and administering psychotherapy for the patient. After awhile Bebeesh begin to suck in air through her teeth, in pain, and ketamine was prepared as a painkiller. One of the nurses used the strap of his stopwatch as a tourniquet and made the injection. 


Given Bebeesh’s suffering, I felt guilty for my own congenital queasiness at the sight of blood, exacerbated by my lack of breakfast and my fasting from the day before (due to my stomach’s treachery), as I sat down next to her husband Antoine for a spell. He said he was nervous but grateful that his wife’s life was being saved. 

Relatively quickly, Eduard presented me with the offending appendix- looking like a thin, sinister, raw sausage covered with mustard. A nurse with a stethoscope checked Bebeesh regularly to ensure there were no complications. While Dr Saidi sutured the incision, he spoke with me about the challenges of rural health in impoverished communities. “As you can see, we are saving lives on dirt floors, delivery chairs and with glassless windows. You are lucky- today, this is our 150th operation in the past 18 months- appendixes, Caesarian sections, hernias, ovarian cysts, tumours, prostates. We are grateful to our partners abroad- Indigo, Falls Church, BCI- who have provided the gowns, gloves, anaesthetics and other equipment for this operation. But we are still challenged by the basic conditions. In terms of medicines, our greatest needs are for anti-malarials, anti-biotics and anti-worm tablets.” 

With nine stitches and around 45 minutes, Bebeesh’s life was saved. Such a simple thing as appendicitis, as common here as it is in the West, kills horribly and almost certainly if not surgically treated. I would have died 20 years ago had I been born here and there was no clinic. Imagine walking into your suburban shopping mall, cocking your finger and thumb into an imaginary gun, and symbolically shooting dead every third or fourth person you see. Such is life and loss here in the absence of medical care. 


Four men carried Bebeesh from the operating theatre to the basic internment building, chickens scattering before them, where Bebeesh’s mother, brother and children waited. They would stay there and look after her for the next 5-7 days while she recovered. Bebeesh’s younger brother, Fidel, is a member of Vie Sauvage’s tracking/anti-poaching team in Yetee, monitoring and guarding a group of bonobos and their range. Saving his sister’s life is probably the most powerful example of the spirit behind Vie Sauvage and BCI’s motto- “Salisa bonobo , mpe bonobo akosalisa yo.” Help the bonobo and the bonobo will help you. 


Tax-deductible donations can be made in America at this address- 
http://www.bonobo.org/howcanihelp.html 

Tax-deductible donations can be made in Australia at this address- 
http://www.bonobo.org.au/how-to-donate.htm 

Bonobo Health Clinic- Saving Lives, New Life

Kokolopori, Congo DRC, 8/10/09

Martin Bendeler, Bonobo Conservation Initiative Australia, Director and Founder

I have returned to Kokolopori, Congo, after four years. The last time, I came as an ecotourist wanting to see wild bonobos before I turned 30. Now I come as a Director of Bonobo Conservation Initiative Australia (BCIA) and as a representative of Indigo Foundation (IF) and Kokolopori Falls Church Sister City Program (KFCSCP) to evaluate the health program they have established since I was last here, and to get a better idea of the needs, challenges and priorities of the communities who protect the bonobo habitat. Publish Post

This region, deep in the green heart of the Congo Basin and peopled by some of the world’s poorest, is rich in bonobos. BCI found that the most effective and efficient means of conserving bonobos was to work in cooperation with the forest people who shared and controlled their habitat. Medical assistance had been part of this approach, but on a relatively small and ad-hoc scale until my fellow directors of BCIA- Philip Strickland, Dr Luke Bennett and Angus Gemmell made their own long voyage to Kokolopori with BCI to establish a medicine dispensary and anti-malarial program, generously funded by Indigo Foundation.

The momentum generated by the program engaged the substantial hearts and minds of the people of Falls Church, Virginia, who established the KFCSCP and significantly expanded the scope and capacity of the bonobo clinic. Three years on, from nothing, I find there is now a doctor, four nurses, 10 midwives and a pharmacy, saving lives and winning hearts and making a tangible connection between the welfare of the community and the welfare of the bonobos and their forests. All this in perhaps the most isolated place in the world, far from electricity, running water, mobile phones (or even beer and Coca Cola!), where the roads out have been destroyed by years of war and criminal neglect and where the river journey to urban markets can take weeks.

My arrival has been made possible by Aviation Sans Frontieres France, who have recently recommenced heavily subsidized flights for NGOs between Kisangani and a basic airfield in Djolu (70kms by 4WD from Kokolopori). I have flown in with Albert Lotana Lokasola, the President of Vie Sauvage, the NGO managing the conservation and community development program here, and with nearly 600kgs of medical supplies, mosquito nets, educational materials, a large solar generator and a satellite phone/modem, generously donated by IF and KFCSCP and coordinated by BCI and Vie Sauvage.

After a delicious breakfast of Kokolopori coffee, freshly squeezed pineapple juice, an omelette and avocado (all local), I stroll over from the Vie Sauvage guest house to the Bonobo Clinic. What I remembered as an empty field now has three large buildings- one containing consulting rooms and a delivery ward, another for longer-term patients and their families, and an extension of this still under construction.


I sit in the consulting room with Dr Saidi and find we have arrived just in time. 18 year old Nadine Bawambo has walked here from the nearby village of Yaliseko because her 8 month old son, Ntoto, has malaria, bronchitis and anemia. The pharmacy had run out of quinine, antibiotics and iron pills but we had brought fresh supplies on our flight. And a mosquito net for the bubba. In the Delivery Room stood Marie Bochi Bolamba, 32 years old, mother of six, leaning against the wall with contractions and working hard on her seventh. There was also a delivery table with stirrups, four midwives gossiping with each other, and not much else.


The hospital was an 8-roomed building with a thatched roof and a central corridor. On one side were the patients and on the other were their families, with their cooking fires and utensils. In the first room was little 6 year old Alexandra Eyan Mbula with severe diarrhea.


Next was 77 year old Papa Otto Bokongi, who’d had a huge cyst removed from his prostate. Unable to urinate for five days, he had searched desperately for help, including from local shamans, before walking the 35 kilometers along jungle tracks to the Bonobo Clinic. Dr Saidi had operated to drain the cyst and old Papa Otto’s relief was palpable.

Another who’s excruciating pain had been relieved was Jolie Ngochuka Mbongi, 22, who’d had her appendix removed and had been there for a week, recuperating with her baby and grandmother by her side. Everyone’s recovery was slowed by malaria and malnutrition.


In the last room was sad 18 year old Ruine Bayamba, who had walked 15 kilometeres (7 hours) from her village of Lopori with labour complications, had had a caesarean section, but her baby had died. She sat quiet and sad, comforted by her mother.

As we walked out of the dark hut into the tropical glare, Nurse Nestor rushed over with news that Marie’s baby was peeking out from behind the stage curtains. We arrived in the Delivery Room to find the midwives, aged between Brigitte Bombolo Bolimo’s 32 and old Mama Gertrude Kolobaka’s “about 50 to you, young whippersnapper!”, had sprung into choregraphed action.


Dr Saidi explained that it had been a difficult birth because Marie was malnourished but her baby girl was healthy and beautiful and named Martine in my honour. He said, “I have been a doctor for 31 years and worked here for the past 2, far from my children, because I love my country and the people need me here. People would definitely die if we weren’t here. We do great things with the little we have, but we need your continued support.”


Tax-deductible donations can be made in America at this address-
http://www.bonobo.org/howcanihelp.html

Tax-deductible donations can be made in Australia at this address-
http://www.bonobo.org.au/how-to-donate.htm 

Gazing into the Bonobo Mirror (Australian Geographic Oct 2007)

By Angus Gemmell (Bonobo Conservation Initiative Australia, Director and Founder)

"Congo". The very word, spoken as if with a drumbeat at the back of the tongue, conjures foreboding. A vast jungle, an impenetrable wilderness, where the only avenues of open space and light are the web of waterways that drain a basin the size of western Europe. This is the land vividly engrossed into the world's imagination by Joseph Conrad as the "Heart of Darkness". True it is that over the last century and a half no where else on the planet has seen more unceasing human suffering.

On top of the rapacious brutalities inflicted by the Belgian colonialists, promptly followed by the tyrannies of President Mobutu's reign, the Democratic Republic of Congo was ravaged between 1996 to 2002 by what was dubbed Africa's World War. It's one of modern times' most neglected facts that an estimated 4 million Congolese perished in those years as a result of the war waged by six African nations.

How striking then that amid what seems a black hole of tragedy there lives one of the most peaceful, gregarious, intelligent and cohesive of species. That this species, the bonobo, also happens to be the closest living relative to humanity, makes their existence in this great dark realm of human agony all the more of an improbable oasis of light.

Surprised? You may be excused for never having heard of the bonobo. Their habitat is so remote, and the Congo so savaged by successive wars, that only a few of the hardiest scientists have had the tenacity to study them at length and attempt to bring them to the world's attention. Barely a handful of film crews have ever recorded their startling behaviour in the wild.

