Wednesday, December 26 – Into the forest at Gombe Stream

We walk up the beach to the Park Headquarters after being awakened by baboons romping on our roof. We meet with the Park Warden and offer gifts – a snorkel set and a leatherman. He is new to this park and to Bill and Kristin. We find Sharif on the beach. A friend of B and K’s for many years. He invites us to his home where we relax and visit for. We talk about our families, Gombe, and Sharif’s collage ambitions. There have been fewer poachers since more park rangers have been placed along the boundary. Sharif has a wife who is currently staying with her family outside Kigoma as she is expecting their second child. He hopes to get into town in time for the birth. He also hopes to further his studies by attending an American University. Their home looks pretty similar to homes here except that there are monkeys in the trees outside. It is sparsely furnished and decorated but is cool and clean. There is glass in the windows, unlike our accommodations on the beach. The back leads to a courtyard and a flush toilet in a separate building. Sharif speaks remarkably good English and I enjoy listening to him banter with Bill and Kristin about the park and their adventures.
Midafternoon. We head into the park for the first time, following a trail behind Sharif’s house. I take it in – the smells, colors and sounds. I stand and stare. I walk in the back of our troop of four because I want to stop and look so often. There’s almost too much to register all at once. Familiar yet like nothing I’ve seen before. Tall palm trees with vines hanging. Dense undergrowth lush and green. The sounds hundreds of bugs make. A trickling creek. Birds everywhere. We follow the creek up to where Bill first camped when he arrived here in 1992-allowed at that time to actually camp inside the park boundary. We stop to examine caterpillars and dung beetles, mushrooms and ferns. We wander up the creek bottom for about an hour. At the top of our first step climb, we hear chimps calling from across the ridge. Fine motivators for tired hikers. This is the Mitumba group, a neighboring group of chimps to the Kasakela family living close to B and K’s hut and whom we hope to visit soon. The Mitumba group is not as habituated. Up and down. Up and down. Ridge. Ravine. Ridge. Ravine. The terrain is steep. Memories are shared at various stops along the way. Here is where the cobra was. Frodo displayed here. Broken-leg guy had to be carried off the mountain down this trail. I’m sure I have ‘experiencing face’.
We rest along a creek bottom and dip our bandanas in the water to cool our hot faces. It is picturesque. Shady jungle vegetation. Crystal clear water. We drink and talk about our day so far. We all take pictures of each other.



Bandanas dripping. Smiling faces. We spook a troop of red-tailed colobus monkeys who curiously chose to sail over us through the tree tops instead of scooting away down the hill. Another ‘movie’ image. Some even pause to stare at us as we stare at them. Loud chatter. Shaking leaves.



Jane’s Peak. This is where she waited so patiently day after day as she attempted to habituate the Kasakala group, named after the valley we are now looking in to. It starts to rain. Again a welcome event. Cool and clean. Cameras hurriedly tucked under plastic rain slickers. Chimps call from the valley floor. They are really here! One sounds angry or scared. Vocalizing vehemently. Screaming over and over. Settle down to quiet. We listen and gaze at the great valley spreading before us. The sun breaks through and presents us with a perfect rainbow on the ridge above. It is getting late. We discuss options. We all agree to head down the ridge to the hut instead of diving into the valley to try to see chimps before it gets dark. I am happy with this decision. I don’t want to hurry the experience. I can still hear chimps calling as I walk along. I savor the sound and think about the days to come....

Christmas Day – Gombe Stream National Park

“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,” we sing as we enjoy the tropical warmth. A classic Christmas breakfast is about the only indication that it is really Christmas day. We dine on Cowboy tatters, cheese eggs, fresh fruit, Cocoa Puffs (a small box of which I carried all the way from home for Will as a Christmas Day treat), fresh coffee, French toast. Our ‘Chuthers’. The setting is all that has changed. Will is wistful, however, for tradition. No tree. No snow. No extended family. No pile of presents. It is different. His lament is soon forgotten when a spear gun is discovered in Bill’s loft. To the lake. It’s time to catch Christmas dinner. Wet suit and fins. Living a different dream. Start a new tradition?!



A day on the lake for everyone. Swimming, snorkeling, playing, relaxing. Two freshly butchered chickens are delivered from the village. They look like road runners. Straight into marinades. I replicate a Hawaiian Shoyu chicken recipe (a favorite of Will’s, a recipe from Brian’s mom). Kristin bakes the other chicken in a clay pot with wine and butter. Five small fish are successfully speared and two large Koohey (a local fish) are purchased from a passing fisherman. An afternoon of unrushed cooking and preparation in Bill and Kristin’s semi-outdoor kitchen, screened in to keep out the baboons. Efficient and functional. Fresh squeezed citrus and Konyagi. The fish are grilled to perfection in a fire ring on the beach. We feast on the beach after sundown. Not bothered by the baboons who have all gone to bed.

Monday, December 24 – Kigoma, Tanzania; Gombe Stream National Park

Breakfast of mango and papaya. Cashews and Chai Borah tea. Bill drives us back down the hill to town in our ‘Gombe Stream’ truck. More shopping – butter and hot dogs. Skewers of beef. Flip-flops for Will. Kerosene. No fish is available….’full moon is bad for fishing’.



