by John Fowler
When she emitted a low belch vocalization, I decided to respond in her language with my own imitation, hmmmwaaah . . . As I did my rendition, the little ape responded with her own long series of contented belch vocalizations that became louder and more frequent with each of my like responses. I soon realized that if I was out of Josephine’s sight, she would call to me for a response that assured her of my presence nearby. When I walked farther into the brush without responding, Josephine immediately came looking for me, emitting a loud whimper until I answered, hmmmwaaah, and allowed her to catch up. This way she made it clear that she didn’t like for me to move too fast ahead of her, or get out of her line of sight. Our vocalizations served as a contact call by which my little sidekick could assure herself of my presence in the forest. She was teaching me to be a good gorilla parent.
My little charge was also teaching me her language. In addition to her whimpers of distress, and her purring sounds of contentment, her repertoire included the sharp staccato, “eh, eh, eh!” almost like coughs, to show annoyance and frustration such as when waiting for Dian to open her door at night and give her candy. When I tickled her she chuckled with a soft rolling guttural vocalization, which matched obvious contentment on her face—the gorilla smile, with squinted eyes and parted lips.
About mid-morning, Josephine stopped eating from a cluster of gallium about four meters up in a small tree. After a brief pause, a look of repose on her leathery face, she began pulling branches in toward her. These she tucked deftly under her seated rump and legs. I thought about Peter’s description of a typical mountain gorilla’s day while I realized that Josephine was building her mid-morning day nest. The sight made me imagine her family, the group she had been born into, which must have had this idyllic forest routine before the traumatic event of their baby’s capture and abrupt extraction from the forest.
The rest of our day continued much the same, with Josephine feeding and resting intermittently. As required, I noted everything she did, including passing gas, urinating, and pooping. I dutifully collected Josephine’s droppings at Dian’s request, and, after wrapping them in paper or leaves, placed them in my backpack for the boss to weigh at the end of the day. This Dian did to “monitor the baby’s health” as she put it, but I didn’t know what she measured it against.
In an effort to encourage Josephine’s independence, I walked through the dense vegetation ahead of her. Without whimpering, she followed, stopping to pull down a towering thistle stalk. A bushbuck suddenly barked from a short distance away in the forest and Josephine’s eyes widened as she stopped chewing. I looked at the second hand on my watch—eight, nine, ten seconds—and made a note of her behavior and the length of time she took to resume feeding. A stalk of stinging nettles stood among the thistles, and Josephine nibbled a few of the buds, oblivious to the stinging hairs. Having been given no specific guidelines from Dian on what she wanted me to record, I tried to write down everything the baby did, noting exact times as I had observed Peter do. Reading these notes years later, I realized that Dian learned not only about gorillas, but also about each student when she reviewed these notes each day.