That bonobos frequently walk bipedally -- they stand four and a half feet tall -- use an endless variety of sexual pleasure as a way of avoiding conflict, have the intelligence and language capacity of a 3yr old human child, are largely matriarchal and display a capacity for nurturing that would be the envy of any mother, should be enough to make us take notice. Along with the chimpanzee they share 98.6% of the same DNA as humanity. They provide a vastly different model however for human heritage than the more volatile and violent chimpanzee. Scientists speculate that perhaps it was from a time such as bonobos now enjoy that we acquired our sense of morality as well as capacities for love and idealism. It's high time we paid our closest and most endangered cousin the respect they deserve, lest they, and the lessons they can teach us about our own origins, disappear altogether. The bonobo identity crisis has persisted far too long.

I owe my interest in bonobos to having some 16 years ago come across the explanations of an Australian biologist, Jeremy Griffith, on the human condition. Since then, and having had a stint in Washington DC working for the Bonobo Conservation Initiative (BCI) in 2001, I have harboured a longing to spend time with bonobos in the wild, and to observe and film their remarkable behaviour. At last, in the current window of peace in the Congo, the opportunity to embark on a 1,500km expedition up river has arisen, and with it with the hope of reaching the BCI's research and conservation centre in a region known as Kokolopori.

On board are two Australian friends, Dr Luke Bennett and Phil Strickland SC, as well as the American Executive Director of BCI, Michael Hurley. The native Congolese contingent consists of the BCI's extremely capable director in the Congo, Bianco, as well as the BCI's trusty river guide, Le Blanc -- "the white" -- so named for his piercing green eyes set in an African face. His eyes would frequently aflame an even greater colour when fuming with his pet disdain for the vagaries of the many bureaucrats we encounter along the way, each wanting their own wedge of cash for our "safe passage".

We also have on board a couple of cooks, two assistant helmsmen, and a young stow away who leaps into the baggage area just as we push off. When confronted and pressed to leave he audaciously produces a tattered student card as incontrovertible proof of his entitlement to join our journey. Suitably taken aback by this youthful brazenness, we agree to let him stay on. After all, we decide, we'd each of us in younger times flashed a student card for all sorts of dubious purposes.

We set off at dusk from the bustling river port of Mbandaka. Our three pirogues, better described as hollowed-out logs, are lashed together and bound with vine and frayed rope. We are punting against the flow of the mighty Congo River -- the most voluminous river in the world after the Amazon -- and known locally as "the river that swallows all rivers". In places the river is so wide that one bank is not visible from the other. The outboards drone like a swarm of wild bees as they strain against the current, and start propelling our foray slowly but persistently into the oceanic depths. Their humming envelopes our movement and cocoons us -- as if in a sound capsule -- from the immensity of the forest that wades and plunges an escarpment of foliage along the river's edge. As we motor continuously for 7 days and nights I feel a notion of piercing into the heart of nature. Our pace, no faster than a light jog, seems entirely appropriate for such a journey -- any faster would be too much of a rude incursion into the timelessness of this wild expanse.

The movement of the boat through the haze of heat and draping humidity creates some cool relief. We have visitors to our vessel, some welcome, some not so. Drifts of butterflies, in a kaleidoscope of electric blues and greens, or flutters of butter gold, pay haphazard visits to our unlikely presence. I wonder whether the ubiquitous sand flies have enough stamina to keep up with our patient probing up river. I spot some of the little blighters coasting on the cushion of air in front of the pirogues, like dolphins in the bow wave of a tanker, and coat my legs and arms in a sheen of RID. Horse flies the size of cicadas buzz and dive-bomb us like messerschmitts. We each have a sleeping mat under the tarpaulin rig, and keeping our respective spaces free of biting or stinging critters takes vigilance. I notice that Phil has acquired an accomplice in his quest for a bug free zone. A large praying mantis has taken lodgings in the exterior folds of his mozzie net, and has already chomped a few march flies.

We are the first westerners in a long time to journey this stretch of river, and we must seem an apparition to many of the fishing villagers. We receive a mixture of responses, most friendly and some baffled, as well as a few angry gesticulations clearly telling us to get the hell away. From notches at the foot of the tumbling crags of dense jungle -- almost imperceptible nooks and crannies in the great walls that flank our every day -- we see a sporadic gleam of smiling teeth and a palm raised in friendly wave with a welcoming cry of "Mboti". Luke has taken to giving a military salute to these friendly faces, and chuckles heartily at the mimicked salutes he receives in reply. It gives our little bustle upstream an air of bumbling mercenaries on a not so covert mission.

Small floating islands formed by a mass of long grass are making their journey downstream. Some of these "grass bergs" are replete with a small tree or two and birdlife, no doubt attracted by the plethora of insects taking refuge on their flight across the wide river. Avoiding their stealthy descent at night is a minefield, and at times we slice headlong into them with a hefty brush of the long grass along the flanks of the pirogues. Le Blanc curses loudly in his native Lingala as he reverses us out and clears the propellers of any weed. Our meals are cooked on coals placed upon sand towards the bow. Along with our stores of rice and the local staple -- cassava -- we purchase large fish along the way. Goats and chickens from villages also find their way into our cooking pot.

Toiletry matters in such tight confines are not for the prudish. We try to synchronise our bowel movements so that "dropping the kids off at the pool" doesn't involve too many stops. We plunge into the river and take turns, pants dropped, clinging to the stern of the pirogues. Fish here obviously have a ravenous appetite, for I notice my efforts are vigorously devoured -- in thrashing piranha style -- only 5 metres down stream. I just hope they're not the same swimmers that will end up on our dinner plate later that afternoon. The cycle of life should enjoy a more tranquil pace!

Each evening, as the equatorial sun falls perpendicular to the horizon and the last of twilight rapidly fades, the forest yields bursts of fragrances, pockets of sheer olfactory delight. If green had a smell this would be it. We savour the lush foliage in our nostrils, the evening sigh from the verdant depths exhaling after the heat of day. Onward we punt, into the darkness, ever outflanked by the omnipresent cliffs that at times in a side channel allow only a narrowed vault of starry sky. The walls of forest make us feel as if we're journeying down a time tunnel, further and further away from the superficial preoccupations of human affairs to what is primal, magnetic and fresh from the blueprint of life. The cresting wave of trees to our left and right gradually narrows, as if funnelling us back through the ages, drawing us nearer down the eons of time to the bonobos in their rainforest haven -- to a metaphorical dawn of humanity -- and aiming for our disembarking point where the river becomes a 10m wide stream. Wafts of cooking smoke from tiny clearings at times drift over us. We see a few thatched huts, and imagine the family gathered close around their humble fire that flickers like a lantern on the shore. The thought of them in a tight fraternity against the immensity of the jungle pressing from all sides is heart warming.

On the fifth night the moon is surrounded by volcanic eruptions of thundercloud, distant atomic mushrooms sheering into the night and detonating flashes 270 degrees around our vessel. They loom and boom nearer then shy away to do battle on another front.

The constellation of Orion, the great celestial hunter, strides each night above us. As the river meanders tightly back on itself Orion appears to lurch in leaping circling bounds, stalking the left bank one minute, and the right only minutes later. Under his gaze our helmsmen alternate shifts on the bow with hand torches wielded into the darkness like lighthouse spokes, searching for the odd mid-river snag upon which we are in danger of marooning ourselves. At times the presence of a snag is detected by a change in ripples on the river surface, faintly illuminated by the silver dressing of half moonlight.

The river is narrowing now and the current hastening, and the tiers of every green conceivable, relieved now and then by a splash of purple flowers in the crown of a tree, verge closer against us. Night navigation is increasingly difficult. We are awoken regularly by an abrupt crash and the sound of branches snapping as our vessel slams into riverside jungle. From each such mishap we collect a host of new insect life, awakening the next morning to also see spiders of all shapes and colours spinning webs across our quarters.

At last, and after narrowly avoiding a series of treacherous log-jams in the final stretches, we receive a rapturous welcome from the Kokolopori villagers. They'd made the trek through jungle to our disembarking point, and perhaps had been waiting for days for our arrival. Somehow word had been transmitted up river by "bush telegraph" -- villages still relay messages in this region through the beating of drums. The crowd of about 70 men, women and children, are each allocated a load of varying size. The heaviest (including partly full 44-gallon drums) are allocated to the older women who bear the burden like Nepalese porters with a strap over their foreheads.

We make an hour's march through lightly undulating rain forest, pleasantly free of dense undergrowth, and another few kilometres along a track to the village of Yalokole. The BCI, with the assistance of a grant I'd applied for from the Australian Great Ape Survival Project in 2003, have built a centre which forms the node for bonobo education and community development here. Glad to have made our destination, and full of keen anticipation to finally be in the land of bonobos, we turn in for an early night's rest in readiness for a 4am start with the trackers.

It's first light, and there -- high on the limbs of one of the emergent giants that fan like an umbrella over the canopy -- we see them. The bonobos -- part of a clan of 20 -- are rousing themselves from slumber in one of their favourite fruit trees. Phil, Luke and I, each covered in a sheen of sweat from our forest march on the heels of fleet footed trackers, can barely suppress our excitement. We talk in hushed tones and gaze through binoculars as the bonobos languidly munch on their forest treats no more than an arm's length away.

