The Congo Connection - Chapter 1

 

Chapter 1

Patricia Johnson tightened the death grip she held on each arm rest, her body tensing as the airplane lifted off of the runway, thrusting itself into the sky. She gritted her teeth. “Oh God. Fuck, I hate flying” she said to nobody, following a routine that hadn’t changed in as long as she could remember. Slowly as the plane reached altitude and began to level off, she relaxed her fingers, her arms, shoulders and the rest of her body, and let out a long sigh of relief. She would be okay now as long as there wasn’t much turbulence, until the plane began its descent into New York for a short layover; only the first of many hops, skips and jumps from Atlanta Georgia via Johannesburg to Kinshasa, deep in the Congo.  Patricia, or Patty as her friends called her, was a researcher from Georgia State University.  She had spent the last few years of her career observing, studying and writing reports on primate behaviour, mostly from the relative safety of a laboratory or occasionally she did “field visits” to zoos in the U.S.  But this time she had really done it, and contrary to every bit of logic she knew, she had volunteered for a three month assignment studying primates in the rain forest south of the Congo River in equatorial Africa.

Life is like that.  Somewhere, buried deep in the restless mind of all human beings, we desire change. Some of us put it off, stalling for as long as we can, while others jump at the chance every time an opportunity presents itself.

Patty reached into her carry-on bag and pulled out her laptop, beginning her journal as she nudged her shoes off and wiggled her toes.  She scribbled the date, her flight numbers and hotels for the next three days and as she transferred the information from her itinerary, her mind wandered away from her professional life into her personal one.  Patty winced inwardly, beginning a familiar conversation with herself and her mother.  Logically, as much as she knew that the world was not depending on her to ensure the continuation of the species, biologically and emotionally, she could feel the need in the hard wiring of her 27 year old female brain to find a man, marry him and have his babies.  According to her mother and several of her own friends, it was only a matter of time until Mr. Right showed up, produced the necessary credentials ie. “soul mate”, and they could begin living happily ever after.  The clicking of her biological clock was speeding up and it seemed that it was ticking a little louder every time she thought about it, which is why she avoided these discussions with herself in the first place. Patty pulled out a report that she had been writing and started editing it.

For the next two days Patty’s life became a blur of airplanes and airports as she flew from the U.S. to South Africa, where she would meet her new research partners at Johannesburg.  They would then fly on to Kinshasa and go by boat up the Congo River to a research centre called The Bonobo Forest Sanctuary in “Cuvette Centrale”, the heart of bonobo habitat.

At first glance, bonobos, which were only discovered in the early 1930’s, are very similar looking to chimpanzees; most people wouldn’t even know them apart.  But bonobos are actually slightly smaller on average with pink or reddish lips and very dark, almost black pigmented faces.  They have flatter, open faces including a high forehead and less prominent brow ridges, with smaller ears and wide flared nostrils compared to chimpanzees.  They are well-groomed with a broad part in their heair above their forehead.  Bonobos  have  bushy sideburns and long black hair sweeps  over the back of their heads.  Proportionately, they have longer legs, a slim upper body, narrow shoulders and a thin neck.  Actually, the body weight of the bonobo is proportioned differently from a chimpanzee; their center of gravity is lower, making it possible for the bonobo to stand more erect and walk on two feet with a natural gait that is very similar to humans.

The interesting thing about Bonobos is that they share nearly 99% of the same DNA as humans. We didn’t know this until a few years ago when in 2005, an international team of researchers sequenced the DNA of a bonobo using molecular genetic analysis. Scientists compared the bonobo genome directly with that of chimps and humans, and discovered that 1.6% more human DNA is shared with the bonobo, than with chimpanzees, making bonobos our closest living evolutionary cousin.

These findings have stimulated researchers to speculate on how and why humans, chimps and bonobos have evolved differently.  While humans left our common ancestor, Australopithecine, in the dust about 2.4 million years ago, chimpanzee and bonobo populations went their own ways later on, probably after the Congo River formed and divided their ancestral population into two groups. Today, bonobos are found only on the south bank of the wide Congo River, while chimpanzees are only found on the north bank, as well as other places in the world.  Neither species is capable of swimming the swift wide Congo River. 

About 2.5 million years ago, there was a long dry drought in southern Africa that wiped out the food sources of ground dwelling gorillas. After the drought ended, the food sources came back, but the gorillas never did. Chimpanzees in this environment south of the river had the forest to themselves, and could enjoy a bountiful supply of foods that had previously been eaten by gorillas; foods that are still eaten by gorillas to the north. With this additional food to tide them over on the ground between fruit trees, they could travel by foot in larger, more stable parties, and form strong social bonds. They evolved into what we now know as bonobos.
On the north side of the river, the chimps had to share their territory with gorillas, which eat the fruit near the ground. The chimps have to keep to the safety of the trees or risk their lives to eat ground fruit and meat. Female chimpanzees disperse into the forest with their infants to find enough to eat, and cannot spend time together to forge strong bonds. The changes in social behavior that occurred in response to these environmental factors is what led chimps down a different evolutionary path, toward a society more prone to violence.

