Chapter Thirteen: Habituation
Getting to Know You, Hoping that You Like Me
12.09.2021 - 12.09.2021 70 °F
View Morocco + Uganda + Rwanda on paulej4's travel map.
At first, gorillas and humans were not compatible. In today's parlance, one side were liberals, the other side were conservatives. Here that lack of compatibility is being overcome. "Habituation" occurs, now this is in technical jargon, when animals (or people) are repeatedly exposed to the same stimuli. They are exposed so often that they become accustomed to the stimuli and, this is the important part, they no longer react to it. In this case, when gorillas no longer see humans--which they have seen repeatedly with no negative consequences--they then allow these humans to come closer and closer and, in some cases, the animal will even reverse the process and approach the human.
I have seen less intense forms of this on safari countless times. Lions don't care that we are there in the truck in a national park because we're not a threat. We don't bother them, they don't bother us. In a hunting preserve, lions run and hide because they know humans are dangerous to them and will shoot. In parks where the animals are held captive and fed by humans who bring them meat, the lion will eat the human if given the chance--they are habituated that humans are associated with food and, maybe, therefore, are food.
Here in Uganda, there is a movement to habituate more gorilla families to accept humans. Today, I embark on a journey with a team of rangers/researchers whose primary mission is to habituate a new family of gorillas to accept the presence of human beings. I am up early, drink my coffee early and depart Clouds Mountain Lodge at 6:20 with Abdul at the wheel for a forty minute drive to our destination. The sun is just coming up and there are few people about at first but that changes as we near our objective.
Upon arrival at what might pass as a storefront in a village, the "boss" emerges from a nondescript doorway. His name is Eelisha. He looks smart in his military uniform and beret and soon proves himself to be a fine communicator whose English vocabulary exceeds many Americans I know. I meet the remainder of his team: Ivan, Brian, Robert, Naboth and Steven. They are welcoming, smiling and accommodating when I ask to be introduced and write down their names. I ask Naboth to spell it and they all laugh. I am asked if I wish to employ a porter and I enthusiastically say yes. Mensia steps forward and she is quickly hired and takes my backpack.
I grab my walking stick and without any more delay we set off down a typical Ugandan road. The road soon evolves into a typical Ugandan path and then further evolves into a tricky, narrow, rocky, muddy path. Mensia, who I later learn is the mother of four with the oldest being her 20-year-old "strong as a bull" son, carries my backpack but that is really a small portion of her very important job. Her job is to make sure that I can complete this day and fulfill my objective and not fall off the mountain. She is very good at her job and we spend an extensive amount of time holding hands as she leads me up, or down, or straight along the always tricky pathways.
Upon reaching the edge of the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest the pathway dissolves into, well, mostly nothing. The way forward has been partially cleared by a machete and whoever travels onward from this point steps over what the swinging blade has hacked away. As we make our way, Eelisha explains to me how they choose which gorilla families are good to habituate and which are not. To explain it in the simplest terms possible, the best family is one with many females who can produce many babies.
The process begins with this team and others like them approaching the target family and from a great distance, he says 200 meters, they begin to mimic the actions and the sounds they see and hear. If the gorillas are eating, the team pretends to eat the same plants. If the gorillas are making grunting noises, the team mimics those sounds. The most reassuring sound a gorilla can hear is similar to the sound you and I make when we clear our throat but, in doing so, try to minimize how offensive it might sound to others. Another reassuring sound approaches the one I make getting up out of a chair (I never used to make a sound when getting up from a chair but, sadly, I do now).
Day after day they repeat this process, approaching more closely in whatever gradual manner will be tolerated by the family--which really means whatever is tolerable to the Silverback who leads it.