Their food rich habitat is one of the primary reasons bonobos enjoy an existence largely free of angst and competition. With such an abundance of fruits, nuts and edible plants the bonobos have all the more time and peace of mind to devote to socialising, grooming, play, or just rest and relaxation. The bonobos' diet is supplemented by invertebrates such as large insects, and occasionally small vertebrates they chance upon, such as the tiny forest duiker -- a miniature antelope. Unlike chimpanzees, which are known to hunt as a pack to kill monkeys and even other chimpanzees from neighbouring clans, the bonobos share their forest harmoniously with both other primates and adjacent bonobo groups. Scientists have even observed a bonobo female grooming a young red colobus monkey.

As the sun climbs higher and the morning mist dissipates, the bonobos start moving on, but not before we witness two females embrace face to face and acrobatically rub their vulvas together. Their sexual contact is brief, lasting no more than 10 seconds, and seems almost as perfunctory as a kiss on the cheek hello. One of the females then turns and presents to a nearby male and they mate missionary style for an equally short period. Having thus paid their reassuring morning greetings the bonobos move off swiftly through the canopy, and we fall in step behind our trackers trying to follow underneath them.

The bonobos have a remarkable penchant for indulging in sexual pleasures in nearly every conceivable combination, position and situation. You name it, and chances are the bonobos both enjoy it, and what's more make use of that enjoyment for their social cohesion. Solo masturbation, female on female genital rubbing, male to male rump rubbing, group orgies, upside down sex, aqua sex ... the variety is as rich as the bonobos own evident capacity for imagination. The only sex that is taboo is mother and son, and as an additional buffer against incest females leave for a neighbouring group upon reaching fertility.

No doubt the evidence of such hyper-sexuality in our closest relative is confronting to the more religiously dogmatic and institutionalised views of sex that our own species has variously constrained itself with. But before anyone suggests that we all nude up, get down and do "the bonobo way", consideration should be given to the fact that bonobo and human sexuality, while related, do have certain distinct differences. For instance, juveniles innocently engage in every aspect of bonobo sexuality. Paedophiles however are motivated by a corruptive and predatory intention completely absent in bonobos. Yet some paedophiles have attempted pointing to bonobos as justification for their own behaviour. In this example there lies at least one difference, and danger, in completely and blindly equating bonobo sex life with our own.

A lot of bonobo sexuality may also be described as "make up sex before you need to make up". Instead of fighting over a favourite fruit tree, as chimpanzees would, bonobos may prefer to have an orgy first to settle any tension in the ranks, before sharing the fruit in peace. In early 2000 I spent a couple of weeks with Japanese bonobo researchers at Kyoto University, including the founding pioneer of bonobo study in the wild, Dr Takoyoshi Kano. The Japanese showed me some unforgettable and rare footage of two bonobo groups chancing upon each other in a clearing. Each group initially, and warily, faced each other off from a distance of about 20 metres. There was then some bluster from some of the males in each group, who rushed forward dragging branches in bluff charges before retreating. The lead 3 or 4 females in each group then slowly made their way to the centre of the clearing. They met briefly, wrapped arms around each other and rubbed vulvas together. The males soon after joined their fray and the two groups blended in an orgy before each going its separate way again in peace. As we follow our trackers under the bonobos I speculate with Phil and Luke what it would be like trying to get Al Qaeda and the Bush Administration to engage in such sexual dispute resolution. Interesting thought, but obviously not quite that simple!

Our trackers' salaries are paid by the BCI through a local environmental organisation Vie Sauvage -- a marvellous example of grass roots community conservation in action. A total of 36 trackers are currently employed - six trackers for each of the six groups of bonobos presently under observation in the Kokolopori region. The BCI -- unlike a lot of the large powerhouse conservation entities run more like multi-national corporations where funds are soaked up in office salaries -- is all about empowering the local people to take an interest in preserving the bonobos and their habitat.

Through developing initiatives such as health clinics and food and education programmes, the BCI -- for a small organisation -- punches well above its weight. Through the tireless efforts of its founder and President, Sally Coxe, together with Michael´s natural flair for making things happen in Africa's trying conditions, the BCI is striving to ensure the survival of bonobos in the Kokolopori forest and elsewhere. There may be as few as 5,000 to 15,000 bonobos left, and the greatest concentration of these remaining populations appears to be in Kokolopori.

While we witness first hand the results of the BCI's work to be positive and tangible, there is much still to be accomplished. At the village Luke, Phil, Michael and I take turns speaking through an interpreter to a packed public meeting with eight chiefs and around 200 villagers. We try to address their concerns that they should continue to benefit from any help coming to the area, not just bonobos. We realise that more vital work and funds are needed to build on the community participation in bonobo conservation already so admirably set in motion by the BCI.

We spend a full week with the trackers. We observe, absorb and film the bonobos, at times only a dozen or so metres away. Each of us are moved, not from just our own watching, but the feeling also of being watched curiously by another conscious being. When a bonobo, from short range, looks you in the eye it is like holding up a mirror to humanity's own collective past. You are pervaded with the notion of not just knowing, but of somehow being known ... a connection, a commune however tenuous, with our own heritage -- a common ancestor 7 million years old -- and a sacred contract of trust once known between humans and the natural world that now largely lies breached and barely remembered.

One day, the bonobos having proved too fast to keep up with, Phil startles me with a tap on the shoulder while we're resting for lunch. I turn to see him pointing excitedly to a movement in the undergrowth no more than 15 metres away. We'd stopped tracking for 10 minutes or so, and an adult bonobo had returned as if to check on us. What makes Phil's sighting all the more striking was that the bonobo was walking past on two legs in waist high undergrowth, looking over his shoulder directly at Phil. So stunned and incredulous was he that initially Phil couldn't speak. He explains later that his first thought was that the bonobo was one of our trackers walking off into the forest to take a leak.

The frequent preference of bonobos for upright locomotion is yet another of their amazing attributes. It used to be thought that humans only began to walk upright when we left the forests for the savannah. Increased knowledge of bonobos extinguished that theory. The angle and alignment of the bonobo hip structure matches almost exactly that of our own two million year old ancestor, Australopithecus afarensis.

Perhaps of even greater significance to the essence of bonobo society than their sexual proclivities and bipedal capacity is the tenderness with which they nurture their young. Juveniles, even once weaned, will sometimes continue suckling until the age of six. Bonobo males remain deferential to their mothers for life, and derive their rank from where mum sits in the hierarchy.

On the second day tracking we see the bonobos halt for a midday rest and feed in a nut tree. Luke, Phil and I, necks aching from straining upwards all day, lie down on the spongy forest floor 20 metres directly and unobscured beneath a group of 17 bonobos. Periodically we have to dodge as the bonobos rain down small branches, half-chewed nuts, or the occasional and well aimed piss from their lofty perch. For a whole two hours we lie there, transfixed by their tranquillity. Three mothers are in a tight bundle together, quietly and intimately grooming their infants, regardless of which infant belongs to which mother. What must be in the mind of those infants, in such a press of maternalism and being tended to by not just one mother but effectively all of them? The feelings of togetherness, warmth and security, and -- dare I say it -- love, those infants feel must be immense. No wonder bonobo society, soaked in such nurturing, is matriarchal.

Sadly the day arrives when we must leave our bonobo haven. We wave farewell to the gathering of villagers on the riverside. Once more we are afloat in our trusty pirogues, this time going with the flow of water, back down the river of man -- out of the time tunnel -- to resume once again our modern day lives.

We have a full moon now to guide our night-time stretches. By its light on the third night I am sitting on the bow, head brimming like the water around me with the wonder of the experiences of the past few weeks. A poem comes to mind and I recite it out loud, though not so loud that those back in the mozzie nets hear me and think I've lost my marbles.

It's from T. S. Eliot's "4 Quartets":

We shall not cease from exploration
and the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
when the last of earth left to discover
is that which was the beginning.
At the source of the longest river
the voice of the hidden water fall
and the children in the apple-tree
not known, because not looked for
but heard, half heard, in the stillness
between two waves of the sea.

The bonobo. The children in the apple tree indeed. And the river that swallows all rivers, the mighty Congo, is bearing us onwards ... onwards from what feels to us a source of light rather than a heart of darkness.

And ahead on the river the rapids, swamps, cataracts and whirlpools, all metaphorically being borne with hope by humanity for that potential destination -- one day -- of an oceanic maturity.

Adventures in Bonoboland

Adventures in Bonoboland
Martin Bendeler (Bonobo Conservation Initiative Australia, Director and Founder)

I am indebted to Australian GRASP for helping me take the first step on my incredible journey of 1000 miles up the Congo River to Bonoboland with Bonobo Conservation Initiative.
And I was fortunate to enjoy firsthand the fruits of Australian GRASP's
USD$3000 contribution to BCI's project to construct a community
education centre in Kokolopori that catalysed the enthusiasm and efforts of local
villagers to expand and embrace the centre. I saw it regularly used
as a venue for carpentry, textiles and soap-making activities and
training, as well as village and conservation management planning. Also,
it provided basic but comfortable accommodation for our little
group and for visiting local researchers from nearby
bonobo ranges. It was encouraging to see that relatively modest contributions like these go a very long way, but the villagers here are the bonobos real guardians and they are still desperately poor. These are my notes, scribbled at varying points along the journey. They were written to, in some small way, take my friends and family along with me. Anything beautiful in it is a reflection of the Congo, the bonobos and the wonderful people I met along the way, for which I extend my utmost gratitude. Anything tedious, clumsy, petty or just wrong is all me, for which I extend my most sincere apologies. Particular thanks goes to the dedicated, conscientious and sacrificing staff of Bonobo Conservation Initative and their local partners, who do so much with so little to protect the bonobos."

