Living with the Devil

I returned to Yatouga to meet the six new trackers who had been hired, but after a few days, it became apparent that problems were going to arise. It all boiled down to one of the trackers who the project had never used before. He was older than the rest, which meant that he took over the senior role within the trackers and therefore they all listened to him, but also that he often complained of being tired. The first problem we had was how he treated Julie, and during one of the first few days he shouted at her in the forest and was complaining that she was walking too slowly, despite the fact that Chris was even further behind her. We presumed that maybe he just didn’t like to do what Julie told him because she was a woman, and so we had a talk with all the trackers, and told them that they are there, pretty much, to do as we tell them.

Thinking all our problems were solved, everything went smoothly for a few days, until it was my turn to go into the forest alone with the new tracker and one other. Everything was fine for the whole morning, they did exactly what I wanted, but it then hit 12pm and all of a sudden they asked if we could go back to camp. I resolutely told them no, we work in the forest until 5pm, and told them to continue. They grudgingly agreed, but then at 1pm they asked again to return. At this point I was pretty annoyed, and again said no, but decided to take lunch as I thought that maybe they were simply hungry. We ate lunch quickly (there were a lot of tsetse flies about) and continued, until they lead me off the path we were meant to be taking, and onto one which lead back to camp. I asked them where they were going, and they said again that they wanted to return, and again I refused to give in, and made them take me back to the other path. I followed them as they walked around in the forest for about an hour trying to get back to the swamp, and eventually they took me back to where we had lunch, an hour and a half before. It should have been me who was really pissed off (and believe me, I was), but the new tracker then suddenly started shouting ‘This is where we had lunch! This is where we had lunch!’ and waving his stick at me in an incredibly angry way. This only had the effect to make me more pissed off, because it was them who lead us back there! Absolutely seething, I refused again to return and made them continue along the edge of the swamp. None of us actually wanted to be there, but I at this point I knew that whilst I was hating it, he was hating it more. After about 40 minutes or so, so that he knew it was my decision and not his, at about 3.30pm I had had enough and couldn’t stand being out there with them any longer, and I eventuqlly told them to return. But at least my plan had had the desired effect, and the new tracker was in a totally foul mood. Every time I told them to continue, I was very aware of the fact that I was playing with fire, because if they had decided to simply up and leave me in the forest, there would have been nothing I could do to stop them, but in no way did I want to give in.

Just ate a pear, mmmm, fruit, vitamins, healthyness. But I think I’ve negated all that goodness by eating a kilogram of cheese today. Well maybe not an actual kilogram, but it feels that way. Totally worth it. Think I’m going to go back to the jungle weighing twice as much than when I left. Growing fear that I may not be able to run away from charging elephants. At least I’ll have my new knife to save me. Trying to work out if its at all possible to stop a charging bull elephant with a 7 inch knife. Prospects don’t look good.

After about another week, Chris and Flo swapped camps as it was decided that Flo (who started at the same time as me) was now going to be working in Yatouga. After a couple of days the cameras were due to be done, and so me and Flo set off. As we do the cameras over two days, we were back in camp for 1pm. At about this time the new tracker and one other were returning from the forest, when they were meant to be out on their own looking for the gorilla. But they came back with great news. They said that they had seen and followed six gorilla just behind camp, and even better, it was the Atananga group. As it was only 1pm, and they’d found Atananga, me and Flo got up straight away and told them to take us to where they’d last seen them. Reluctantly, they took out of camp and not 10 minutes down the track to where they’d found six gorilla nests, pretty much directly on the trail. Then we found out that actually they hadn’t seen the gorilla at all, just found the nests. Great. We asked them to show us where they tracked them, but it turns out that they hadn’t even attempted to follow the trail from the nests off into the forest. Things were not looking good. We made them follow the trail all afternoon, and along the way collected feces for the dietary analysis, finally getting back into camp at about 5, with two very unhappy trackers. They must have found the nests in the morning (they were pretty hard to miss, directly on the trail), sat around for hours, and then decided to come back and tell us what they thought we wanted to hear (that they’d found Atananga), not realizing that this would mean we’d want them to take us back there. Trackers lying to you, just what you need when you rely on them daily to find the gorilla…

The next day was the final nail in the coffin. It was the second day for the cameras, and so Julie and Flo went off to do them whilst I took my rest day in camp with one of the other trackers. All of a sudden at around 12pm, the five other trackers who were meant to be out in the forest with Julie and Flo returned to camp, with out the girls. About 10 minutes later, Flo and Julie came storming out of the forest, fuming. It transpired that they had all sat down to have lunch near one of the cameras, and then with out warning the trackers had decided that they’d simply had enough and left back for camp without saying a word to the girls, leaving them alone in the forest. This is pretty much the worst thing that they could have done. We talked to them, and they told us that they didn’t want to work, and wanted to return to their village. The reasons they gave were far from clear, but seemed to involve a lack of sugar in the coffee, their tiredness, and the Devil being present in Yatouga. Despite their apparent tiredness, they proceeded to stay up late that night singing and dancing around the fires, and then the next day (16th October 2011) left incredibly early, without saying a word to us, for Ozouga, to go and get the two trackers working there, who had had next to nothing to do with the trackers in Yatouga. And thus, we were left trackerless. And with no trackers we could do no gorilla habituation.

We presumed what had happened was that the new tracker, who had taken up the role of leader, was not happy with the work as he was older and got more tired. Due to his position within the group, he pretty much told the others, most of whom had worked at Yatouga before and thus knew what they were getting into and had agreed to come back, that they were all to leave. As it was not possible to get replacement trackers immediately, Yatouga had to effectively close down, and we all moved over to Ozouga for what we hoped would be just a few weeks. And here we stayed for the next 2 and a half months. This means that I’ve actually spend more time in Ozouga, working on the chimpanzee habituation, then I have at Yatouga with the gorilla, and even as I’m writing this (10th January 2012), we still haven’t started the gorilla habituation up again, we have to wait until we’re back in the park in order to go and get some new trackers. Not that I’m complaining (despite having had to live in a tiny two man tent for the whole time), as it has been amazing chance to be able to observe wild chimpanzees, and I’ve seen some incredible things whilst doing it (think chimps crossing swamps on their back legs with hands in the air and male chimpanzees drumming on buttress roots and pant hooting not 10 meters from me). But hopefully, when we return back with the new boat (which should be in about 3 days time, fingers crossed), and when I the return from Malawi, I’ll be able to get back on with the gorilla, which I haven’t seen in about 3 months.

Over and out.