I LOOK IN THE MIRROR AND WHAT DO I SEE? NOT ME!

Cameroon, a country of contrasts

One of the most interesting things we found out at Mefou is that Gorillas have an almost identical physiology to humans.  Now when I look at a Gorilla I find it difficult to make the connection.  That animal has absolutely no resemblance to me!  Chimps on the other hand, are physiologically less like humans but mentally much more akin to us. They are smart, smart, smart!  At the Limbe Wildlife Preserve our guide Glen had a stockpile of escapee stories to tell, most of them about Max the Chimp they have grown to love and respect for his uncanny ability to find new and inventive ways to get out! Max didn’t really even want to leave; he just wanted to prove a point, one that he COULD get out and two that he could do it by outsmarting his caretakers. 

So in thinking about comparisons and contrasts it is interesting to note that we feel little to no connection to a Gorilla who is built almost identically to humans,  and a powerful connection to Chimps who are our closest evolutionary relative but are physiologically less like us.  At both Limbe and Mefou the primates are in a living situation that fairly closely resembles their natural habitat, so visitors get to see them interacting pretty realistically.

         Human beings tend to be very conscious of “looks”.  Now this predilection for judging others on looks is common, totally natural (as sight is usually the first messenger of information).  Sadly this will often lead us astray.  Think…grass is greener, the Jones’ next door, pop star adulation, our first crush, or the “coolest” kid in high school.

However most of us also know that true connections are made via the soul.  Eye contact that goes beyond the depth of the outward eye, that amazing feeling that somehow you might have known this person in another life, finding commonalities with a person whom you couldn’t imagine having anything in common with,  or that sense that this person will be your lifelong friend when you’ve only known them 5 minutes. I’m sure you’ve met many couples that at first introduction you think to yourself, how did they end up together; they seem so different? There’s that soul connection.

 As we watched the Chimps at both reserves, I certainly wouldn’t say my connection felt like a friendship, but it did feel eerily human.  Close your eyes and imagine them transforming into human adults and children, interacting as we do.  I FELT their feelings as they were having fun, enjoying each other’s company, getting frustrated with the “annoying one” of the group or just sitting and feeling content at being part of a community.  They laughed, scolded, made faces, jumped up and down excitedly, sulked, pouted and yelled.  Sound familiar?

So there it is.  Our first most powerful sense is our sense of sight.  Even though we KNOW that looks aren’t what makes a person, we register that information, and sometimes have to VERY consciously choose NOT to make a judgment on that first impression. Why? Because our tendency is to make a judgment, whether we want to or not.  Why do you think people always give advice on how to dress for an interview?  It’s the first impression you make, there’s just no way around it.

As we look at the Gorillas as beautiful as they are (and they ARE beautiful), we are kind of put off thinking that they are so like us. Yet as we watch chimps, who also don’t look like our reflection in the mirror, there is this sense that we truly were connected way back when.  We are touched at how human they are. 

Both Gorillas and chimps have very complex social structures, Gorillas more so than chimps.  Chimps tend to be a bit more easygoing.  But Gorilla caretakers spend a lot of their day rearranging Gorilla social time.  In the wild the young males can go off on their own when they are not powerful enough to overthrow the dominant (almost always oldest) male.  Or if the younger male challenges the older, one of them may not make it.  In a zoo they can’t let them kill each other off, but they have to respect their social order and artificially manage the hierarchy that orders Gorilla society. 

Interestingly enough the chimps, those “cute” little animals that everyone thinks would make a great pet, ARE great pets for the first five years.  An odd, (but according to the Wildlife caretakers) totally predictable change occurs at five years of age.  The chimps become very aggressive.  Often chimps are rescued from bad situations because pet owners suddenly find themselves with this completely unmanageable animal and don’t know any other way to control them but to contain them in a cage or with a chain.  This leads to very sad consequences. 

So there we have it.  I learned a lot about Chimps and Gorillas, but more importantly I saw human nature on display from a very different perspective.

FIRST LEG OF MY JOURNEY- OR TEACHING TOURISM TO THE LOCALS

Our first trip through Yaounde was exciting.  I was finally going to meet Andrew's adopted family, Estella, John and their children.  Although they live in Wum, Estella’s husband John owns a printing/copy shop in Yaounde and travels home when he can, so they keep a small apartment there. 

