"A quest is as much about the seeker as the sought."
That awkward moment when your phone grabs onto the Liberian cell network....
Hi, guys! Hi, Future Leigh Anna! How are you?
I'm hanging from a vine on Mont Gban contemplating life and our history as a species. Just kidding, I'm thinking about lunch. (But I promise I think about smart things too sometimes, Dad.) We've heard the chimps this morning... But they haven't come up to us for a snack yet this morning.
I'm reading that book "The Follow" by Linda Spalding. Have you heard of it?? It's amazing...
At one point she describes the trees surrounding her as being "living columns." This line stopped me in my tracks. How true. I read that sentence from this very spot in the forest. My eyes shifted to the giant tree that acts as the centerpiece of our clearing. It has a thick trunk and a massive buttress with wide, extending roots. It's the tallest tree here at the tip-top of this hill and we sit under it for 10 hours a day. It's the living column that supports the canopy up above us... So I pictured us scientists under a circus tent: This tree in the middle holding up the tent canvas, us huddled together to the side with our cameras, and the chimps performing tricks with nuts and stones. "Step right up!" "Oooooo! Ahhhhhhh!"
I meant to tell y'all that we had a rat in our soup three days ago for lunch. Well, they* had a rat in their* soup. I was an innocent bystander eating a protein bar from Kroger.
Matsuzawa is amazing every single day. I noticed his multicolored pen the very first day I met him... Because what full-grown man uses a multicolored pen?? This guy does. You know the kind I'm talking about, with the small black, blue, red, and green pull-down nobs on the side? Matsuzawa buys these pens in bulk I guarantee you. Lemme show you why:
This is Dr. Matsuzawa's "Activity Budget." Mentioning his pretty-colored paper was a loaded complement... He dove into explaining, clearly proud of his work. That picture above perfectly depicts every single thing Matsuzawa has done in the past three months. Color-coded and adjusted for travel time differences. Black is for sleeping, red for computer work, green for resting, dark green for forest time, and blue for social interactions. He even notates how many times he bushes his teeth each day (my favorite part). When he saw how honestly interested I was, he explained further. And further! On the next pages he has his "one-line diaries" for each day. Is this man a human being or not?... Because I don't even know if I should TRY to emulate. He's just beyond. He told me to try, of course. So I want to.
Last night he told us that he is one of the very few people in the world to have met all three of Leakey's Angels. Dian Fossey, Birute Galdikas, and Jane Goodall. These three girls were sponsored by Dr. Louis Leakey decades ago to study our closest living relatives- the mountain gorilla, the orangutan, and the chimpanzee respectively. Dr. Leakey believed that women were the best observers, so he gathered up three of the toughest ones to send out to the uncharted wilderness!! Girl power!
ANYWAYS- Matsuzawa has met all three of these ladies. The next logical question for me to ask was, "Who did you find to be the nicest?" He laughed and said without any hesitation, "Absolutely 100%- Jane Goodall!" OMG she is a saint!
What else?... Hmmmmm....
Last night I drank the palm wine that Dr. Tatyana Humle warned me about. "If it's not sweet, don't drink it!" It was sweet, so I drank it. Also, Cat gave us chocolate for dessert and I almost cried tears of joy. Lol that's dramatic, I'm jk. I was happy.
In my next post I will reveal why we only have 9 chimps in this forest. This will also explain why there aren't any other animals! Besides squirrels. I've seen like 3 squirrels since I've been here.
Want some pics?
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