Sokwe

Chimpanzee.

An exhausting but excellent day.

Gombe is more critter-y than most places. A large orange centipede ran over my hand in the night and my subsequent investigations revealed various other creatures. I engaged in some vigorous tucking-in of the mosquito net.

After a stodgy breakfast to provide energy, I set out early with one of the Gombe government-appointed guides, who is a good egg, a Manchester United supporter and whose wife lives down the lake in Kigoma. We had a memorable hike around some of the sights of Gombe, which is a very small but very lovely National Park.

Jane Goodall’s vibe is strong at Gombe, due to her commitment and tenacity in those early days of chimp research in the 1960s. We visited the feeding station established by Jane to habituate chimpanzees for study, which was discontinued in 2000 to avoid unintended consequences such as transmission of human diseases to the animals. We walked up to the mesmerising Kakombe waterfall and the high point known as Jane’s Peak, now identified by a picnic bench but the spot from which she used to survey chimpanzee troop territories and behaviour. Walking the Gombe trails is enjoyable but the interactions with chimpanzees were of course the most magical part of the day. We were lucky to get two separate long stints with the same family group as they moved around the forest. The allure felt by Jane Goodall that led her to spend years allowing the chimpanzees to adjust to her presence is understandable, although she had a level of discipline that most of us couldn’t match.

It was fascinating to see the chimps in their natural habitat, as they really do ignore the presence of humans no matter how close they get. The best practice is to remain at least ten metres from them, which requires lots of backing up steep paths when they come and plonk down two metres away. Most of the time they were in tall trees, but I could make out lots of interesting things: babies playing, a female in heat attracting a male who eventually succumbed to her charms and mated with her for a few seconds, the sleepy face of a female resting in a tree nook, and the constant chatter, shouts and grumbles within the group. Later we found them higher up the slope and had very close views of fruit-eating, mutual grooming and the use of sticks to ‘fish’ ants from holes (a behaviour that was first documented here by Jane Goodall).

Unfortunately I have no photos of the key moments because my phone is spasming and auto-pressing a million buttons whenever it is anywhere near moisture. I have to stash it periodically in a dry bag and hope it returns to normal. Being in the moment was the most important thing. No one really wants to see two hundred of someone else’s chimp photos.

For most of the afternoon I hung around on the narrow strip of beach on the Lake Tanganyika shore. Baboons have also been habituated here for study and it was unnerving how close they would come to prowl for spoils and see what items they could pinch. On a path I had to walk down, two females were grooming and didn’t register or move an inch when I passed one metre away. Baboon incisors are usually to be seen with some trepidation. Another moment of uniqueness at Gombe.

The monkeys leaping about at the Park base were even more entertainment as the sun set. Another finding that Jane Goodall pioneered was the realisation that chimpanzees are not peaceful vegetarians. They are now known to regularly kill and eat colobus monkeys, and even young baboons.

I was invited to dinner of fish, rice and salad by Zabibu, the researcher who finished her PhD in Glasgow a few months ago and who has got a job at Gombe as Deputy Director of Baboon Research. It was comforting discussing shared NGO challenges and I hope we can become good sounding boards for each other. Our discussion gave me more impetus to throw myself back into work next week, as the end of the break has been looming over like a malignant cloud.

It was interesting hearing of Zabibu’s experiences with the dreaded UK Home Office, which she describes with much more grace than I would. She was funded to complete her PhD on Serengeti wildebeest by British government scholarship schemes, the clauses of which permitted visas for dependent spouses and children. The UK refused the dependents visa for her three-year old son three times, citing that children would normally be accompanied by both a mother and a father. The Home Office operates in the 1950s with regard to how it views parents who have separated, no doubt viewing it more socially unacceptable for a foreigner to be a single parent compared to the vast numbers of Brits who manage it successfully. She almost had to abandon her studies before the chancellor of the university intervened directly with the Home Office.

After several years of masters and PhD studies, she was offered a paid postdoctoral position in Glasgow but the working visa was refused on the basis that she needs to leave the country for a year (which isn’t how postdocs work) because a clause in the initial scholarship agreement indicated that at the end of the PhD the student visa arrangement would be terminated. This is very anal when the capacity the UK has been so keen to build has led directly to a job offer that will retain skills and contribute taxes to the UK economy. God forbid a foreigner is allowed to work more permanently in the UK on their own merit.

The UK is paranoid that foreigners arriving a) find any excuse to also bring along their mother-in-law’s cousin’s dog to milk the system, and b) do whatever they can to illegitimately remain in the country. The Home Office is so busy viewing every motivation with paranoia that they cannot see the talented academic for the stench of their own political propaganda. With the gay abandon and murderous intent with which the UK has operated around the world, this is not a good look.

I know blip isn’t a hotbed of nationalism and anti-immigrant rhetoric, but anyone who understands and endorses the British government’s position on immigration, please pipe up to aid my comprehension.