Martin Bendeler December 2005

Thu Nov 9

Our boat was waiting for us. Surely, never before has a group travelled upriver in such style. Three wide pirogues (dugout canoes) lashed together, 40 feet long, reed matting, tarp canopy, four bed frames with foam mattresses, a cooking area with hot coals, and the crowning glory- camping chairs with beer holders. New twin 85 horsepower engines should cut the journey time by a Third. But it will still be at least four days and I am grateful for the comfort. Sharing the journey with me are the foreigners- Paul, Arne, Michael and myself- and the Congolese- Bienvenu (aka Bienco) the BCI logistician, Augustin the Kokolopori chief and his granddaughter, Violette, Nina the cook, Charles the Best Boatman on the Congo (aka Le Blanc due to his striking green eyes), and his humble helper, Meda.

Bonobo (Photo- Arne Schiotz)

Two of the canoes contain the beds, covered by a tarp over timber, stick and vine frame. The third boat is largely uncovered, except at night and during storms, when the tarp is pulled over it, and contains the cooking equipment and the Kokolopori hitchhikers.

How do you describe such a river? A trillion litres flowing beneath. In its reflections, a monochrome extension of the grey morning sky, of the sabled green shadows of the dipping forest, of the deepest pitch blue of night's last dark and dawn's first spark, silhouette framed. Where the outboard motor churns, the water looks like a frothy Guinness/ice tea milkshake. The wet season has flooded the banks up to the lower canopy and we pass along a valley of sheer echoing cliffwalls of trees .

We are not floating on a river, we are floating on a forest. Sometimes it seems like if the water level was 20 feet higher, we could look out over the entire Congo Basin , which would have to be renamed the Congo Sea .

The river is by no means ours alone. Pirogues drift downstream, always downstream. Perhaps they sell them at their destination and walk home rather than paddle. Some are small and carry nothing but a small boy and a wicker fish trap. Others are floating huts, taking months to reach town to trade forest goods for city. Sometimes a long boat will have four or five people paddling. Most are too tired to wave but some will signal to us, sometimes to sell a fish, but usually a begging gesture that a bonobo would readily recognise. And the largest will be almost a whole village lashed together to a barge on the week long journey to Kinshasa- goats, rice sacks, families. Like Costner’s Waterworld.

Bonobo (Photo- Arne Schiotz)

In wide flat clearings, thatch huts are built on stilts in the shade of palms. Little children run around in various combinations of rags, underpants and nudity along with the free-range piglets. They wave and smile and beg and throw backflips into the river. Men sleep under shaded paillotes. Women work. Great clumps of South American water weed, of the sort that has carpeted Lake Victoria, also drift by us, some in purple bloom. These clog up the space between the lashed pirogues, skimming river foam up til it burbled up and into the boats.

While night falls quickly here, it doesn't go quietly. For hours, lightning flickered and flashed over the northern bank, a polite reminder that we were guests of the rainy season. A ruder reminder arrived late the next afternoon, when the river led us directly into the maw of a wild storm that made a mockery of the tarp shelter we had optimistically erected. Deciding I could get no wetter, I dove into the river to help secure the tarps, finding it warm and swift flowing. I opened my eyes under water. I could see my hands before me, pulling me through rich tannin red light, as if I were weightless in prehistoric amber.

11 November 2005 (almost forgot to remember it was Remembrance Day). 

A graveyard of rusty skeletal barges greets you on approach, an equally murdered crane also. A few walls remain to indicate what was once a building, perhaps a church. Nevertheless, Basankuso is the last pretence of urban civilisation for the rest of the river and we are obliged to acknowledge it by registering. Its 6.30 in the morning, mist is lifting, people on the riverbank wear jackets against the cool. From nowhere, a multitude of children materialise to gawp at the white people. A small fleet of dugout pirogues are parked diagonally nearby and women and children are washing their clothes and themselves in the shallows. I can hear singing coming from beneath a nearby tree.

A pair of planks over a muddy oily ditch leads up to a dusty clearing that functions as a marketplace. Indifferent looking women sit behind benches selling the same things- soap, washing powder, sacks of charcoal, onions, tomatoes, green and red peppers, prepaid telephone cards. A few ducks waddle around. In a flash, the fickle children abandon the whiteys and rush to the marketplace because the local army reserve seems to be going through their paces. In groups of about 30 they sweep down from the forest behind the town, through the marketplace, into the barracks and then back again.

Some are wearing army boots, others gumboots. All wear khaki somewhere but otherwise it is a mix of fake English soccer league chic and whatever else is eyecatching at hand. One muscular chap was wearing a fetching purple crop top to go with his camouflage pants. Each group shuffles/marches/jogs/jives to their own chant and are reinforced by their own witchdoctors, bedecked in radiating reed headpieces and skirts. One woman in shorts and gumboots strikes her own blow for sexual equality, joining the procession and refusing to be chased away. It is more dance and display than discipline, with much laughter, and they are gone as quickly as they appeared.

Myself & Paul - (Photos by martin Bendeler)

It was only a matter of time before I had to dive into the river with a crocodile. We asked a boatman if he had any fish to sell and he was most pleased to offer us a live trussed-up crocodile for $5 (Arne, who was once curator for reptiles for the Copenhagen zoo had it pegged for a dwarf crocodile (osteolaemis tetraspis), a CITES listed endangered species. Paul wanted to buy it to free it.). So pleased, in fact, that he tried to dock with us and, in so doing, capsized his own boat. He stood aghast on our prow as his pirogue filled with water and immediately turned to us for compensation.

I had only just woken up and was lying in my boxers on my mattress, but seeing this man's livelihood sinking downstream, I just jumped in after it. As I got closer, I remembered his canoe had a little grumpy crocodile in it, but by then it was too late. At any rate, the croc had his own problems, being tied up in a rapidly sinking dugout canoe. Anyway, I got to the canoe and kept it afloat, the boatman eventually joined me, we saved the croc and a basket of wriggly catfish, Charles reversed the boat and picked us up and all should have been well. But the boatman, adjusting his dripping ragged trousers around a waist that I could probably have encompassed completely with two fingers and was all sixpack and no stomach, complained bitterly that his hurricane lantern had gone down with the ship along with the rest of his very valuable catch and who was going to pay for it all. We bought his crocodile and his fish, shrugged our shoulders for the rest and sent him on his way. We then mugged for the cameras a little before releasing the critter in some reeds some distance upstream.

Sun 13th November 2005

Major towns ceased after Basankuso, though an unfriendly white man in an expensive speedboat was an indication we were near the missionary town of Maringa , eponymous with the river we were on. That was until we came across the illegal logging town of Bualu. Michael had been here 6 months ago when it was one shack.
Now it was a Congo Future company town of 500 people adjoining a modern lumber yard bursting with logs, bulldozers, lorries, warehouses and fuel tanks.


We pulled in to the river bank, ostensibly to buy fish and register. The usual gaggle of children and villagers gathered to be entertained by the sight of Paul in his mou mou.
Two guys with uniforms and guns were also there. One with a bit of grey and class, the other looked 16 and liked to do Rambo poses with his AK47. They readily agreed to let us walk around and take photos and footage as long as they could their mugs in the picture. We crossed the length of the village, gathering an entourage as we went, until we reached the wall of the lumber yard. I was filming as much as I could but soon word came that I had to dtop as it was private property. I did my best to keep spirits high amongst the crowd as final "paperwork" and shopping was attended to, anxious that they not get sullen and demand what the hell we were doing and money.
In the end we pulled out safely and once on the river, Michael did a piece to camera on the spread of illegal logging, of the incursions it made into bonobo habitat, and of the demand it generated for bushmeat. Children in the village were waving goodbye to us, while workmen in the lumber yard shook their fists.

At night, tarp down, reclining on my mattress, engine humming, the feeling of surging stable motion through the elements, I imagined I was flying Business Class 747 to Bonoboland....until I saw the million puncture wounds around my ankles where local critters have gone to town. The Chinese say the nerves in your feet link directly to all sorts of other places in your body, so I sometimes wonder what effect this will have elsewhere...

The river is so high now, it is almost like floating at a bonobo's-eye view of the world, level with the lower canopy. We are not floating in a river, we are floating in a forest.

Mon 14 November 2007

Another storm in the night, but we were quickly at battle stations, fastening down the tarp and pulling in to a sheltered reedy bank. Wonderful thunder detonating across the sky, God’s crazy timpani solo, and I peaked under the tarp to see the strobe-lit rainy river.
We are still passing the occasional family compound of huts, the occasional pirogue, but now there are many more butterflies and birds - hornbills, herons, eagles. So very beautiful but so very little stopping it from being pulped....

