Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
“I was so overwhelmed at the time,” Sally told me. “There was this huge network—a matrix
of people and connections I was maneuvering and weaving together. Most people got confused and
lost in the situation, and Michael just got it.”
In July, when she was about to return to the Congo for the National Geographic-funded exped-
ition to Wamba, BCI was growing, its phone ringing frequently, and Michael offered to stay at her
place and keep tabs on things while she was gone.
In the Congo, Dr. Mwanza and Albert had been organizing the details of the trip. Albert had
already left the Red Cross when Sally received a grant from the US Fish and Wildlife Service to
do surveys of bonobos at Kokolopori, the first step toward a possible protected area and all that it
entailed. He had decided that he wanted to dedicate himself fully to Vie Sauvage.
But wartime challenges remained, and when Albert arrived in Djolu, he was carrying a GPS to
help prepare for the bush plane flight that Sally and the expedition members would take to Wamba.
He had papers giving him permission to travel,
un ordre de mission
—a longtime formality in the
Congo, used by Mobutu to keep outsiders out of his more profitable or restive areas, and continued
during the war, the military forces being deeply wary of spies. Albert carried
un ordre de mission
from the Red Cross as well as one from a military general, but he was worried that the GPS would
attract attention. He met up with several of his brothers at Djolu and continued on toward Yalokole.
Only when he arrived at a military roadblock and his brothers walked past, ignoring the soldiers,
was the party stopped and interrogated. The soldiers examined the GPS and his travel documents,
but they couldn't find fault in his explanation. Nonetheless, to show their power and demand re-
spect, they had Albert's brothers strip and lie facedown on the road. They whipped them to show
Albert not to be too confident of his power, he supposed, but they also spared him because he was
protected. Then they returned the GPS and his papers, and he and his brothers continued on.
The state in which Albert found his people stunned him. Almost no one had clothes. The cassava
fields had virtually vanished back into forest, having been dug up repeatedly by soldiers and not re-
planted. Sally would see the same thing upon her arrival with the expedition. The people appeared
shrunken, many of them sick, having contracted AIDS from the occupying soldiers. The two closest
friends Sally had made in 1994 were half sisters Francine and Maki, whose father, Papa Bandja,
had helped Takayoshi Kano set up his camp in the seventies. Both sisters died of AIDS after being
raped, and Papa Bandja, their father, had been shot and killed outside his home by soldiers, men
with whom he had disagreed—over what, Sally didn't know.
She had planned to return with Dr. Furuichi and Dr. Mwanza to the moribund Japanese research
camp in Wamba, which was now occupied by four soldiers who terrorized the people, threatening
them if they weren't fed and taking their daughters as servants. That February, Sally had finally met
with President Kabila, and though he'd agreed to give her ten minutes, they'd spoken for two hours,
discussing the Bonobo Peace Forest and the conceptual link between conserving natural resources,
stabilizing local communities, and helping maintain peace within the country. When she told him
about the occupied research camp, he arranged for her to be accompanied by a high-ranking officer
who would ensure the security of the expedition and ask the soldiers in Wamba to leave.
Upon the expedition's arrival in the camp, the officer greeted the soldiers, inviting them to drink
lotoko
. They sat together near the dilapidated buildings, the day muggy. He gradually befriended
the men before explaining to them that the site was a government research center. By the order of
the president, he said, they had to leave. After a tense moment, the soldiers agreed and gathered
their possessions, bundles of objects they had stolen from the villagers.