{Pictures of Nixon, Nixon and the chimp, the baby gorilla and the one of the baby chimps on the blanket are taken from this website, http://kayeincameroon.blogspot.com/2011/12/mefou-primate-reserve.html   The rest of the pictures are mine. The huge tree we are standing in front of is at least 1000 years old! Nixon told us that they have been recording as living as long as 2000 years!  The monkeys and The Spot Nosed, Red capped (most aggressive), Mustached Monkey, Bearded Monkey (the one with the baby) and of course the ever brilliant chimpanzee!}

Yaounde is  the main headquarters for the Peace Corps in Cameroon.  They have a brand new office right in the center of all the other government buildings.  For awhile after the office moved the area was plagued by thieves, who were happy to find a new group of “non-Africans to prey on. I was a bit nervous to head there, but evidently the area was cleared out and Andrew and I experienced none of this.

Dumping the duffel, my traveling Albatross, was our main priority!   I had dragged it overseas as my second suitcase, filled with 47 some pounds of books.  This was my final contribution of books UID families donated to the Literacy program Andrew  began through R.E.A.C.H, the non-profit he works with in Wum.   So many times I wanted to just leave it somewhere, anywhere! but I just couldn’t do it. These children were anxiously waiting for these books  and unfortunately weren't heading to Wum until the tail end of my trip. Luckily for us  we were able to store it in the Yaounde office and later on in the Bamenda Regional office, while we traveled.  Given the transportation situation it would have been next to impossible to get around.  After we unloaded the duffel, we got a hotel room and left our larger hiking packs there as we headed out for our day trips.

Andrew arranged for a “small car” (taxi) for all of us the next morning.  Estella and children were meeting us at a taxi stop.  I Love Estella, but as with all of Cameroon, meeting times are not something strictly adhered to, so we began the day a bit frustrated at her tardiness.  It was also looking seriously like rain and according to Andrew, “In Cameroon..Nothing, I  mean NOTHING happens when it rains.”  I doubted the seriousness of this until experience taught me otherwise.  The other Cameroonian trait is that dressing “to the nines” is always in order.  Estella and her family (Beckline, Brandon, Prosper and Bertilla) were no exception.  They arrived in full regalia,  Sunday dress and heels for Estella, suits for the boys…you get the idea. 

It began to rain pretty hard soon after we piled into the car, 4 in the backseat with baby Bertilla and 3 in the front (a normal taxi ride). 

As we entered the road to the Mefou Reserve the rain was coming down in torrents and the road was taking on the thick red, silken,  sheen of all Cameroon roads in the  rainy season.  It takes very little to turn the roads into the Red Sea, but sadly there is no “parting”, only plowing through. The road was thankfully short, but Andrew and I did vote the access road into Mefou as THE worst road of any we took during my three weeks there! When we got out, the driver made it clear that staying too long was not an option, at least if we wanted to get out of there any time that day. 

Andrew was seriously worried that the rain would ruin everything and was looking pretty glum about it all.  We met our guide Richard Nixon (yes, named because he was born on the day Nixon was inaugurated as president).  Our first stop was the chimp cage, and of course they were doing the usual antics of chimps.  It was all over from that point on.  Estalla and the children were hooked.  This was their first ever tourist experience and first time ever seeing the wild animals indigenous to their own country!  Their excitement was over flowing, they were running and laughing, pointing and asking dozens of questions.  What a site to see.  It was everything Andrew hoped it would be for them.  Nixon even tried to cut the tour short at one point because of the rain and they would have none of it.

We had an absolutely wonderful time. 

Now Estella, wanting (as always) to repay kindness with kindness, invited us back to their apartment.  This is a two bedroom apartment with a small runway kitchen which consists of a two burner camp stove and a sink with running cold water.  A refrigerator is in the living room /kids bedroom.  There is a double bed size bunk bed where the four or five children sleep, a couple of chairs and a small TV.  In a small second room is where Mom and Dad sleep.  That’s it!  Estella fixed us a fine lunch of Pepe soup (chicken broth with a small amount of meat, and a few vegetables, including hot peppers if you want. There was also a huge platter of fried plantains because I told her I liked them!  The plates were put on the floor, and Andrew and I served ourselves and then balanced the plates on our laps.  Everyone else waited until they were sure we had all we wanted. 

When you are on the receiving end of this level of hospitality, it is very humbling. They have so little, yet share anything they have.  We had hoped to reconnect with at Estella and a few of the children in Wum but it didn’t happen.  Sadly it was the first, and probably the last time I’ll see her.  She is an amazingly resilient, intelligent, hard working woman, fiercely protective of her children and driven by the knowledge that education is the only way her children will be successful.  She and her husband John sacrifice everything so they have only the best level of education available to them..  We take so much for granted.