More lumber dumps.

Butterflies- blue, green black swallowtails dive in flirtatious pairs, white ones flutter over the surface, taking occasional little kissing dips.

The sharpness of the afternoon, after-storm light, mist exhaling from the forest,
reflected sunset gold radiating from the gentle wake.

Tue 15 Novemeber 2007

Still on the river. Charles' title as "Best Boatman on the Congo" could be revoked if it turns out it was him, and not his helper, who was at the till last night when we twice ran into overhanging branches in the space of 10 mins. Paul's tummy took the force of the first blow and it managed to knock over the hot coals in the stove (threatening to set the tarp and the boat on fire), as well as Michael and Arne (who was lucky to find his glasses again). Apart from a few scratches, everybody was OK and we calmed our nerves the way humans do (with some whiskey and honeyloaf) and not how bonobos do (with genital fondling and rump rubbing). This far upriver, it becomes increasingly
narrow and I suspect that the drivers are pushing it a bit harder at night than they otherwise would have in order to make up for lost time. The combination did not work out so well last night...

Charles (aka LeBlanc)- “Best Boatman on the Congo
(Photo- Martin Bendeler)

Still, I realised later we dodged a bullet. Worst case scenario would have seen us with a seriously wounded journalist, a capsized and incinerated boat, and us treading water in a river in the middle of Africa , 1000 miles from help. This blissful cocoon of comfort and ease is most fragile.

Little Violette contents herself with singing songs and playing with her dismembered Barbie, trying hard to give barbie an afro, though it looks more troll doll chic.

This endless lazy hassle/responsibility-free (no calls, no news, no work) journey up a breathtakingly beautiful river has a surreal Huckleberry Finn aspect to it, occasionally tinged by the sad thought that it may all be pulped before my future children get a chance to see it.

The river is probably only 30m wide now, it’s midday and it flows quickly in shiny ripples and whorls. Tiny mites, only visible in the direct light, somehow swarm and surf upstream, buzzed by iridescent butterflies and birds. I'm resigned to never arriving and living forever in this beautiful limbo. Nina is drying our washed clothes on the tarp roof. Guys are sitting on empty barrels in the back. Paul is sleeping. Arne and Michael sit in quiet reflection in the front. I am on my bed, reading Emergency Sex- a UN whistleblower book.

Charles slowed the boat so Michael can jump in and take a dump, introducing to the African habitat the exotic American shitfish. The vastest, most beautiful toilet in the world. I am getting close to a place I have only read about- it’s a pilgrimage to a place that is pristine and holy. I am quietened and quickened. Few places in the world are this remote and beautiful. The bonobos truly live in Eden . Somewhere, something sweet is blooming. I can breathe it. It intoxicates. I'm sure I have dreamed of somewhere like this before- of a land of only trees and water- where I could move and breathe freely in both and was very happy. However my dreamland also hand big rocks in the river that I could skip across....

Wednesday 16 November 2005

Have finally arrived in Kokolopori.

Couldn't quite believe it when we finally arrived at our final mooring point at dawn. The boat could not possibly go any further as the river finally narrowed to almost the dimensions of a doorway. There a softly sloping grassy bank waited for us, as well as some Kokolopori villagers, whose faces lit up to see Michael, Bienvenu, Charles and our hitchhikers. We quickly began unloading and soon more and more villagers appeared, smiling with hands outstretched, everybody wanting to shake hands, as if our presence to them was as otherworldly and welcome as that of the bonobos for me. A teenager, Keizei, took my bags and we headed off. Along the path we found villagers pouring down to get the paid work of carrying our goods.

The rainforest quickly closed in around us, the path barely discernable in the dense undergrowth, and it quickly lived up to its name when rain began to crash down. Various jungle smellsonions, honeysuckle, rotting fruit, potpourri fragrances. I kept up with the speedy lead group of porters as a bit of a macho thing, which was actually quite shallow, given they were half my age, height and weight and carrying twice my load. We passed through primary and secondary forest, fording streams and climbing trails that had become rivulets of muddy, puddly rainwater. We kept going and going and I realised I hadn't had any breakfast or water and looked forward to the feed that awaited me on arrival (also my stash of skittles in my pocket).

Then looked again at the porters, one boy grimacing under the weight of a suitcase on his head, and thought that they probably hadn't eaten either and probably no feast awaited them. I then recalled how the vast majority of the three million killed in the still recent war died from starvation and disease. Also thought of all the boatpeople and villagers I had passed who replied
to my waves by rubbing their tummies and making begging gestures. I called a halt and shared my water and Skittles (in the end, I got none!) then continued on. After a total 1.5 hr hike, I finally arrived at the village road. We had to pass through a number of villages and everyone waved and smiled in welcome, hordes of children spilled out to follow (squealing happily, "MONDELE! (Whitey)!" to which I replied with "MOINDO MOKE" (little blackey)). The houses were mudbrick with thatched roofs, scorched black due to no chimney. 19,000 people live here, children having babies, and the population pressure on bonobos must be intense.

Was taken to an area specifically prepared for visitors- A mudbrick compound of twelve rooms, two large shaded meeting areas in the middle, toilet, washing area and electric generator out the back. Surrounded by cassava groves (disease resistant, another BCI project) and forest. This was actually established with USD$3000 of seed funding from Australian GRASP (Great Ape Survival Project). GRASP perhaps naively expected the Aussie government to chip in $60k, but I have it on the very best authority that the Aussie government wouldn't care about a bonobo from Africa even if it arrived in a rickety boat without a proper visa in an Abu-Bakr Bashir t-shirt,
spouting Wahabbi doctrine.

We spent the rest of the day settling in to our comfortable but spartan huts, being welcomed by various worthies. In the afternoon, the Kokolopori Women's Association came dancing and singing through the gates- I think I could understand some of the Lingala lyrics- "we have joy, big joy, you have come, welcome". Many people here wear BCI t-shirts that read "Salisa bonono mpo na bonobo salisa yo"- “Help the bonobo so that the bonobo can help you”. They are very dedicated to bonobo protection and they also understand this brings much needed hard cash.

Hordes of children sneak into the compound to stare at the foreigners. Occasionally an elder shoos them away with a stick and they leave with maximum impudence, returning as soon as he turns his back.



I didn’t do it!---albino baby (Photos- Martin Bendeler)

Thursday 17 November 2005

A more substantial welcome ceremony today. First another dance from the Kokolopori Women's Association, led by a proud matron who called down the
blessings while the others chanted, clapped and swayed. About 20 women, the youngest about 18, the eldest completely indeterminate, and she would touchingly wipe the brow of the lead singer as she sung in her trance.

(Photo- Martin Bendeler)

The women were displaced by an army of schoolchildren that had amassed at the compound gates. Thousands coming in class by class, singing. BCI had brought a shipment of donated school supplies from the States and they were to be presented by the president of their main NGO partner here, Chief Albert Lokasola.

At one point there was almost a disastrous stampede over Bic pens before order was reestablished. Children also pleased for opportunity to gawp at white people. One boy had a t-shirt that I could have sworn had written on it, "honkeys steal my underwear at night". Later, on closer inspection, I saw it was "monkeys", not "honkeys" but I still prefer the former interpretation as a playful, post-modern critique of neocolonialism....

Honkeys steal my underwear at night- (Photo- Martin Bendeler)

Four men entered the clearing with drums and got down to business, and all the other men gathered around in a funky, shuffling circle. Some elders had prime position.
One haughty looking old fellow with a sour trout pout and a dead chicken on his head. Another elder in a tattered Western suit, sandals, and a shiny brass medallion of King Leopold of Belgium hanging proudly around his neck, a sad enduring reminder of how cheaply and easily that old tyrant bought and raped this country. The bafande, the shaman, was there, dignified in nothing but a loincloth and a crown of hornbills.

(Photo- Martin Bendeler)

We spoke with the shaman afterwards. He told of how a village ancestor was lost in the forest, stuck up a tree, and a bonobo came to his aid. At that point, Leonard, the head tracker came by to say that if we wanted to see the bonobos before they settled in for the night, then we'd better get cracking.

