Ngamba Island

I journeyed off the island for research supplies, so here's an update on the past few days:

June 26, 2010: Ngamba, Day 1

I am listening to the insistent cheep-cheep-cheep of lap wings as they guard their nests, the buzzing chp-chp-chp-chp of hundreds of golden weaver birds with occasional squawks as they disagree, and screaming, hooting chimpanzees from the forest, all with the gentle background of splashing from small waves. As I look out across Lake Victoria at sunset, surrounded by birds and swarming dragonflies (and quite a few lake midges, I must admit), I am pretty sure I have found close to my version of paradise. There are even armies and armies of ants for me to examine, although hopefully they’ll stay out of my computer this summer.
Ngamba Island is wonderful. I arrived this morning with a boatload of tourists, met up with a some trainee vets and some of the caregivers for tea and chapatti. I rejoined the tourists for a bit of history about the island and basic chimp info, and then onto the first feeding! It was really amazing to see 40 chimpanzees running around, catching thrown fruit, fight over the better pieces, and finally calm down and munch away while I looked on. Overall, the island has 44 animals, but 2 are newcomers who haven’t been integrated into the group yet and 2 are escape artists. Those two males have climbed the electric fence so often that they aren’t allowed out to the forest anymore, but a new enclosure is being created so they can have more freedom.
I took my lunch with the trainee vets, a researcher from the Max Plank institute in Germany, and some of the staff. I had matoke, fried sweet potatoes, and g-nut sauce, which was surprisingly delicious. At 2:30 there was another supplementary feeding- Juliana (the researcher) helped me start to figure out some of the names. So far I can recognize Mika (bald patch scar), Tumbo (grey-ish body), Yoyo (very black face), Sally (white face and beard), and Sunday (tall and lanky). My goal is to learn 4 or 5 individuals per day.
I watched the evening feeding a moment ago. For this meal, the chimps are brought back to enclosure, and placed into separate rooms. The young ones are housed together, and the rest are separated into rooms of about 4 by rank to ensure there are as few fights as possible. The caretakers hand out some leafy vegetables and then pass the chimps bowls of porridge that they eat through the bars. I’ll start helping tomorrow morning.
I love my life.

Pros: Please see everything mentioned above. Also, more internet access than I had been led to believe.
Cons: Spiders. There are spiders everywhere. Of every sort. I have already had one fall from the ceiling down my shirt and bite me. And I could do without the lake flies. I have an indeterminate welt on my wrist from some sort of insect/spider bite.


June 27, 2010: Ngamba, Day 2
The early morning wake-up at 6 am was a bit painful, I’ll be honest… But totally worth it when I put on my huge green overalls and rubber boots and sat down for the staff meeting. Dr. Joshua goes over the plan for the day and we break, each to his or hr respective tasks. I basically just hang out watching the chimps wake up for an hour. Which is great. Tey’re so playful in the morning- r & t abounds…
I’m given a bucket of chopped up bananas at 7:30 and Joseph (a Ugandan intern here) and I walk up to the feeding platform. Those individuals that aren’t being held back to be studied by the researchers are released and make their way up to outdoor forest through a metal barred corridor. Joseph throws huge chunks of posho and directs me to throw first to one side and then the other to make sure no one individual can monopolize all the food (as Mika the alpha male tends to do in the later feedings). IA few individuals sit close to the fence, begging with arms outstretched. Okech is particularly insistent. There’s no way to describe this experience other than: cool. It feels like such a useless word, but it’s just exactly how it felt. Really cool to make eye contact with a chimpanzee and throw her a hunk of banana. And then to look down at the chimp banging a stick against the ground to make sure you don’t forget him. All in all, it didn’t take very long to give them their breakfast, and after they had had their fill they meandered off into the trees.
Then the real work began.
I joined the ranks of caretakers for the prodigious task of cleaning the living area of 44 chimps who excrete a vast amount of waste. Dorm crew has nothing on this. You begin with a wet broom to move the solids and hay to the door where it’s collected into a big stinky wheelbarrow. Next comes the through washing using bleachy water, which is slashed everywhere until the floor is thoroughly coated in suds. You take a hard bristled broom and scrub vigorously for a while, moving the water down towards the drain (one corner of the enclosure is tilted down to facilitate cleaning). After it’s been brushed for a bit, clean water is dumped at the far end of the cage. You switch back to the wet brooms and sweep the water along, getting rid of left over soap and hay. Another splash of clean water to rinse and a thorough sweeping of the floor finish the procedure.
Phew.
I spent a lot of today watching the researchers work and asking questions. I also took some notes for the 15 minutes before feeding, where tons and tons of social play occur. I timed the amount of r &t that I saw before the 2:30 feeding, and in the last 10 minutes before fruitstarted falling from the sky, 16% of the time at east 2 individuals were playing with one another. And there was a lot less play this time than before 11, so I’m pretty hopeful about this study.
I talked over some toy stuff with the keepers and researchers, and made a basic plan of action. I’ll test it out Wednesday and see how it goes. I’ll either have a keeper feed peanuts to an individual in the middle of the enclosure and place the toys at opposite ends of the cage, just outside the bars, and then have the keeper stop feeding so the chimp turns to check out the new adtions to its enclosure. Or, I’ll put the toys right outside the bars (on opposite ends) and open a door in the middle of the enclosure on the far side to let the chimp into the room. I like that way better because it seems like less noise, but apparently the chimps aren’t always super stoked about going through the doors so the first method may work better. I’ll try it both ways.
In other news, showering underneath the equatorial sun is fabulous. The cool water and the heat of the sun contrast wonderfully and it’s very freeing to bathe outside.


