i go to the jungle.
Tuesday November 4th, 2003
I went to the Gorilla Habituation Project in Kungulu on Sunday, and got back this afternoon. I went with Matthew, who works for the John’s Hopkins project that is starting up in Ngoyla. His family came for a visit, and this was the first stop. The project is part of CIAD’s efforts (think CIAD, think George). There are two villages where there are ongoing habituation efforts. Karagua, and Kungulu. Karagua was nixed because the village chief has fired one of the trackers (even though he isn’t really their employer, and actually, he didn’t have a problem with the tracker, it was his brother..but things work a bit differently here), so Kungulu it was. The idea of the project is to get the Gorillas used to human presence, so they won’t run away, as they do now.. so that tourists will come, and bring that filthy lucre with them. No one has been able to successfully habituate the Western Lowland Gorilla to date, but that is what they are trying to do.
So, Sunday evening we head off. The roads are getting worse, and in the dark it wasn’t very clear where we were going. After about 45 minutes, and a few questions, we get to Karagua. We get out at the chiefs house, he welcomes us. He is surprised that we are there, but happy. We sit around his house, exchanging small talk for about an hour or so. My being with GECEC, and being there to take pictures of the project both score big-time. He is very excited. We make some awkward exchanges of gifts.. well, we bring them some basic supplies for the village is what really happens. Soap, rice, cheap wine, salt. The chief then discusses the idea that with the proper motivation, the local women want to dance and sing for us. Motivation costs about 2,000 CFA a bottle, and is probably 80 proof. 5 bottles are suggested. 2 are purchased, with the wine acting as the remaining motivator. The official head of the Kungulu Motivation Department showed up. If I get this right, he is basically the designated drinker. He was totally ripped, and in charge of getting other people to his state. It was almost ceremonial, his drunkenness that is, and seemed to be held in high esteem. He definitely was in charge of doling out the libations, which was a task he did with aplomb. The dancing and singing commenced, as we told them we were getting tired. It seemed to be something that was an every day occurrence.. I mean, there was nothing else to do at night. No electricity, no water, no transportation..but moonshine and drums. I watched for about a half hour, and slowly backed away to go to bed.. .which was on a flat board in one of the tracker’s houses. The singing and dancing continued for many hours.
Sunday night is Meflaquine night, and Monday morning is the ensuing stomach ache, and explosive release caused by the medicine. I forgot to ask where the hole in the ground was located… I really need to get better at this going into the bush thing. I also, like a total dumbass, forgot to cover myself in mosquito repellant. At about 4 in the morning my bowels told me that I had to find that hole in the ground. The moon was full, and with minimal stumbling.. I found the hut with the hole. Now if I had only remembered to bring the toilet paper as well. Good thing that there are plenty of leaves lying around in the jungle.
I stayed up, and watched the sun rise, and the mist break. Now that was absolutely fantastic. The village slowly woke up, people headed to the fields. We started to prepare for our departure. The idea being that morning is a good time to see some Gorillas, and Chimpanzees (rumor had it that there were Chimps around the camp). Then the final of the 3 trackers who was to go out with us showed up. He didn’t think we should go out. He said we had to have a paper from CIAD authorizing us to go. He also wanted to wait until their liaison (Achilles) was going to come down. I told them that we couldn’t find Achilles in Lomié before we left, and that he had last been seen at a funeral, and the roads were bad, so probably wasn’t heading down. None of this seemed to work. Matthew and I played a bit of good cop, bad cop. The chief wanted us to go (a bird in hand) and the other guy was insistent. I suggested that we send the car back to Lomié to fetch Achilles, while we headed into the bush. This seemed to work, somewhat...but again rebuffed. Matthew then laid out the strong bargaining position. We will indeed go back to Lomié to get this mythical paper signed, but instead of coming back to Kungulu, we would go to Karagua. That settled it. The chief was not going to lose this deal.. and have his authority challenged. We headed out 15 minutes later (turns out Achilles didn’t even go down the whole week).
The camp site was about 4 kilometers into the bush. This is hardcore jungle. I find the jungle to be..well, not beautiful. It is, rather, full of beautiful things. Overall though, it is too much for the senses to comprehend, and the beauty lies in the details. It is so thick that you can’t look at the canopy while walking. You pretty much can’t look at anything except the next step… if you don’t, pow. Face, meet ground. Machetes are being used the whole way to hack at the vines that cover everything. The ground is the same red earth, but covered in dead leaves, dead branches, fungus, flowers, bushes, roots, and whatever else can possibly exist. There were several streams, and bogs that we had to cross. I have a great pair of hiking boots. They are pretty much the state of the art, waterproof super boots. I would have happily traded them for the crappy rubber boots that all people who really tromp around in the Jungle wear. I was covered in mud up to my knees after the first two streams. I was totally soaked after the first kilometer.. top half in sweat, bottom half in mud. You have to wear long sleeve shirts in the Jungle, or you will get bitten, torn, or otherwise abused. I only had a thick shirt, and was paying the price.
We made it to the camp, which was a little clearing in the jungle populated by a few huts. We dropped our stuff off, rested a few minutes, and went out looking for Gorillas. We split into two groups. I went back into the boggy, dense part, near the plantain plantations where the Gorillas had been recently seen destroying the young plants to eat the tender insides. 3 hours of grueling cross country hacking and slashing produced: 3 paw prints (which were actually recognizable) a few nests, some eaten fruits, and several piles of Gorilla shit. It was fantastic. I had my camera, and was mostly shooting photos. I have some images that are pretty fantastic. We got back to the camp, totally wiped out. We waited around for the other group, who came back with similar near miss stories. It takes the trackers a few days to find the most recent tracks, then luck… pretty much. Matthew’s Cameroonian girlfriend picked mushrooms while hiking, and we set about making dinner and setting up the tents. Well, to be honest, I didn’t do much of anything, except take some pictures and chat. There wasn’t really much I could do to be helpful, so I didn’t bother. I did however, manage to get bitten by every mosquitoes around. I came out with almost 70-100 welts. Some were from the ferocious ants that.. are really mean…but most were Mosquitoes. The moon came up early, and was stunningly beautiful. It was full, and lit the sky like a lantern. We ate our rice and mushroom gruel for dinner, had some bread, and watched the fire slowly burn out. At the very late hour of, maybe 8, we all crashed out. I, of course, the epitome of preparedness, didn’t bring a sheet for sleeping.. or really, any clean clothes… so I pretty much slept in my soaking wet jungle clothes on the ground. I slept just fine.
I was the first one up again.. at around 5, and watched the sun come up again. After a breakfast of tea, bread and more rice for those who wanted it, we packed up, and headed back out. We took anther route out, which took a few hours of trekking. Less streams, and more flowers, and more Gorilla tracks. The path outlet into the Baka village that is next to Kungulu. We chatted with the Baka a bit, took some pictures, and headed back to the car. On the way, I saw a giant black and white monkey swinging from the trees. He was moving to fast for me to get footage, but he was pretty amazing nonetheless. In town, a man who had a pet monkey, wanted me to take a picture of him with it. I have a bunch of photos of that monkey. I go to the jungle, and have to take pictures of tied up monkeys… what is that all about?