The family I seek today has been at this work for about a year. We "hike" to a tree marked my fresh machete slashes. This, Eelisha tells me is the spot where the family was last seen yesterday. I can see that they have passed onward from here. The branches are broken and the grass is smashed down. But this is not a path you or I could take. Until the team takes over with their machetes, that is. We go, slowly, hacking our way, down and down and down. We spot some "gorilla poo" and then come upon a nest but not the one from this families overnight last night. This one is old. A gorilla nest is matted grass and leaves about six feet in diameter with a generous helping of dung on one side. It is explained to me that upon arising, the gorilla who slept here takes care of business and begins a new day. Each gorilla in the family creates its own nest with the exception of the babies who sleep with their mothers. My travel arrangers, Natural World Safaris--and i cannot speak highly enough about them, describes what this day is about with this sentence at the end: "A high level of fitness is required to take part in what will be a challenging day of trekking."
That is accurate. At one point, I hand my iPhone to Eelisha and ask him to record a bit of how our progress goes. Eelisha does his best Steven Spielberg and creates his own opus which I present to you here. It is long, one full gigabyte, but I think listening to him while watching our progress will be highly informative.
He is a fine young man, father of a two-year-old son, well educated and destined for great things. He asked me about whether or not I was retired. "Yes." He asked me about what I did for a living and I described it. "Oh, you were an entrepreneur." That's Eelisha. He immediately asked me for tips about managing people. I gave him my three best and he hung on every word, just like I wish all my students over many years had done.
My dear friend Linda bemoaned, in her comment, the pesky flies. They follow the gorillas and exist only in their proximity. They do not bite--at least not me.
But back to my story. We arrive at a spot where we can clearly see a gorilla high in a tree. When I say high, I mean high: four or five stories up. Soon it is apparent: the entire family is up in this mammoth tree or the one next door to it which is equally majestic. For the next half hour we wait for them to come down. This will be a good exercise in letting them know we are not a threat. They will have to descend and they will have to tolerate us. And soon, they cautiously rappel, gorilla style, and decide that they are going to have to deal with us to proceed with their day. It was one of the most fascinating half-hours of my life watching them decide whether or not we are a threat. There are three movies here, the first shows a hesitant family and the second show a Silverback, both returning to terra firma, tourist from American be damned. The third explains proximity.
Eelisha explains that their research shows they can identify the uniforms the ranger/researchers wear and have learned that anyone who wears that is non-threatening. But I wear, as you have seen, civilian attire. They seem to ignore those in camouflage and consider me instead.
You had to be there. The videos attempt to make you feel what I felt.
You also have to be here to feel what I just felt: British Airways just canceled my flight from Brussels to London. That means my lunch with Cianán is 99% sure to be canceled. And, it means that my PCR test needed to enter the U.S. is jeopardized due to a lack of time in Brussels to get it. I'll communicate with Cianán who will help me figure out how to proceed. But, one must ask oneself: What's Next?
Other guests have arrived at Clouds Mountain Gorilla Lodge. There are two women from San Diego, a man from Philadelphia and a wonderful woman from Palm Springs, Park City and Los Angeles named Michelle. Her nine friends who were supposed to accompany her all canceled so she, like me, is traveling solo.
My habituation trek is supposed to be the topic of this chapter so I'll set aside my stress at having to figure out how to get back home for Christmas.
The family descended from the immense trees that formed the canopy that blocked the sun below and made their way for the next couple of hours from this dining spot to that dining spot and we followed. That was never, I repeat, never easy. I would be tugged, pushed, helped, aided, led, and whatever other verb I can conjure through the brush, beneath the branch, over the root, across the gap and along the edge until I happily said, when asked if I was satisfied with my experience, "Absolutely. I am happy to return to civilization now."
We hacked our way to a path. The three trackers were not finished with their habituation duties for the day so I tipped them and my ranger/researcher team and Mensia and I began the semi-arduous journey back to "the office."
Anyone who would engage in gorilla trekking or habituation trekking who declines the services of a porter is tantamount to a fool. Not only does the local economy benefit greatly, a family is fed and the traveller is aided in the most enormous fashion possible. Mark my word.
Back at the lodge in time for a wonderful hot shower and a return to the main lodge to write, I am delayed by a sudden heavy downpour of rain accompanied by, get this, hail. After being as sure footed as I could be all day, I stumbled on the wet rocky many-stained pathway but rose unharmed, only wet.
Abdul joins me for dinner as Bosco serves. What could be better than that.