June 29, 2010: Ngamba, Day 4: Research Begins
I did the forest walk this morning. In other words, I walked through the jungle with a bunch of chimps. The group was Bruce, Byron, the German researchers, the Japanese volunteer Haru, me, and Nani, Rambo, Yoyo, Pasa, and Bili. Wearing our green coveralls and gumboots, we walked through the gate into one of the best experiences of my life. We stood waiting as the chimps entered and then made their choices. Nani, a sweet female adolescent, chose me first: she walked over, went behind me, and put her arms up. So I knelt and the 30 kg Nani clamored onto my back. She clung just like a child riding piggyback. Rambo, a playful juvenile male, jumped onto Haru, while Pasa chose Julianna. The rest gamboled along beside us, play fighting and jumping up and down from nearby trees.
We took a small trail through the island’s jungle. This felt like real rainforest. It was drizzling and insects were providing a constant soundtrack and the path was occasionally blocked by colonies of enormous spiders. We stopped after about 10 minutes for a peanut break. Nani and Rambo came down from their perches and gathered around Bruce, who handed out peanuts. He gave me a bunch and I hand-fed Nani. She stood on two legs, with her hands holding my arms to make sure I would feed her enough. Yoyo came over also and stood right behind Nani, so I dropped a few nuts into her open mouth as well. They were quite polite about it for chimpanzees. Usually there’s grunting and arms outstretched and lots of scratching, but these chimps were very calm, probably because there were so few.
We began walking again and Nani jumped on my back again. She was very heavy but it was worth it to trek through a jungle with a chimpanzee on my back. She wrapped her arms around my neck and stuck her feet out on either side of my waist, so I hooked my arms under her legs and we were off! Rambo and Yoyo were getting increasingly more rambunctious, rolling and chasing each other next to the path (and pushing us humans out of the way if we got in the way of their play fight). While we were going downa slippery, muddy section of the trail I slipped a little and Nani decided she had ridden on my back long enough.
We came out by Lake Victoria, which was quite rough due to the storm last night. There were still a few fishermen out in canoes, however. Rambo began eating some fruits from a reed-like plant while Yoyo climbed a thin tree, which bent down to accommodate her weight. We stayed there for a little bit before turning around to head back.
Yoyo and Rambo were in high spirits by this point, and played almost the entire way back. They also began including humans in their play: coming at us with arms held high and then gently hitting us or grabbing onto our ankles. They loved being tickled as well. I tickled a chimpanzee. And he laughed his panting play laugh and smiled at me. And I pulled Rambo along by his arm and play fought with him. And I tickled Yoyo who let that happen for a bit before deciding to pull my pants out of my socks where they had been tucked in.
This was one of the best mornings of my life. All in all it lasted about an hour, but the memory of a chimpanzee’s weight on my back and the way it laughs when I play with it will stay with me forever.