Chimpanzee societies are dominated by the biggest and the strongest males who settle disputes with violence and brute force. They form war parties and attack rival groups, killing indiscriminately. The smaller female chimpanzees live in fear of the males, who physically harass and dominate them.  Sex in a chimpanzee society is strictly about reproduction, and reproductive tactics can include infanticide; the killing of offspring unrelated to a male chimp. Infanticidal individuals remove potential competitors to their own offspring, and the mother, without an infant to care for, will become available for mating again much sooner.

Bonobo society, on the other hand, is female-dominated and is identified with strong bonds and alliances that develop between the females using constant sexual activity amongst all members of a colony. Bonobos use sex to reinforce bonds within the colony, diffuse tension and resolve conflict. Infanticide is unknown among bonobos. Their constant sexual activity obscures paternity, removing the incentive for infanticide.  Preventing infanticide is a huge evolutionary advantage for bonobos, because more of their offspring will survive, compared to chimpanzees.

Patty’s assignment was to observe and report on bonobo behaviour while they still exist.  There may be fewer than 5,000 bonobos left in the wild.  Humans have all but eliminated bonobos with civil war, the bushmeat trade and illegal logging in the Congo.

She hadn’t had much time to prepare. The whole idea of taking a sabbatical and using it to study bonobos in their natural habitat only occurred to her a few weeks earlier when a professor offered her the opportunity on the condition that she share her research with him.  She had her immunizations and a general check up with her doctor, but aside from picking up some mosquito spray, she was pretty much winging it.

She survived on airport and airplane food for the next two days, thinking it was a good starting point for her new lifestyle which would include eating whatever there was to eat.  She had bought a couple of travel books and googled up what she could find on the internet, but she actually knew very little about the Congo.  She did remember watching CNN and hearing a report saying that the Democratic Republic of the Congo had ended, or at least tried to end, a ten year war that killed millions of people.  She had read a report which warned that bonobo populations suffered as well, and were at least endangered, if not on the brink of extinction.

After landing at Johannesburg International, Patty checked into the Intercontinental Hotel, right at the airport.  She enjoyed a much-needed shower and a good night’s sleep.  In the morning, she showered again and had breakfast before walking the short distance to the airport check-in where she was to meet her new research partners.

She knew very little about them.  As she sat patiently in the waiting area, she searched for her itinerary and found their names.  There was a man named Roger Long, who was originally from Canada, though he had spent most of his life in the Congo, and a French woman named Celeste Lefebvre who came from the states. The three of them would be joining other researchers already on location. As Patty looked up from reading, she noticed a white man and a black woman begin the check-in process and she decided they were Roger and Celeste. The only other passengers, thus far, looked like South African businessmen. As Patty waited, she observed her new partners.  If this was Roger, he certainly was a handsome man with a nice dimpled smile. Perhaps a couple of years older than her, he was in excellent physical shape.  She let her eyes explore his masculine physique. He wore tan coloured dockers, leather loafers and a blue V-neck T-shirt, revealing a mat of curly chest hair.  He was well tanned on his arms and face, and from what she could see, he had strong facial features with a well-defined jaw line.  She blushed slightly, admonishing herself for checking him out so thoroughly.

Celeste was no less beautiful.  She was an African Princess with flawless kin; probably in her late twenties, tall and thin with long braided hair.  She had large colourful beads that circled her long neck with matching beads on her left wrist and large golden hoop earrings.  She wore sandals and a long African wrap called a kanga which fit her all too well. They walked towards her and Patty smiled at them, introducing herself.  She shook hands with Roger and with Celeste, their greetings warm and friendly. The three of them moved to a table where they sat and ordered soft drinks, sharing small talk in English while they waited for their flight. It turned out that this was only one of many of Roger’s assignments in the Congo.  He was a seasoned researcher of bonobos, having chosen to specialize in bonobo research over 15 years ago.  Roger had published several papers, two of which were shared at the Congress of the International Primatological Society. That’s the big time, Patty thought, for bonobo researchers. This was Celeste’s first time in the Congo but she had been working in primate research for over ten years. She had also published several papers on primates though her reports focused individually on baboons, orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees and gibbons.  Bonobos would be the last of the “Great Apes” that she would study.  Celeste carried herself well. She walked and sat with very good posture and she held her head up, almost unnaturally upon her long gazelle-like neck.  There was a pride in this woman that suggested strong lineage and good breeding, private schools, formal education, and a privileged life, wherever she had come from. She was polite and soft spoken but direct.  She seemed to choose her words carefully.

When their flight was called out, Celeste, who also spoke fluent  French, Afrikaans and Swahili, directed them to the right queue and they boarded the plane for the uneventful five hour flight north, save for the take-off and landing which Patty managed to endure by gripping both of their hands.