Paul got a lift to the start of the forest trail, about 5kms away, on Albert's motorbike while I set off on foot with the trackers. Quickly had my typical pied piper entourage of children in my wake, walking along a sunny green trail. We turned off at the last village, where forest trail led through manioc fields into light secondary forest. The frontier of the primary forest was guarded by a river of fire ants, who waited til they had crawled up your trousers, down your socks and into your shirt before all stinging on invisible, inaudible cue. The bonobos have formidable guardians. The HaliHali group of about 20 bonobos lived here. They are semi-habituated to humans, though if you are particularly lucky they will throw dung at you in displeasure, though I would rather receive dung from a bonobo than holy water from a priest...at least a bonobo is honest about his lecherous ways. Trackers had followed the group since dawn but their trail would have taken us into a swamp where we could miss them if they backtracked up the ridge to set up their night nests. So we paused for awhile, Paul on his fold-up safari chair, while the trackers fanned out to get a more immediate bearing. After about 20 minutes a tracker boy called out to say that the bonobos were ready and waiting for us. Crashing indecorously through the forest, we found Leonard pointing to the sky. At first, I couldn't see anything but more forest until…

Way up high, at least 60m up, a bonobo swung from a leafless branch over to a nearby tree to join his friends, who I could now see nestled in crooks, peering from trunks, and dangling from branches. Tapping his notebook, Leonard told us that he had observations to make and that his team would look after us from here on in. With that, we aligned ourselves with the movements of the bonobos, excitedly scrambling blindly over vines and logs with heads craned up in fixed awe. At one point, near a collection of old night nests, I counted eight bonobos, making the canopy sway and shake with their acrobatics. The males appeared much more robust than I had been led to expect. Little wiry infants scaled branches with that fearless clumsy happy tummyout insouciant way toddlers have of moving. At one point I heard something crashing with a heavy thud through the canopy to the forest floor and I immediately thought of the Japanese proverb "saru mo ki kara ochiru- even monkeys fall from trees" and
needlessly worried for the bonobos' welfare. As it turns out, the bonobos leave a lot more collateral damage in their wake than the nearby skinny monkeys with whom they share their great heights. I was initially worried a bonobo might shit on me, but realised it was dislodged branches and logs I should be worried about. We followed them awhile longer, as they effortlessly Spider-Manned their way through the canopy, gradually descending lower and lower. At one point I glimpsed a streak of black through a grove, all muscle and motion.

(Photo- Martin Bendeler)

We followed in pursuit, Leonard always 20ms ahead, notebook in hand, gliding serenely and swiftly through the cluttered terrain as if God had appointed him an observer angel with divine laisser passer to discharge his single-minded duty. Leonard had been tracking and recording the bonobos for many years, even the dark war years, when he had no support nor shoes nor flashlight. He wants to publish his finding next year. The trackers followed the bonobo trail to an almost impenetrable thicket where we stopped to take stock of the time, the fading light, and the threatening thunder trembling through the jungle valley. Leonard suggested we call it a day and head back, leaving a few trackers to mark out the bonobo sleeping quarters for tomorrow's crew. BCI pays for the trackers to monitor and protect the bonobos every day, not just for when the rare white man wants to stumble through. Though we had only seen the bonobos briefly, it was a fine introduction to what I'm sure will be a beautiful relationship. Within 15 minutes we were back in the cassava fields on our way to the village. With perfect timing, darkness and rain fell as we arrived in the trackers’ hut, where we bought and distributed firewater in thanks and watched the lightning splash across the jungle hills. When the rain eased we hit the village-trail on the long walk back. The path was a pale hint through lush foilage in the moonless clouded darkness, with flickering faerie fireflies and lightning giving guidance. I set off carefree and infinitely pleased with my bonobo encounter but after awhile I became a little concerned that no matter how fast I powerwalked, I had the surreal sensation of walking on a treadmill with only fireflies as points of reference in the darkness, I began to think that we had overshot our mark and were marching swiftly ever further into the great jungle nothingness. I was freaking out a bit. Such is the night.

So pleased to finally see the electric lights of our compound that I did my own version of the happy-happy-joy song.

Miss Nina (Photo- Martin Bendeler)

Wonderful forest food of pineapples, papaya, bananas, plantains, lemons, liquid wild honey that makes the local firewater palatable, hard-shelled bush oranges with juicy, sticky, sweet, grey, brain-shaped chunks. Freshly baked bread. A steady slaughter of goats, pigs, chickens and ducks that have us feeling increasingly bloated and guilty. If I hear one more baby goat plaintively cry its last, I am irrevocably converting to vegetarianism. I know now they call them kids because they cry like children.

Friday 18 November 2005 - Treefrogging

I was in a dark African swamp and Michael had just seen the vine he was about to grab slither slowly towards him. "Arne, what should I do if I see a green mamba?".
"Run" said Arne, one of the world's premier herpetologists, with characteristic Danish dryness. I decided then and there that treefroggery was not for me.
Earlier in the village, Arne had asked me why I had agreed to join him in his treefrog quest. I stood before him in ridiculous nipple-high rubber pants and briefly wondered the same thing before answering with something as silly as my pants, "Well the Japanese say a wise man climbs Mt Fuji once, but only a fool climbs it twice...I should give it a chance." The path to the swamp was an hour long walk along a narrow ditch through the manioc fields and the thick secondary forest. Clear water trickled through the terraced root structure of the liliana and manioc trees. Waded about in the water with Michael, Arne and three local boys, torches drawn, ears pricked. Frog music was broadcasting from everywhere. Surely it shouldn't be too hard. I turned my torch off, sat on a log and tried to get a bearing on a blighter.
Usually they were having a rather repetitive conversation with a nearby prospective mate which in treefroggish probably went something like this-
Boy frog- rebbit -"how about it?"-
Girl frog- arebbit -"how about what?"-
Boy frog- rebbIT -"how about IT!”
Rinse and repeat. Always repeat.

Anyway, you had to concentrate on one and not be tempted to go after the other, even if your original target fell silent for awhile, otherwise you would certainly get neither.
I couldn't seem to find any that were in convenient grasping distance and had to thrust my head through vines and spiderwebs and ants and every other African insect drawn to my torchlight. So I beat a retreat back into the stream and tried again until I got tired of my solo efforts and went to see if I'd be more useful helping others. Arne was poised near a tall crop of bamboo and reeds. Despite being deaf, blind and arthritic, his awesome reputation and intimidating eyebrows alone were sufficient to have every tree frog in his vicinity realise the futility of its position and offer itself up. I dazzled one lucky victim ("hydrolus fantasticus", murmured Arne) sitting on a veiny leaf with my torchlight while Arne's experienced hand made the snatch, then the stuff, into the plastic bag. If the frog was a coat it would be reversible, one side vivid green, one side scarlet. Michael had another frog in his sights, high atop a thin bamboo reed. Arne grabbed a long stick, placed one end next to the frog and talked the frog into shuffling across. Game over.

Congo tree frog…perhaps hydrolus fantasticus…perhaps not…
(Photo- Michael Hurley)

As for me, the novelty of splashing and stumbling in the wet and the dark for damned elusive frogs quickly wore off. Arne and I came across a spider as wide as a plate, then Michael asked Arne if his moving green vine was a green mamba or a boomslang (the first insanely venomous and territorial, the second just insanely venomous) and I decided to abandon the swamp with its delights of treefrogs, snakes, spiders, fireants, malaria- and possibly ebola- carrying mosquitos. Michael and Arne had at least a couple of hours left in them yet but I grabbed a village boy, resolutely straightened my silly plastic pants and headed home. I asked my guide "nkombo na yo, nini?- what is your name?". He was about 11 in shorts, t-shirt and flipflops. "Charley", he squeaked. An appropriate name for a little boy, I thought. Then after a pause he clarified with the infinitely grander, "Charlemagne". Phew.

Arne and Michael came back some time later to find the compound lit by lanterns as the generator had died for the night. I was grateful it was too dark to really look Arne in the eye after so cowardly abandoning his beloved calling of treefroggery.

Sunday 20 November

Woke up at 6.30 after another lovely lullaby storm slumber. Albert arrived round 7 and I tooled around on his motorbike for a bit. Waited at the trailhead. Went into forest. Chilled while trackers fanned out ahead. Sly buggers came back with downcast faces only to switch on the smile with the good news that bonobos had been found.
Brief trek and found some motion in the canopy. A few bonobos had settles here for an afternoon siesta. I lay back against a tree directly under an infant and closed my eyes awhile in solidarity. We sat silently for about 20mins then the infant above us woke up. His first reaction was to through some shit down at us. He then gave a wakeup squeal and suddenly the whole area was hooting and squealing from all angles. I had no idea so many were napping with us. For a good while they frolicked in the canopy. I counted about nine. Took me awhile to get my new binoculars oriented on a particular bonobo, but once I did, it was like Imax- my whole field of vision was beautiful, graceful, dignified bonobo.

(Photo- Martin Bendeler)

Sometimes they would just step off a 50m branch like a Wall St suicide, plunging down to a desired level then lazily put out a hand to grab a branch as if it had taken an express elevator down. Or they would bounce up and down on a protruding branch as if on a divingboard, to get extra spring for a launch to another tree. Other times they would slide fireman-style down a slender branchless tree trunk. With their hypersexual reputation in mind, I immediately thought of poledancing. Yet they projected dignified equanamity, confidence, charisma, authority and power. Sometimes they would calmly look directly at me and I wondered what they made of these metallic things sticking out from my eyes and my khaki plumage.

They didn't really interact with each other so much. Felt a bit perverted wishing that apes would have sex for my viewing pleasure. They quite rightly didn't give me the satisfaction. They moved as a dispersed group in a general direction and we followed from varying distances. Sometimes I would watch one relaxing in a crook of a tree, one leg gracefully stretching straight up, the other plucking some leaves to munch. Another time one male sat on a branch like a teenager, legs swinging under him, shoulders hunched, silhouetted as he contemplated the sunset. I was too busy watching someone else through my binoculars but Paul saw a female clamber down a tree about 10 metres away and gracefully skip by on two legs across a mossy fallen log. So excited following alongside the bonobos that I didn't notice the long afternoon shadows and shafts of cathedral light or my grumbling tummy or parched throat. Just as we were about to leave, a young adult male came halfway down a very close tree and regarded us, as if giving a parting favour by posing for a photograph.

