Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Bandundu is our naked ape. She loves being groomed, like some women love the feeling of getting waxed. The girls have obligingly pulled out nearly all her hair! She just had a new baby who is also almost bald - Bandundu reminds me of an australopithecine (is that how you spell it?) . Maybe this is what our ancestors looked like, carryign thier babies and walking through swamps.
I got this question from Karenhappywoman, and its a very good one: Hi, What a beautiful blog! I hope you don’t mind me having a little question regarding bonobo’s. In your blog as well as in many commentaries about bonobos we see that they are very peaceful and friendly beings. My husband told me that he read an article in which researchers said they have found that many bonobos have missing fingers that were bitten of by other bonobos during fights. Have you noticed any of this and could this mean that not all of their conflicts are resolved by having sex? Thank you very much in advance! Kanzi, the really famous bonobo, bit two of Sue Savage Rumbagh’s fingers off. Jane Goodall is missing a thumb. Two very good reasons why bonobos and chimps should be illegal as pets!
Lukuru is looking better today. You can see she’s put some fat on her tummy, and her arms are filling out. She’s drinking milk like a little demon so no worries there, and her favourite food is sugar cane.
Crispin the vet is still not clearing her complete – she’s so young – only 20 months – one of the youngest bonobos we’ve ever gotten at the sanctuary. She’s hardly ever off Mama Henriette, but she definitely holds her own. If one of the other nursery bonobos tries to steal her food, she sinks her little teeth into their hands.
I actually went into the nursery today. I was wondering whether Kataco remembered me, after all those weeks I spent with her last year. You always wonder whether animals remember, like people do. Or whether she was too young. Or whether we all look the same to them. Ordinarily Kata is a bit shy around people. She loves the mamas, but she’s terrified of new people she doesn’t know. As soon as I walked in, she crept up to me, scrunching up her little face – the mamas call her ‘matoke’ which means ‘she who scrunches up her face’ – and put her face very close to mine and touched my hair. ‘She remembers you,’ said Mama Henriette. And I felt so honoured. She climbed on my lap, gave me a little kiss, climbed down and held my hand. I love Kata. I don’t care that she throws tantrums. That little wrinkly face just makes me want to hug her to death
She certaintly lives up to her reputation: she is the fastest when it comes to solving Tori’s tests; what would take her class mates a lot of brain power is a piece of cake to her. At the moment her favourite game is to undo buttons. And once she’s finished opening up your pockets she’ll gently grab your hands and place them on top the button so that you can button up and she can start all over again. Not only is Saké smart, she is also very affectionate. If she can find some water she’ll splash it all over you and start scrubbing your arms in the same way she gets scrubbed by the Mamas in the morning. And the best thing of all is that her favourite place to sit is right on top of your head!
Guess who ran up to our house this morning? Lolo! She had just finished having a bath and smelled like coconut oil. She escaped the mamas walking her to the forest, ran to our porch and started sniffing around as if to say, ‘what do you guys eat for breakfast around here?’ Mama Micheline gave her the warning ‘Lomela!’ read ‘you’re in trouble’. So she jumped into my arms. My goodness she is heavier than the little stick insect of last year. It’s like she quintupled in size.
Then I did. Just look at that tummy.
I don’t know how, but Kata has always got this crinkly expression on her face. The mamas call her La Vielle, ‘the old woman’ because she just has this way of scrunching up her face like she can’t see properly.
I still love her, even though she pulls my hair and jumps up and down on my lap, not registering that she is not the little chiuahua sized skeleton she was last year but a rather large and heavy four year old. Her BFF in the nursery is usually Eleke, but Tory took Eleke away for testing, and so today she is substituting Vanga, Le petit Chef, or ‘the little chief’, and yes in reply to one of your comments, he does bite humans as much as he bites other bonobos so I suppose it is very democratic of him.
He even groomed her hair with a decoration which happened to be a piece of toilet paper. Imagine.
Introducing Massisi, who some of you have adopted already. She is Kataco’s size when Kata arrived last year. Fluffy, but under all that hair she is really skinny. She has already been here a month and a half, so I think the worst is over, and hopefully she’ll make it.
She is still too weak to do much, she stays on her mama Yvonne most of the day without moving except to eat. She is very trusting though, and holds her hand out whenever someone new comes near.
Massisi is one of Lola’s success stories. One of our employees at Basankusu where the bonobos will be released next year, went home to his village and found one of his people with Massisi in the backyard. He told the villager that it was forbidden to have bonobos, and that bonobos are a protected species, endemic to Congo. Ashamed, the villager handed Massisi over without protest, and now she is at Lola.
She has large sorrowful eyes, but they are not despairing. If she can stay healthy (she is too thin now to survive a serious illness) she will grow big like Lomela.
Here she is, next to Eleke. You can see how tiny she is.
This is little baby Lukuru sitting on Mama Henriëtte’s lap. She has to wear a little cardigan because she is not used to the weather in Kinshasa; she origionally comes from May Ndombe (which means ‘black water’ in Lingala)-a little village close to the equator. She was taken to Kinshasa by a bush meat trader. The trader thought her niece, Sandra, would want Lukuru as a pet, because Sandra had allways been very interested in wildlife. Luckily Sandra was a smart girl and knew the right thing to do, and so had her aunt get in touch with Lola ya Bonobo. Lukuru has been here ever since!
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