First: Finally!!
My current situation is equivalent to FINALLY and out of NOWHERE being asked to dance by a random attractive stranger. After standing in the back of the room, in the dark, with no buddies... Someone approaches YOU. That happiness! Lol I can see my dad being like, "What?!! Who are you dancing with!?"
No dancing! I was invited to play soccer! According to THIS formal invitation!!!
I don't know what all of the words say, but I do know that there is a women's soccer match for New Years and LEIGH ANNA is invited! And the other white girls here. I am so HAPPY.
I think about jumping in and playing with those boys everyday. But I don't. I was starting to think I wouldn't be playing with them at all this winter. No one even knew I secretly wanted to dance! They just invited me!
But let's get back to reality. (Whoop! There goes gravity.) I am sitting in the forest. This particular forest is maybe 15 square kilometers... But we stay focused on the chimps' core range. This is about 6 square kilometers. This forest is completely cutoff from the rest of the forests in this area; 100% due to human impact. It's like an island. For this reason- there are hardly any wild animals in this forest. Besides the 9 chimps we watch everyday. Other than that, I've seen birds and 3 squirrels. See why we had that "isolated chimp population" conference here?
So, I kinda lied. Bossou's forest isn't COMPLETELY cut off from other forests... Matsuzawa and his team have worked for YEARS to create a 'Green Corridor' that would connect our forest to another close to the Nimba Mountains. The team has planted thousands of trees in an effort to connect the forests... And it seems to be working well. However, they still have a long way to go.
All of these things have affected the chimps throughout the years. Up until 2003, there was a stable population of 19 chimps in Bossou's group. It was during that year that a flu epidemic (originating in the human population) took the lives of 5 chimps.
In chimpanzee families, once a young female comes to age she leaves her natal group to live with a neighboring family. This positively affects the gene pool. So, before Bossou's forest was cutoff from the others- its chimp community was successfully mixing in with all the others due to female emigration! But now- that can't happen.
Except, it kinda CAN happen. But it's a one-way street. Our female chimps can use the Green Corridor to move to other groups... But no other females are brave enough to come live in our group. This is because our group is so heavily mixed with humans! Our chimps see humans everyday, and have for 30 years! Our chimps are not scared of the passing cars, amplified voices, or musical celebrations reverberating from town! But, all of these things scare foreign chimps away from ever moving here. For this reason- there are only 9 chimps living in Matsuzawa's community.
What do you think about this?
Maybe the stilled gene pool contributed to Flanle's 6th finger on his right hand... Did I ever mention that!?
What elseee....
Oh... We got mats for Christmas from Matsuzawa.
(Notice the shade leaf I planted.)
"Is Leigh Anna getting paid to sleep all winter??" Uh, no. I'm not getting paid. AND- I probably have ant eggs in my ears from sleeping on the ground before this mat.
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