8:51
J eats a few nettle buds and climbs on my lap
8:52
She follows me farther into brush, whimpers as I am out of sight, BV (Belch Vocalization) as she finds gallium, eats few bites, and sits next to me
8:56
We move on, J whimpers while following, I stop, J climbs tree w gallium, eats
(Total Feeding Time: 8 minutes 10 seconds)
9:15
I walk farther into brush, she follows, I stop at fallen tree, J climbs for gallium and eats 4m up
(Total feeding time 18 minutes)
9:35
J begins building day nest by pulling branches in toward her
9:40
rests in nest, scratching and looking around
9:45
gas
9:57
climbs down on me, no dung in nest, J climbs for more gallium
10:03
branch breaks, J lands in nest, continues feeding (Total feeding time 5 minutes 40 seconds)
10:04
urinates through nest
10:06
climbs to me, I tickle, J playful, I tickle groin, much BV, I tickle, J BV with eyes closed, mouth open
10:12
gas, I tickle, BV eyes, eyes closed
10:15
approaches me (Total Play Time, TPT 9 minutes 10 seconds)
10:16
J eats more gallium, eats bark of thick gallium stem, approaches playfully, I tickle, BV, mouth open, eyes closed, I climb down, J follows, whimpering through tall grass, I slow down, we get on trail, J leads for 3 meters then follows
10:24
We come into clearing, J heads toward Dian’s, I go other way, we are separated visually by brush, J whimpers, I BV, no answer
10:30
J heads into brush and climbs 4 meters for gallium
10:42
branch breaks, J 2.5 meters about ground, continues feeding, no BV
10:54
climbs down and jumps from 1.5 meters, comes to me, I tickle and BV, J doesn’t play
10:56
I roll over and run, J startled, runs after, looking behind her, she comes to me, I notice she is shaking (cold or fright?) I let her come to me, J clings, I BV, she is quiet
11:00
We go to empty cabin as it begins to rain
NINE
THE EMPTY CABIN
The Empty Cabin’s door was unlocked as Dian said it would be, as cold air and heavy mist blew down from Mount Visoke, foretelling rain. As I lifted the latch and pushed open the heavy hand-hewn door, Josephine followed me inside with a wide-eyed look of suspicion and curiosity on her shining black face. This cabin was twice the size of the one that Stuart and I occupied, and was split into two large front and back halves separated by a waist-high wood counter jutting across its center from one side, creating a defined kitchen area, but without electricity or appliances. It was as cold inside the cabin as it was outside, but I was thankful to be dry and out of the sudden wind. I peeled off my backpack and set it down on the grass-mat floor.
The baby soon spotted a pile of greens in the middle of the other room at the far end of the cabin, which Toni had cut from the forest and placed here for her. She scrambled over to it, selected a long strand of thistle, and dragged the morsel back to my feet to begin peeling off each leaf and slipping them into her mouth. As she chewed contentedly, I idly poked around, opening drawers and cabinets, thinking about the previous occupants and their lives at Karisoke. One drawer was filled with forks, spoons, kitchen knives, and other eating utensils. A cupboard held old gray pots and pans. It looked like Peter was right in thinking that the camp staff had taken my assigned kitchenware to the wrong cabin. I dreaded the thought of having to point this out to Dian.
I had already learned from Peter that the Empty Cabin had been home to past occupants of Karisoke whom Dian had initially embraced, but ultimately scorned. Kelly Stewart, daughter of the famous actor, Jimmy Stewart, had lived in this space. At the onset, Dian was very fond of the cheerful, even-tempered child of Hollywood, and smitten with her celebrity. One evening, when Kelly had hung some wet clothes to dry by the stove, she inadvertently burned the original cabin to the ground along with a month’s worth of her own gorilla data. This she might have lived down, so star struck was Dian, but eventually even darling Kelly would be written off.
Kelly’s downfall coincided with that of a young male fellow researcher in camp named Sandy Harcourt, a Cambridge University undergraduate. Originally, Dian adored and appreciated both of these students, but immediately grew contemptuous of them when their friendship intensified and evolved into romance. Insecure and paranoid, Dian simply could not tolerate camp fraternizing and socializing that did not include her, least of all romantic involvements. Perhaps they reminded her too much of her own, albeit self-inflicted, isola
tion and loneliness.
The most recent occupants, I had learned, were the archnemeses Amy Vedder and Bill Weber, the married couple who, during a growing feud with Dian, ultimately settled into this cabin, the farthest from hers. Amy had been doing a study of gorilla feeding ecology and habitat use with Group 5, while Bill was focusing on the social and economic factors of their work, which often took him off the mountain into communities below. Thinking their cabin had put them well out of earshot of Dian, the pair held court here with the camp’s other disillusioned and alienated students, commiserating about the state of Karisoke. But desperately attempting to avert what she perceived as a mutinous conspiracy, Mademoiselli lurked in the darkness just outside with a tape recorder, feebly attempting to tape something to use against her foes. She later tried to intimidate them by saying she had an incriminating recording that proved they were scheming and plotting against her, but she was never able to produce such a tape. Instead, she read their incoming and outgoing mail in an effort to satisfy her suspicious mind.
