Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
My right hand clutched the side window, and after one such plunge through undergrowth, a dozen
dark thorns decorated the skin of my forearm like pins in a map.
As usual, children charged from the huts that occasionally lined the road, screaming and waving.
Parents and older siblings grabbed toddlers who didn't know better and ran forward, sensing that
the vehicle was the source of excitement.
I only feared for my own safety once, when we rushed around a curve and came upon a hand-
some black duck sleeping in a tuft of grass. Jean-Pierre swerved, veering wildly against the forest,
the two right tires falling into a deep rut hidden in the weeds. The bone-jarring drop would have
been frightening enough: my knees slamming against the back door, the bumper sagging, the Land
Cruiser pitching suddenly at an angle, the forest lashing us, its branches bent and released with a
sound like a thumb moving over a deck of cards. But then the Land Cruiser bucked as we left the
rut, and our feet rose briefly from the bumper as we hugged the metal. After a few fishtails, we
settled back into the two shallower ruts of the dusty path.
I was grateful when we neared Yalokole and the villagers ran out, stopping us. They shouted
and waved palm fronds, then loaded Sally and Alan into chairs and heaved them up, all the while
singing, sweat streaming down their faces. The entire village ran, Michael and I taking photographs,
jogging as the people—hands reaching from all directions to steady the wooden chairs—shuttled
their guests into the village.
At least thirty girls, some as young as five or six, most in their teens, began singing and dancing
in a large circle around boys who pounded the drums. This went on for hours, the girls slightly
crouched as they shuffled forward, behinds lifted, raffia tied at the base of their spines and swishing
like tails to the rhythm of their hips.
To get out of the sun, we sat in the large village
paillote
as people carved up pineapple and
brought forest fruit the size of small apples—red, with large pits and a thin layer of sweet pulp—and
others that they told me the bonobos loved, resembling thick red string beans, their hard pods con-
taining a peppery white mash around black seeds.
On the other side of the
paillote
, the mothers began dancing. Their song was much quieter,
without the hoots and calls, the blown whistles of the younger women. Sally joined the mothers,
raffia tied to her waist. The song was so hushed that when I went to record it, I could barely hear
it over the lively cries on the other side of the
paillote
. Did this say something about motherhood
here? The villages were crowded with children, and the mothers were fatigued, cooking, watching
over their offspring, constantly working. Maybe the hushed dance of the mothers, with their side-
ways shuffle and hands softly, dryly clapping, told of the quiet work that went on behind society,
underpining it. Whereas the young women danced in a circle, turning out as often as they turned
in, the mothers faced inward, often silently taking a step, falling in toward each other with another
faint hand clap, then drawing back again.
One of BCI's cornerstones is Information Exchange, developed by everyone involved with BCI,
under the guidance of Sally and Alden Almquist, who brought a PhD in anthropology and long ex-
perience in the forests of the DRC to bear in introducing many of the activity's core principles. For
Information Exchange, the BCI staff met with the local people and asked them questions about their
culture and goals, then described their own vision so as to learn how the villagers perceived it. I
once asked Michael what made it special—why the emphasis on it? Was it just to have knowledge
of where the bonobos live and the people's attitudes toward them? He explained that too often in