Leonard led us back to our campsite. Ate rice, pineapple and beef jerky by campfire. Fireflies, stars through the canopy, phosphorescent leaves in the moonlight. Spoke with Paul until relatively late (i.e. 8.30) then entered my virgin tent. Trackers snored nearby under the stars on bamboo beds hastily hacked together by machete. They will wake at 3am to check on the bonobo nests then we will head out together to see how a bonobo greets the day...

Monday 21 November 2005

Fitful sleep. We had planned to have only three in the camp- myself, Paul and Leonard- and had 3 tents accordingly. Albert had said that three was enough to keep the leopards away but not too much as to scare the snoozing bonobos. But somewhere Leonard disappeared and was replaced by 10 trackers (who normally walk back to the village after work).
Five piled into Leonard’s tent like children at a slumber party.

Still, the trackers more than redeemed themselves in taking us to the bonobo nesting site in the morning twilight. Again, we reclined against a tree where slept a youngster.
He woke up, and, as boys are wont to do, had a morning piss, from very great heights. They were scattered across quite a wide area and through my binoculars I could see them quietly awake and stretch and enjoy a contemplative leaf breakfast in the golden morning light. Got up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head. As the day lightened, they abandoned their beds and grazed on branches and leaves. A female reclined at the end of branch that seemed too slight to support her, languidly masticating. After awhile another female approached, with an outstretched supplicating hand. On this narrow branch, 50m up, they somehow exchanged positions and then the first bonobo came back, almost as an afterthought, and they vigorously rubbed their genitals together for about half a minute before going back to their feeding. It was actually rather perfunctory, more a friendly morning greeting than lesbian sex inferno.

Bonobos not doing lesbian sex inferno (Photo- Martin Bendeler)

The bonobos began to head down towards the swamp to wash and forage for food, brachiating through the canopy. I was taken aback to look through my binoculars and see a bonobo make a complicated aerial maneuver around a heavily vegetated treetop. More so, because I didn't move my binoculars and saw another bonobo follow and perform the exact same sequence in the same place. It was as if they were following a well-traveled highway and they had come to a turnpike. A very high way, with a triple turn in the pike position. As they got closer to the swamp, they began to descend lower and lower, some performing the patented bonobo express elevator drop, others a shimmy. One female showed Michael Jackson parenting skills, plunging at least 10 metres to a lower branch with a baby clinging for dear life (or fun) to her belly. The swamp terrain became very difficult, with clinging, thorny vines, sinking leaf litter over mud and streams, crumbling logs. Paul thought it best to wait in clearer ground for the bonobos to leave the swamp. The trackers invited me to join them, so I plunged in, hoping to see the bonobos on the ground, where they could interact more.

Felt honoured to follow Leonard's lead as he quietly, effortlessly, glided through the tangle, sans machete, following the bonobo signs- hair, fruit, dung, urine scent, distant calls. The bonobos were always just a little bit ahead. Until at one point I looked up from navigating a swampy section that was all roots, mud and leaf litter to see a bonobo climb down a tree 10 metres away, look at me in startlement, and vanish into the viney undergrowth.
All the bonobos and all the trackers (and friends) homed in on a particular clearing, the bonobos to siesta, the others to wait for them to wake up. The bonobos would greet each arriving group crashing through the canopy with hoots of happiness.

For a good long while we watched entranced.

Tuesday 22 November 2005

I heard a rising hubbub down the village path. Initially I thought maybe the peasants were massing with pitchforks and torches to lynch us on account of Arne's satanic frog rituals and Mephistolean eyebrows and beard. Turns out it was democracy on the move.

Democracy on the move (Photo- Martin Bendeler)

Voter registration. Computer database. Biometrics fingerprint and digital photograph. Dell laptop in protective foam casing. In a BCI community centre using BCI generator and UHF radio. The 4 person team had walked from Djolu, with porters and Two policemen. Long line. 3-5 per hour. 10,000 to register in this area alone.
Registration to continue well into December. A young man had set up a stall on a table selling combs, razorblades, antibiotic cream, 50 cent torches and small mirrors.
Democracy's camp follower. Some pigs wandered around. I think I saw some bonobos waiting patiently in line to register. They're very intelligent, you know.

Two CREF (Centre for Ecological and Forestry Research) researchers arrived by bike from Wamba. They do most of the legwork for the Japanese, who treat them quite poorly. The University of Kyoto team seem, not entirely unreasonably, more devoted to research than bonobo conservation, with its attendant community development imperatives. But hard to do research on dead bonobos….

More bonobo observations from Congolese field researchers-

The alpha male makes most of the major decisions- when to wake up and when to sleep, when to move on from feeding or napping, threat assessment and response, territorial defence etc. However, the alpha female, who may often be the mother of the alpha male (kind of a King and Queen Mother type of monarchy) and some of his allies, has a veto and noone will follow the alpha male if she doesn't. The alpha female is the only group member permitted to groom the alpha male. Bonobos will always fight if another group violated their territorial integrity, often inflicting deep wounds, but never killing, let alone the brutal mutilation characteristic of chimp conflicts. Group encounters between fractured groups (when one splits from another) are peaceful. There is never any serious violence within the group.

Leonard said that while he could not confirm the veto power of the female, the alpha male definitely made most of the decisions. Moreover, when the group moved, one male would always take the point while another would bring up the rear. He considered the current alpha, Raphael, was on his way out as he was getting older and had moved from the fore to the rear.

After Japanese ended provisioning, the bonobos ranging much further, sometimes more than 20kms in a day. Much harder to analyse group dynamics as most observations now are made of arboreal behaviour. Very hard to track on ground. The war reduced the size of their study group from 45 to 23.
The African researchers said that while provisioning continued, there was no research or even interest in the extent of bonobo range or their territory.
With provisioning or captivity, the closer proximity to each other leads to different outcomes than in the wild. For example- when an alpha chimp is about to completely go off his rocker over something, he will stand and sway for about 10 seconds, his eyes will glaze over and then heaven help whoever gets in his way. However, in captivity, there is often time for for females to quickly remove all possible weapons from near the alpha before he starts his rampage. In the wild, with wider foraging, this cannot happen.

Similarly, key aspects of bonobo behaviour may depend on the conditions in which their livelihood is obtained. It could well be that the complex shared responsibilities and checks and balances between the sexual leadership that prevails when open ranging for food is warped when food is centrally located. Perhaps almost a reverse of human history, where settled agriculture allowed powerful men to establish violent monopolies over land and by extension, food and women.
Strange to think of the bonobo alpha male, emasculated by Japanese provisioners. All his responsibilities- directing the troop, guarding the perimeter- made redundant by a sedentary lifestyle.

Half jokingly thought that it was not the end of provisioning that brought about moreviolently territorial behaviour but the contemporaneous outbreak of war. Maybe the bonobos were influenced by human behaviour to become more defensive and less trusting. Also thought that maybe the war may not have been the only reason for the reduction in Wamba bonobo numbers. Perhaps pre-war, the bonobos had been smart enough to migrate from other areas for the free Japanese food and then they returned to their traditional ranges after provisioning ceased….

Thursday 24 November 2005

Packed our bags and headed back to the boat, down the village path and then through the jungle. Probably about a 10km walk. Fortunately, we had half the village employed as porters. Normally you wouldn't think people would be tripping over themselves to carry heavy objects long distances, but cash is so scarce here that any opportunity is leapt upon. It is as if they are living in a permanent Great Depression. I felt guilty not carrying a single thing while children carried my stuff for probably less than 25 cents. But 25 cents was the only money they were likely to see for a very long time.

Arrived at the river around 3pm and settled in. We would sleep there, then leave at first light to get through the difficult upper reaches of the river.
I dived into the river and let the swift flow take me a short distance until I hooked my hand around a protruding branch. I just lay on my back like that in the cool water, with my head tilted back at the sky and my feet dragged forward by the current. Incipient storm clouds raced across the sky, jagged layers of gray, and high high up tiny birds darted and hunted and I wondered why insects would fly so high. Couldn't tell if the rushing noise in my head was my blood or the river but it cleared my thoughts while the river held me aloft in its embrace. Thought how wonderful this place was, how wonderful I felt, how I would be leaving but how I wanted to come back. Thought again of the bonobos. How they had regarded me impassively. How they had thrown sticks and howled at Paul today. How the African researchers had said there is a newfound awareness of bonobo territoriality. How I didn't go and see them when I had more opportunities to do so because of this sense of intrusion. Yet how I wanted to see them again and, moreover bring others to see them, if only to raise money and awareness to protect them. I understood now why hunter-gatherer cultures have rituals and ceremonies to placate and reconcile with the animals they depend upon. Lying in the river, I realised I needed the shaman's help and vowed to talk to him when I returned.