When Dian found out about Bill and Amy’s return to the base of Mount Visoke for the purpose of cultivating tourism, she was incredulous. Dian had fought for years against tourist visits to the mountain gorillas. Expecting the locals to learn and understand the importance of mountain gorillas and their habitat was unthinkable to her. Except for those who worked for Dian, Rwandans, for the most part, simply represented the threat of invasion on her gorillas’ territory.
I was beginning to realize that Dian saw only an intrinsic value to the gorillas. More an animal activist than a scientist, she deemed the gorillas important because she liked them and they were victims of the outside world closing in. She must have felt the same about herself. Inviting the world in to share in the gorilla experience was inconceivable to Dian. She found them, named them, and they belonged to her. They were hers to share, or not share, with the visitors to camp, who may, or may not, have something to offer her in return, like the ambassador, or other embassy staffers, or photographers and filmmakers. Science and research were an inconvenient but necessary pretense under which she could be funded to operate and have permission to guard her forest. How dare Bill and Amy make mountain gorillas available to everyone!
Able and qualified graduate students, I was beginning to see, had proven to be the greatest threat to Dian’s rule on the mountain, especially those that defended themselves. I began to realize that this explained her decision to bring in less accomplished, and less threatening, students like Stuart, Carolyn, and me, who lacked specific research agendas and defined ambitions of our own, but came simply to help.
In stark contrast to us new students, Amy had all of Dian’s determination, backed up by a much stronger sense of scientific discernment. Strong independence, confidence, and ambitious ideas of her own eventually and inevitably made for a volatile clash with Dian. Word had it that in a pointed letter to the National Geographic Society’s Research Committee, Bill dispelled images of Dian as an intrepid field scientist, revealing that Dian was no longer even collecting her own gorilla data, and was not only mismanaging the camp, but had also, through her antagonistic approach with poachers, brought on the deaths of several gorillas in acts of vengeance and retribution. This news only bolstered the facts and rumors already revealed to the conservation and scientific community that things were not as Dian, on the colorful pages of National Geographic magazine, would have people believe, but were in fact in need of drastic changes. The whistle had been blown.
The V-W couple had proved a force to be reckoned with. After leaving Karisoke Research Center in exasperation, the pair turned the tables on Dian by promptly setting up their own camp at the base of the mountain. Apparently, the entire Virungas did not belong to Dian after all. The two had since joined forces with other parties interested in the urgent need for gorilla preservation, and had gained the backing of an impressive consortium of several renowned conservation funding sources, including the New York Zoological Society, the UK’s esteemed Fauna and Flora Preservation Society, as well as East Africa’s African Wildlife Leadership Foundation. Ushering in a new age of gorilla conservation, this formidable duo was working for the newly created Mountain Gorilla Project, organizing government-sanctioned gorilla tourism, and giving education programs around Rwanda on gorillas and the importance of the forested Virunga Volcanoes as a watershed. It was a grassroots approach that Dian had long disdained and resisted, if only because she wasn’t doing it herself. Fossey had been decidedly trumped, and the rift set off a cold war between the two camps.
I had already seen her spit on the ground more than once when she had to reference this formidable husband-and-wife team, now entrenched so purposefully at the very trailhead to Karisoke. I soon learned that the ongoing conflict with the V-W couple only exacerbated Dian’s erratic behavior and outrageous deeds over time, and had ignited a brewing revolution among the powers that be within East Africa’s leaders in wildlife preservation and research. Dian’s pending departure to teach at Cornell University, I soon realized, was not just an opportunity presented to her, but a carefully orchestrated plan to excise her from Karisoke, with dignity. I had merely landed in the middle of this storm.
