Friday, 13 April, 2007
"You don't mind being in the middle of the forest when it gets dark,
with just a compass to find the way, right?"
Brigham and I had left the trail a couple of hours before, as soon as we
heard the bonobos. Our 'Tim' trail was heading east, and we heard their
calls to the southwest. With our compasses, we followed that bearing
for a while, adjusting it accordingly when we heard subsequent calls.
We first found the bonobo group around the spot where we crossed the
north-south 'Meike-5' trail, and continued to follow them beyond that
trail. Once we were with the bonobos, I stopped watching my compass,
but knew simply that we were west of Meike-5.
The bonobos had decided it was time to stop feeding for the afternoon,
and had made the move from their feeding trees to their chosen nest site
for the night. I didn't see any of them descend to the ground; they
traversed the canopy with ease and eventually settled on a group of
trees in which to build their nests. Bizarrely, for this is the first
time this group has done it under our watch, they nested in the same
spot as two nights before. Brigham pointed out the exact spot where he
had observed them 48 hours ago; we stood there again and waited for the
rest of the bonobos in the vicinity to arrive.
It was then that we ran into Lambert and Papa Endu again - the two
Congolese bonobo workers who were also out following the bonobos for the
afternoon. When we don't know where the bonobos are, multiple people
often head out in the afternoon to different regions of the forest in
the hope that at least one of us hears and locates the group. Both
pairs of us found the same group that night. The four of us shared some
biscuits, drank some water, and noted the whereabouts of the nest site.
We wouldn't really be needing the compass after all, since my three
companions had been at this exact nest site over the previous days and
knew the way back to Meike-5 - it was only about 50m to the east. We
put our headlamps on and hiked the 8.5km or so back to camp.
That night, Brigham and I gossipped about Papa Endu. The man's somewhat
middle-aged, though I have no idea what his age actually is. His son is
also working at our camp, and is probably around 20. Papa Endu's been
around a while.
Compared with the other men who work for us, we both agree that Papa
Endu is a real charmer. It seems that he's always got a smile when he
makes a statement, and his statement is usually along the lines of
"such-and-such is very beautiful." He could be speaking of an inedible
fruit, a tree, an animal, a food, or whatever. Just always with a smile
and a charming voice: "ezali malamu mingi mingi!"
Papa Endu's first career, before he got a job at our camp following
bonobos around, was as a hunter. He's good with a shotgun, and equally
so with the bow and arrow. He knows our forest well because he spent
many years of his life hunting in it. Now, because of his job with us,
he's forbidden from even picking up a tortoise that crosses the path -
no matter how hard he pleads. (He got in big trouble one time, when he
saw a great bow-and-arrow-making tree just under a tree where bonobos
were, and instinctively walked up and started chopping it down.)
In my discussion with Brigham, we came to the conclusion that Papa Endu
is probably the person working for us who is best suited to the job, and
who likes working it the most. His job consists of walking the forest
trails that he's known for years, but without hunting anything. He's
obliged to locate and mark the nests where the bonobos were seen the
previous night, and he's obliged to track down the whereabouts of
bonobos whenever they've evaded us. He chuckles when he watches the
bonobo juveniles playing on the branches, swinging around or teasing one
another or whatever. And when we're elsewhere on the trail, he always
catches the slightest sound of other animals in the distance and points
them out.
Yesterday he took me down the trail that leads from our camp to our
drinking water stream, and pointed out where a small nocturnal antelope
was sleeping. He had shown me that spot several weeks before, but the
antelope wasn't in it that day. This time the little guy was there, all
curled up under some branches a few metres off of the trail, looking
back at us watching it. Apparently it's been nesting there for at least
a month now, despite the regular camp traffic going back and forth to
the stream. We obviously pose no threat, I guess. At night it goes and
does whatever it does, probably visiting LuiKotal. I have seen little
duikers around camp a couple of times - it may well be the same one.
I think Papa Endu honestly enjoys his job. I think he perceives it to
be somewhat of a vacation from the hunting vocation he's been accustomed
to thus far in his life: he gets to do much of the same stuff, but
without any of the hassle of actually succeeding in the hunt. He covers
a minimum of 15km a day in the forest, and always has several good meals
to eat.
Papa Endu still gets to track the animals, but rather than shoot them,
he points them out to us white folks who pull out our binoculars in vain
attempts to see the little bird or monkey or whatever that he hears
through the forest. He just chuckles as we traipse off the trail to get
a better look at a congo peacock, or as we spend 10 minutes staring at a
noisy mangabey. He'll just grab a big leaf, put it at the base of a
tree, and sit there chilling out with a smile as we observe the animals
he used to shoot.
Apparently, last night he almost caught a duiker (a small antelope) with
his bare hands. Even a charmer among the animals, the duiker was
somehow mesmerised by the light of his headlamp through the heavy rain
- Papa Endu approached gently and finally lunged for the animal's legs
at the last second. It jumped up, ran straight into the tree it was
standing against, and then towards Brigham. Papa Endu just yelled
"Brigham!," perhaps expecting Brigham to just wrap his arms around the
poor thing and pick it up. It got away, but the incident nonetheless
gave us yet another impression of Papa Endu's prowess in the forest. I
wonder what he would have done had he actually caught it?
Our workers generally stay at camp in two-week rotations, and Papa
Endu's is up in a few days. He's planning on returning to his family in
the village and spending the next couple of weeks hunting on their side
of the Lokoro. He's a good hunter and he knows it; he doesn't even want
to bring his sons along to get in his way - they don't need to know how
to hunt since he's capable enough to feed the whole family on his own.
I wonder if he goes out on his hunting outings with the same air about
him as on his bonobo outings with us. I have no doubt that his face
lights up with a big smile when he comes across a forest tortoise,
because that's so easy to catch, and is apparently very tasty. But does
he chuckle when he sees red colobus jump from tree to tree, before
shooting a couple down for dinner? Somehow I doubt it.
Our study site is an anomoly in the region because there is no regular
hunting of animals that goes on in it. Other stands of forest have a
similar range of animal species represented, but they essentially serve
as food pantries for various adjacent villages. In our forest, however,
the animals are allowed to just do their thing. There's not even any
wood cutting beyond a certain distance from camp, aside from some
limited trail clearing.
Nonetheless, our activity here effectively contributes to the adjacent
villages in different ways. We buy local produce from the local
agriculteurs, and we directly employ a lot of people both at camp and to
transport stuff to and from camp. They don't get as much fresh meat
from the forest we work in, but many people in the nearby villages are
still indirectly fed by this stretch of forest.
Although not everyone who lives in the area sees it as clearly as I make
it out to be, I think Papa Endu is one of the people who respects this
formula the most. He still gets to hunt sometimes, he still gets to
spend his days walking the forest, and he always has enough food to
eat. But with us he gets to enjoy the forest as it used to be, or
perhaps even as it is supposed to be. Instead of seeing the abundant
wildlife and thinking it would be great to hunt here, he sees the cause
and effect: not hunting is just what created that abundance. His
smiling statement to me as he pointed out the sleeping duiker sums it
up: "c'est le jardin des animaux ici!"
Yeah, I like that about our forest too: "it's the garden of the animals
here."
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