finally got to spend a whole day in the forest with the chimps yesterday. It was a perfect day for it too – lots of activity but they stayed on grid so we were able to follow them the whole time. At about 7:30 the males formed a hunting party and cornered a black and white colobus in the giant fig tree right by the camp. It was interesting to see the way they hunt; 2-3 males in the tree screaming and shouting to scare the thing into making a run for it, then at least 3 males on the ground waiting for the monkey to come down. As interesting as it was, though, I wasn’t sure I really wanted to see the colobus getting ripped in half – it was pretty small, probably not much more than a year or two old, and it was so terrified but still managed to muster a few threatening growls. And then, for seemingly no reason at all except for maybe boredom, the chimps stopped paying attention to it and wandered off to forage elsewhere. Talk about a lucky monkey.
At about 10:00 the chimps all decided to take a little nap up in the trees which is annoying because you can only crane your head up so long to watch them sleep before you realize youre giving yourself a neck ache for no reason. Luckily Zig, one of my favorite lil guys, decided to have his nap on the ground. He seems to be the most habituated out of all of them, or maybe just the most curious, because he is always around. He’ll just come right up to us and sit there, looking at us. He reminds me of someone I know but I cannot for the life of me place the face. I think it’s the expressions – its amazing how human they can seem, their faces have more muscles in them than most primates (aside from us), so they can convey an amazing range of emotions. I think maybe he reminds me of John Cage. Can anyone else see it? 
Another almost freaky moment when one of the chimps seemed to be almost human was a few hours later when they were all at a clay site – a murky pond of clay soil which they eat to get nutrients. They would hold on to a tree root and then tip over so they were almost upside down to get the clay on the underside of the ledge without having to wade through the mud. This obviously causes some disorientation because now and then someones butt would get in someone elses face and at one point Musa, a large male, became annoyed with Rachel and bit the hell out of her hand. Of course she starts screaming, looks down at her hand with huge eyes and then turns to us (about 2 meters away), holds her hand out towards us while holding it with the other hand and shakes it like ‘:ook! Look at what he did to my hand! Ouch!’ and then goes around to all of the other chimps doing the same, trying to rally them on her side until one of the other males starts yelling as well and chases Musa off. Then she just sits there, pouting and staring at her hand – I swear I thought she was going to cry. The best part of the day was when about 14 of the chimps all lined up on a large rotting log and groomed each other for hours. There was a lot of foliage surrounding the log so I didn’t get any great photos, but it was actually a blessing because some of the more shy chimps felt protected by it and allowed us to get closer than usual to them. Its so sweet to watch them all – males grooming females, females grooming males, adolescents grooming mothers, mothers grooming babies (which is hilarious because they are very squirmy so the mother spends a lot of time holding them down – one even held the baby upside down by one leg while she groomed him and he poked at her face), and of course everyone grooming the alpha.
I made a lil composite of my favorite babies. Meet Zac, Marian, Rafia, Honey, Klaus and Sokomoko.
I don’t like to play favorites but yesterday we were following Honey and her mother Harriet down the trail at about 3m and all of a sudden Honey starts doing somersalts down the trail. First she went headfirst into about 3 somersalts, then she stood up on her legs looking dizzy, then proceeds to roll down the trail on her side, holding her feet with her hands. This went on for about 5 minutes – roll, recover, roll, recover. I only wish that I could have gotten a good photo. I took about a million but they are all fuzzy. Boo. Only one week to go, I’m already getting sad about leaving. I don’t think I will ever have an experience like this again and its impossible to absorb all of the experiences at once – I wish I could have a video of everything I have seen/heard since I arrived in Uganda to look back on when I start to tell myself that it was all too good to be true.
Almost forgot – quick tour of the camp:
Exhibit A: Shower. The barrel to the right is filled with water and then wood from the forest is shoved beneath it then lit at about 5:30. There is a pipe leading from the barrel to the shower head inside, so when it is warm you just turn the nozzle and have a lovely little shower. You can see the tree canopy from inside, so its not uncommon to watch blue monkeys or colobus running around in the forest while you take your shower.