While others were trying to unite forces in gorilla preservation to bring the mission to the masses and out of isolation, Dian tried her best to hold on to the reins; camp, after all, was her home, and the only one she had. She’d enjoyed many years of autonomy, determining who had access, when and how, to the small but special place she had built and the rare gorillas she had habituated. Dian Fossey had put mountain gorillas on the map . . . but what next? She hadn’t built the place for others, nor habituated the gorillas for others than herself. And the gorillas she hoarded jealously as her own possessions. Like the person with too many cats to look after, or more dogs than they could feed, Dian was reluctant to surrender what she saw as hers, even if it meant they could fare better without her in the hands of a greater consortium. She held on as if her reputation and livelihood, indeed her very well-being, depended on it.
As I sat with the baby gorilla where she fed in the middle of the floor, images of the Empty Cabin’s past occupants were vivid in my mind, and I could envision them finding camaraderie in here, seeking refuge at the very opposite end of camp, as far from Mademoiselli as possible. Plans for great changes in mountain gorilla conservation had taken place here, but I was thankful for my seemingly simple but important task of fostering this one orphaned baby, and hope for it returning to the wild.
The only furniture in the big empty dwelling was a large desk and a simple wooden chair placed against one wall under a wide window. One of the camp’s portable Olivettis sat on the cold bare Formica desktop. While Josephine retrieved another stalk of thistle and dragged it to my feet to resume feeding, I sat at the desk and began poking through its drawers. The desk was empty except the top one, which held a stack of clean white typing paper and a pack of carbons. Realizing that I had already scrawled several pages of notes on my K & E field paper, I decided to get a head start typing them.
I counted three sheets of the paper and layered two pieces of carbon between them to create the triplicate copies Dian required, and rolled the bundle onto the typewriter’s platen. I typed the date, January 25, 1980, and paused. I debated in my mind whether or not to write a letter home to my parents instead, and stopped to stare out the window in front of me. The camp trail led away from this side of the cabin toward the center of Karisoke across a small bog that had become choked with a reed-like flowering plant that I later learned was crocosmia, not native to the area, but a gift from Ros Carr, Dian’s longtime friend who lived above Lake Kivu on the other side of Mount Karisimbi. As I gazed at them, they were blooming abundantly with stalks of tiny orange trumpet-shaped flowers like miniature gladioli. Their color glowed like flames in the swirling mist and light drizzle that fell. I hadn’t noticed them before but realized that these were the flowers Dian had supplied Stuart’s room with before I had arrived.
Again I thought of my parents back home. Mom had wanted a source of fresh cut flowers, and Dad had once bought her dozens of gladioli and dahlia bulbs. Together they planted them in long rows in the field in front of our cabin in Zepp, Virginia. During that summer they sprouted and sported an array of brilliant colors and exotic blossom shapes that I had never seen before. I was entranced by their tropical appearance bursting from the gray shale covering the ground along a dilapidated barbed wire fence row strewn with weedy locust trees and oak saplings.
As the rain picked up, and sounded on the metal roof of the cabin, it struck me in the moment that it would be an entire year before I would see Mom and Dad again. Suddenly it seemed like it would be an eternity. I missed them terribly. What were they doing in their big old house without children? What were they thinking when they took me to the airport where I embarked on my trip to the middle of Africa? I had teased Mom when she had worried about me, and was smug in my independence. At twenty-three, I had never been away from home that long. As a tight feeling in my throat welled up, I realized I had not felt homesickness since I was a child staying overnight with cousins in Pennsylvania. A whole year in this place, that had once seemed so exciting in anticipation, now loomed oppressive and eternal like the rainy season upon us.
Josephine grabbed the bottom of my shirt and I snapped back into the moment while she hoisted herself up the back of my chair. She adjusted her position, settling her fuzzy rump onto the top of the chair’s back, right against the base of my neck. Once situated, she uttered a contented belch vocalization, hm mmmmhh . . . The pungent herbal smell of her digesting forage filled my nostrils.
