Lodja education program
Category: Uncategorized | Date: Feb 28 2008 | By: admin
A few months ago, when someone said Lodja, I thought of this little impish face. 
All the bonobos at Lola are named after a town, or a province in Congo. As most of you have seen from the post before last, there’s been a disturbing new influx of orphans coming from Lodja, the town.
Claudine, along with the amazing Pierrot Mbonzo, have begun a education program in Lodja. Pierrot is one of my favourite people. He’s always cheerful, but he’s working in one of the most dangerous places for bonobos in Congo.
This is little Kata when she first came in. Pierrot went to Lodja to rescue her, as well to rescue Lomela, and several other times for bonobos who didn’t make it to the sanctuary.
The new release site was planned to be on an island near Lodja, but after Pierrot’s investigation, Claudine decided the bonobos who were released there probably wouldn’t make it.
The local population believe that eating bonobo meat will help pregnant women give birth to a healthy baby, and that bathing a new born baby in water with bonobo bones will help the baby grow strong.
With these kinds of beliefs and of course the bushmeat trade running rampant, an education program in Lodja is crucial. We want to set up bonobo clubs in the schools, set up meetings with the hunters, and educate the community through city meetings and radio messages.
Trips to Lodja are expensive so we’re asking for donations to put towards Pierrot’s next trip to the region. Anything helps!
ps. thanks this month to Annette R and Maciej G who have both set up monthly donations to Lola!
conservation through education…
Category: Uncategorized | Date: Feb 19 2008 | By: admin
Wow, I’m so impressed and thankful that people were so fired up about the last post. i wrestle with a lot of the same thoughts that everyone had, and by that i mean sometimes I just want to lock up all the people who are torturing and eating bonobos, and then other times I think it’s my fault for living in a country that was and still is part of the rape of the Congo’s resources. I’ve had 3 mobile phones over the past 12 months, with a coltan chip that almost certainly came from Congo. Sometimes I don’t recycle paper, which indirectly is responsible for the huge trees that are being dragged out of Congo on the back of trucks. Before I worked in Congo I never heard about, or thought to investigate the war that killed more people than any war since world war II. Or the 400,000 women (that we know about) who were raped by foreign soldiers. 
www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/0,5538,13738,00.html
So yes, they’re eating bonobos. But the wonderful thing about Claudine is that she doesn’t blame anyone. She’s not angry at the Congolese, and having lived in DRC for 50 years, she’s practically Congolese herself. Claudine is always looking forward, and there is an action plan for Lodja, that you guys can all help with. More on that next post.
Disturbing news from Lodja
Category: Uncategorized | Date: Feb 12 2008 | By: admin
The following post is from Claudine:
‘Pierrot and Blaise are just back from a new educational mission in Lodja, in eastern Kasai province where Kata and Lomela are from. They are totally shocked and appalled by the situation in bushmeat trafficking. “But what can we do over there?” laments Pierrot. “Those people are wild about ape meat; the markets are crammed full of bushmeat! The people are encouraged to eat bonobo meat, especially if a woman is pregnant: they say the baby will be stronger for it!”
photo from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bonobos/
Information received by Theresa Hart (of the World Conservation Society, WCS), who has just come back from Kindu in nearby Maniema province, confirms my worries. And the primatologist Jonas Erikson tells me about the intensive poaching activity in the Salonga Parks – those national parks specially created for the bonobos in 1970 by President Mobutu!!!
The bushmeat traffic has dire consequences for humans too. Two cases of Ebola hemorrhagic fever have been reported in the province, addingmany “monkey pox” cases, a measles variety that is common in this zone… A word to the wise is enough!
Eleke much better
Category: bonobos | Date: Feb 03 2008 | By: admin
For those that remember little Eleke, I’ve just had a report that he’s doing well. Eleke was the bonobo rescued from someone using him for witchcraft, he was in terrible pain from having his teeth forcibly pulled out, and he also had lacerations around his groin from where he was tied with a leash.
His wounds are healed now, and he can eat and drink fine. He especially likes bananas and pineapple, and the mamas make sure he gets a lot of them. His mamas Yvonne and Micheline say he’s a very calm, sweet bonobo who never provokes the others. He’s always asking gently to be taken by the hand.
His new BFF (Best Friend Forever) is Lomela. She’s got the same temperament as him, in fact they’re from the same region of the Equateur. The mamas joke that they must be related.
Kata is throwing a few more tantrums than usual, having her BFF stolen by Eleke, but Eleke refuses to get drawn into the fight and usually claps Lolo around the waist, hiding from the storm.
This month, thank yous go to Theresa, who gave us $45, Cathy R, who gave us $40, and our monthly donors Baerbel and our friends at the Stuttgart Zoo ($70), Sheryl, Brigitta, and Annett ($10), Maciej G ($15), Kevin C ($20). You guys are all keeping Eleke in pineapples and Lolo cashed up with bananas:)
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