Friday 25 November 2007,

Charles’ helpers untied the twined mooring vines and we set off. The river was racing, cluttered with trees fallen when the wet season rains weakened their root structures.
No river banks, just branches and mangroves and serrated reeds. Everyone could see the jutting branch but noone could do anything about it. Like an iceberg, the innocuous looking exposed branch had a substantial tree submerged beneath it. Like the Titanic, we had too much momentum to swerve away. It cleaved down the middle of the two boats, with much cracking, creaking and shaking, til eventually it had us snagged good and proper. Unlike the Titanic, that was the worst of it. Almost. The prow of the boat bumped into the riverside, waking up a hive of slumbering wasps, who were definitely not morning insects. They homed in like smart bombs on the exposed skin of our crew, who hopped about slapping and launching cloudy fusillades of insecticide spray that only seemed to drive the endless friends of the waspy dead into vengeful wrath. But Charles and his crew took it all in their stride and soon we were on our way again, the swift pace downriver in the morning light, a marked contrast to the painful crawl in the night when we arrived.

Good to be back on the river again. After mentally editing out the drone of the outboard motor, I am left blessed with swathes of soothing green around me, the rain of most of Africa distilled and gurgling and giggling below me, and the vast shifting sky of sun and clouds and mist and dawns and sunsets above me.
Like before, I lie back in my bed and take it all in. However, I am still haunted by bonobos, if that is the right word. Her eyes, looking back over her shoulder directly at me, still resonate in my mind. I don’t know what they are telling meacknowledgement? Puzzlement? Go away? Probably nothing in particular, but I still see them. I sometimes flatter myself to think she is probably in the canopy now, absentmindedly stripping a branch of leaves and trying to figure out my strange blue eyes. At any rate, I’ve got some issues to sort out. Apparently last night I screamed for about 3 seconds in my sleep. Don’t think I’ve ever done that before. Colobus monkeys tracked alongside us for awhile, slightly querulous-looking despite being garbed in the most resplendent of shaggy black and white coats. Chimps eat them. Starting to think bonobos might, too.

Iridescent kingfishers. Black Kites soaring river thermals.
The boat skids across the sunken treetops, shuddering as branches scrape along the hull.
We’ve got one less boat this time, and three less hitchhikers. Nina is on board again to cook, while Charles has his helpers- Meda and someone else. We are also taking Valentin. She is about 20 and heading to Kinshasa to study nursing. She already has a diploma in teaching. It’s good to promote further education in the village, especially among women. The specific development needs of women are so evident and compelling that I sometimes find myself sounding a bit like Stan in the Monty Python Life of Brian (“What is it with you and women, Stan?, “I want to be one. From now on, I want you all to call me Loretta….”). What is it with you and women, Martin?

Along the path to the river yesterday, many villagers came out to say goodbye. At one bend, I met four or five young men, 18 or 19. One said to me in Lingala that his name was also Martin and he shyly offered me an egg in expectant reciprocation, though I really had no place or use for an egg. His friend surprised me with English, albeit strained- “His name…Martin, too. He says you are brothers. He says please help him…because he has”, then the most heartbreaking pause, stutter and sigh, “...n-n-nnothing.”
It sums it all up, really, doesn’t it? I would start a stampede if I started handing out money so therefore carried none, but I definitely will do all I can to help these people, for their own sake, for my own sake and for the sake of the bonobos.

I don’t think I quite explained just how beautiful the bonobos are. They have a presence, a dignity, a gravitas, that you expect in gorillas. A powerful posture, eyes that are languid, intelligent and contemplatative. Hard to describe their face- placid? Stern? Open? Impassive? Most definitely striking, with dark smooth skin, expressive mouths, and a flop of characteristic middle-parted hair. There is no mistaking the regal bearing of Raphael and Suzie, the alpha male and female respectively, nor their powerful build and carriage. The bulk of one older feller’s mass had descended from his shoulders and chest to settle comfortably around his middle.

Vivisectionists may coldly say they are not as heavy as chimpanzees, and they may have a reputation for affection, but nothing about them at all suggests effete weakness. They are big and broad and strong, muscle on muscle. Both the males and females project power and authority. These are not simpering sex apes. But they do have an unmistakable elegance. Their movements are deliberate. They unfurl their arms and legs, draping themselves over forest angles, and then you see the longest and most graceful hands- from finger to palm, as long as my forearm. If need be, they can hang effortlessly from their very fingertips. Their feet are mirrors of their hands and they lazily pluck shoots and leaves and fruit with them. They can make love hanging upside down by their feet, 50m above the ground. Need I say more?
Makes you ache that you cannot move with such freedom in an environment so wonderful. Makes you curse the poverty of your two-dimensional world.
They seem completely at home in the environment and, what’s more, they very clearly look like they know it.

Fishing camp- (Photo- Martin Bendeler)

The moonless night was so dark that boatman Charles ordered torches off so as not to interfere with his spotlighting of corners, bends and obstacles. I closed my eyes for awhile and when I opened them I saw we were bearing down directly on riverside foliage and everybody was shouting, “Slow down! Slowly!”. But this was a controlled collision. Charles could smell a storm on the wind and wanted to lash the boat and tarps down before it hit. Again, there was another fisherman’s camp here, but we were hunkered down in the boat and didn’t say hello. But the storm took its time in coming, just a faint flicker and tremble on the horizon, and the fishermen started singing. Over a metallic tapping rhythm they harmonized something beautiful, with calls and repeats, falsettos, and even a bit of toasting. I lay in the boat and cursed the incapacitation of my PDA for I would have loved to have recorded it, but after about 15 minutes I thought “F*ck it”, stepped into my trousers and clambered over sleeping bodies, past Nina and Valentin doing the washing up, under the tarp, scuttled up the steep undergrowth on the vertical riverbank to the flicker of firelight through the banana leaf door of the fishermen’s hut. The singing ceased and four faces, all hearthlight and shadows, turned up to look at me in surprise. It could have been a young father with three sons, or just four friends, but they were lying on simple bamboo bed frames, tapping their fishing knives and keeping out the storm and the night with their singing and their fire, above which they were smoking fish. The youngest look about 9, though malnutrition could have given a 13 year old such an oversized head and skinny body. He sang with an easy authority for one so young. Two older boys reclined on a cot, somewhat entwined in a comradely fashion. On a log, on the far side of the fire, a man old enough to have a moustache provided bass and over-dub rap/toasting/chuckling.

They indicated for me to clap along and I did my best, despite my incurable unco ordination. The music was unmistakably African, though every now again I would pick up a “Hallelujah”, “Amen”, “Adam”, “Eve”, “Jesus”, “Three days risen” and detected the legacy of sneaky Jesuits. But later I also picked up the lingala words for “Bad Woman” and “Big Troubles” and realized I was getting first gospel and then the blues. And there was also a definite jazz sensibility to it, too, with the lead being thrown with a nod from one person to the other, while everybody else provided structure and embellishments, and callbacks. Back in the boat, we had almost thought we were listening to a professional choir. But with no television, radio, or even neighbours, every smattering of fishers on this river probably passed their time enjoying and honing their songs and stories. Wonderfully easy to get lost in the Mandelbrot embers, the rhythm and the camaraderie.

After an indeterminate period of time, one of the guys reached out to prod the fire and I touched his arm to show him the little wad of money I had left on the a log. Our eyes met in acknowledgement and I left through the banana leaf door to the waiting darkness and boat. Their singing didn’t stop. In fact, now they were singing for us rather than just themselves, their raised voices bridging the darkness, the storm, the thunder, to us in the boat. I don’t think I have had a more beautiful lullaby since I was a baby….

Sunday 27 November 2005

Inspired singing last night. Tonight we are accompanied by distant detonations of lightning for hours on end, flaring celestial grace over and over again. As I drift to sleep, light caresses my closed eyelids to remind me of the wonders I am missing and I am compelled to sleepily watch the sky dance for me some more.

28/11
Endless green canyon. Wide limpid liquid obsidian. Progress slowed due to petrol rationing arising from combination of poor engine placement and earlier petrol
snafflement by the electoral commission. Lost in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s biography and teaching a one-rand piece to cartwheel over my knuckles. According to schedule, we should have arrived in Mbandaka this evening to complete our epic journey. But how do you make the African gods laugh? Tell them your plans. Instead, we’ve pulled into another little fishing camp for dinner and children singing and a sky full of fireflies, bats and stars and the flicker of distant lightning in at least three cardinal points and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. A four year old keeping impeccable rhythm on an old blue plastic motor oil container. A mother, little more than a girl herself, joyfully carries the tune, with a horde of children accompanying. One tiny toddler, barely old enough to walk, was doing a bouncy baby dance in the middle and, out of sympathy, joined me in my pedestrian 1-2 clapping, rather than the polyrhythms running through everybody else’s veins. A baby pet monkey, a red-tailed guenon named Kiki, ran around making mischief, dragging a long string tethered to a small stick like a ball and chain.

The lightning that was before merely an atmospheric backdrop to the night clouds that thickly collared the horizon eventually became a shock-and-awe display, the fee-fi-fofum of an approaching giant storm. We bunkered down in the boat, patching leaks and prodding away pooling rainwater, as lightning exploded through the blue tarp like falling shells. Thus, I fell asleep in yet another night of unexpected wonders.