Exhibit B: The kids. Lots of fun, some very shy and others very bold. All scared of baboons but all willing to throw rocks at them to keep them away from the kitchen. I cant describe how strange it is to see a 6 year old barking at a male baboon twice his size.
Exhibit C: Home sweet home and a game of tag. Funny how some games are the same in every corner of the world. Behind is the house that includes my room, the director’s office, the ‘museum’ (lots of skeletons, snakes, butterflies, and even a few baby primates in formaldehyde, most victim to infanticide), and an empty bedroom. You can kinda see the solar panels on the roof – that’s how Im able to write this right now and why I wasn’t able to get any work done yesterday when it was raining. The big thing out front is the rainwater catchment, used for washing clothes, dishes, teeth, floors, for cooking, and filtered in the kitchen for drinking.
(Zak)
Another almost freaky moment when one of the chimps seemed to be almost human was a few hours later when they were all at a clay site – a murky pond of clay soil which they eat to get nutrients. They would hold on to a tree root and then tip over so they were almost upside down to get the clay on the underside of the ledge without having to wade through the mud. This obviously causes some disorientation because now and then someones butt would get in someone elses face and at one point Musa, a large male, became annoyed with Rachel and bit the hell out of her hand. Of course she starts screaming, looks down at her hand with huge eyes and then turns to us (about 2 meters away), holds her hand out towards us while holding it with the other hand and shakes it like ‘:ook! Look at what he did to my hand! Ouch!’ and then goes around to all of the other chimps doing the same, trying to rally them on her side until one of the other males starts yelling as well and chases Musa off. Then she just sits there, pouting and staring at her hand – I swear I thought she was going to cry. The best part of the day was when about 14 of the chimps all lined up on a large rotting log and groomed each other for hours. There was a lot of foliage surrounding the log so I didn’t get any great photos, but it was actually a blessing because some of the more shy chimps felt protected by it and allowed us to get closer than usual to them. Its so sweet to watch them all – males grooming females, females grooming males, adolescents grooming mothers, mothers grooming babies (which is hilarious because they are very squirmy so the mother spends a lot of time holding them down – one even held the baby upside down by one leg while she groomed him and he poked at her face), and of course everyone grooming the alpha.
I made a lil composite of my favorite babies. Meet Zac, Marian, Rafia, Honey, Klaus and Sokomoko. 
I don’t like to play favorites but yesterday we were following Honey and her mother Harriet down the trail at about 3m and all of a sudden Honey starts doing somersalts down the trail. First she went headfirst into about 3 somersalts, then she stood up on her legs looking dizzy, then proceeds to roll down the trail on her side, holding her feet with her hands. This went on for about 5 minutes – roll, recover, roll, recover. I only wish that I could have gotten a good photo. I took about a million but they are all fuzzy. Boo. Only one week to go, I’m already getting sad about leaving. I don’t think I will ever have an experience like this again and its impossible to absorb all of the experiences at once – I wish I could have a video of everything I have seen/heard since I arrived in Uganda to look back on when I start to tell myself that it was all too good to be true.
Almost forgot – quick tour of the camp:
Exhibit A: Shower. The barrel to the right is filled with water and then wood from the forest is shoved beneath it then lit at about 5:30. There is a pipe leading from the barrel to the shower head inside, so when it is warm you just turn the nozzle and have a lovely little shower. You can see the tree canopy from inside, so its not uncommon to watch blue monkeys or colobus running around in the forest while you take your shower.
Exhibit B: The kids. Lots of fun, some very shy and others very bold. All scared of baboons but all willing to throw rocks at them to keep them away from the kitchen. I cant describe how strange it is to see a 6 year old barking at a male baboon twice his size. 
Exhibit C: Home sweet home and a game of tag. Funny how some games are the same in every corner of the world. Behind is the house that includes my room, the director’s office, the ‘museum’ (lots of skeletons, snakes, butterflies, and even a few baby primates in formaldehyde, most victim to infanticide), and an empty bedroom. You can kinda see the solar panels on the roof – that’s how Im able to write this right now and why I wasn’t able to get any work done yesterday when it was raining. The big thing out front is the rainwater catchment, used for washing clothes, dishes, teeth, floors, for cooking, and filtered in the kitchen for drinking.
(Zak)
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