day to day life

Hi

All I just realised that I havent sent through an update lately, hence this one now. The problem is its been so long, I cant even remember what was in the last one. I think it covered going to Bayanga and a few times in the forest. So to any recent goings on.
The first thing is an interesting experience with an elephant. A couple of weeks back, during the night, one intelligent elephant, entered the camp through the camp gate, stuck its trunk into a couple of empty buildings, and then took a liking to Daniela’s house. It decided to stick its trunk in through her window while she was sleeping. The very same elephant did this same thing 3 months previous, so looks like it may be a common occurance from now on. There has been very little particularly noteworthy experiences out here lately, as time just ticks on and the work just continues. Apologies for the lack of exciting stories but day to day conservation work is actually quite repetitive and requires great patience. There have been some lovely moments.

Recently I went into the forest to the Gorilla with Daniela when the gorillas went to a nearby Bai on a sunny day. It was a beautiful afternoon and the gorillas headed to a nearby clearing known as Bai’s or Salines. As the area is so open you can see the gorillas easily without needing to get close. It’s the only real time you can see the entire family in an area together. Normally the dense forest hides most of the other group members. This day however it was cool, seeing the mother and her children largely spending time with one another. The kids playing in the sun, while the big father, Makumba sits back from the edges and oversees his family. It was quite reminiscent of a big family outing to the beach. Just with a husband and his 3 wives and 7 children, 1 from a former partner. Oh and very hairy family! However despite these amazing views etc, photography was actually rubbish. The light was incredibly harsh and very bright, and as gorillas are so dark in colour, most of my photos were rubbish. This actually put quite a big down on the day but was still good to see them in this manner.
There has been a few nice sitings of other animals also. Recently I saw a large adult deiker, one of the 4 species, I cant remember which one however. It seemed quite oblivious to us and just carried on with its normal behaviour despite us being only a 10m away or so. I also recently saw a mongoose (a slender one apparently) which just popped out from behind a fallen tree, looked at us and carried on. This was until the tracker in front of me decided to scare the mongoose, much to my great annoyance. Only moments before this Mongoose, another deiker had walked aimlessly behind us, but got scared at the sight of us. And the other large species Iv seen, well heard, was one of the river hogs or potamogeur in French and Ngoya in Bayaka. It grunted at the sound of us and walked on by. As these can be quite aggressive we did not move towards it for fear of being skewered. That’s about the major stuff going on but if I think of something Iv missed Il let you guys know.

Currently there are only 4 people including myself in camp excluding the trackers and the local assistants who tend to keep to themselves. One fo these will be leaving to head home tomorrow. It is now coming up to Christmas, a time of joy to most. Being out here may mean I have the most unusual xmas to date. I will be having a few beers and pizza for dinner probably. We may have a small party but wont be anything to extreme I would imagine. Some time on the 25th my main company of 2 will be departing, having ended their research. This means that I will be the only English speaker out here for upto 11 or 12 days, which could be extremely difficult and hard going at times. Due to this any emails would be greatly received. HYPERLINK "mailto:bai.hokou@uuplus.com" bai.hokou@uuplus.com is the address. Just don’t send attachments as download is limited. Anyway hope all are well and have a lovely Christmas and a new year to remember. Just remember to have a Southern Comfort for me as I cant have one. Only access to beer, which is amazing but southern would go down much better.
Regards all
Dean