To Takari – a Jane Goodall Institute compound where our boat awaits. We meet a bunch of people. Names aren’t a strong point for me. I can’t keep everyone straight. There’s Mary, a baboon researcher. Shadrac – a chimp researcher, I think. I send greetings to him from mom and dad who visited here a few years ago. “Habari/Nzuri” a million times. The famous boat ride. Is this too a movie? It looks like I pictured it because I’ve already ‘seen’ it on video so many times. So surreal to be seeing it ‘live’. Civilization quickly left behind. Thatch huts. Torn-sailed dhows. Wooden canoes. Earnest operators. Arms uplifted in waves of greeting. We motor past tiny villages. Houses right on the beach. Clay brick with metal roofs. Some are grass. Deforested hills ascend from the shore. We discuss erosion and ignorance. We see the same thing at home in Oregon. ‘Gombe Stream National Park’. A small sign marks the boundary. Lush, forested hillsides offer clearer distinction. Baboons are sitting on the beach. Someone points out a ‘Wazungu’ Tree – stark white bark stands out against a deep green backdrop. The park is twelve miles long and two miles deep along the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika. We are all smiles. ‘Welcome home, Bill and Kristin!’ Their hut. An icon. We settle in, pleased to learn that there is room for Brian, Will and I in Jane’s house – a linear stone dwelling with 3/4 wall rooms. Open air. Screened around the periphery. Utilitarian. No glass. Dinner of samosas, chapattis and beef kabobs carried from town. Fresh avocado and mango. Cool beer. It’s all perfect.

Sunday, December 23 – A day of travel

Up at dawn (about 6:00am here year-round since we are only about 15 degrees south of the equator). A taxi to the airport to catch our 9:00am flight back to Dar es Salaam. Detour back into Stonetown and The Clove to collect our ‘Cougar’ Cheese (a tin of sharp, cheddar cheese given to all of us by Mom and Dad when we left home). Brian fortunately remembered that we had accidentally left it in the refrigerator there.



A day of travel. Tiny 10-seater prop-plane back to Dar. One last glimpse from the air of the atoll where we lunched during our snorkel cruise. Flawless landing. Two hour wait for our Precision Air Flight west across the country to Kigoma. Kristin and Bill’s friend, Sham, meets us at the airport and delivers luggage he had been keeping for them since a previous visit. We leave with him our duffle bag full of fabrics and spice. Treasures from Zanzibar. Four hours to Kigoma, Tanzania. VAST mountains. Seemly undisturbed. Then I notice all the clear cuts. They are everywhere. Spider web roads connect small villages. Red, red earth. Farm plots without the grid. Rounded peeks. Steep. Kigoma airstrip is red earth packed hard. ‘Karibu Kigoma’ the sign welcomes. We are really here. Chaos in the tiny room that serves as baggage claim. We begin stuffing our luggage (every piece accounted for) into a waiting cab. We quickly realize that we’ll need another as collectively, we still have a lot of luggage. Half a dozen children crowd us with hands out. Big smiles. “Money, money,” they implore. Their first (only?) English word? They seem satisfied with seeing their digital images on Will’s camera. Another stereotyped image jumps into my mind….white guy in neat clothes sporting the latest in groovy optics surrounded by the outstretched hands of children in ragged clothes. I am again embarrassed. It is difficult for me to contemplate their future for long. What is their life like? What will it be? We are ridiculously privileged with our middle-income American lives.



To the market we go. We are up against the clock to get all the provisions we need and get to Gombe by midday tomorrow. Vendors are already closing as we arrive but reopen when they see us. A ‘store’ the size of our kitchen (i.e. not big) offers almost every dry good on our list. Amazing. Eggs are packed in sawdust in a cardboard box. We’ll wash them later. Single offerings of most items make selection simple. Our list includes tea, catsup, powdered milk, baking powder, Red Bull (for Will), boxed juice, rice and vinegar. We leave our purchases to be tallied and boxed. I follow Kristin into the produce market. The boys are off on other errands. Mind-boggling narrow pathways between wooden tables stacked high with fresh fruits and vegetables. Some looking better than others. We select potatoes, garlic, shallots, carrots, and raw coffee beans. Ginger root in woven baskets. Gunnysacks of flour and dry beans. More spices. I am introduced to Kristin’s friend, a vendor they’ve frequented for years. He pulls out an enormous plastic bag of turmeric when I inquire. I buy more. I head to the vegetable tables. When I start looking at peppers, the woman selling them moves them aside and brings out perfect specimens from under her table. The same for everything I examine. I don’t have a way to tell her I’m just looking. Kristin joins me and relieves me of my awkwardness. We buy three large woven baskets to carry the abundance of produce we finally select. Thunder and rain comes quickly and with gusto. In no time, the red clay paths between the tables are flowing with runoff. The women invite us under their shelter. We are marginally protected by pieced together scraps of corrugated metal roofing and blue plastic tarps. I laugh at the rain pouring off in from of us. Sheeting off the metal like a curtain. A cascading waterfall at the corners of the tarps. The torrent in the walkway is forcing the water up into the stalls. At our feet, the water is rising into the sheltered space we have taken refuge in. The rain keeps coming down hard. Time to get out. Heavy baskets. We creep along a narrow stone path hugging the very edge of the building. We run, slip, slide, laugh. We are soaked in seconds. It feels great. The air temperature has cooled down nicely from the usual 80 something. Refuge again sought. This time under a wide porch with a concrete floor. Better protected. A dozen meters closer to the street. A local person had the same idea and is now leaning up against the wall watching us. I picture the boys waiting for us in the nice enclosed truck up on the street, their mission having been to go out to The Takare Project and check out a truck from the Jane Goodall Institute where Bill works. The rain matters less now since we are soaked. I scamper back to fetch our 3rd basket, left waiting on the produce tables. Back with Kristin we break into the bananas, consciously offering one to our fellow strandee. Tanzanian etiquette. Don’t eat in front of others without first offering some to share. We smile at each other and enjoy the moment. Discovered by Brian and Bill who come around the corner looking for us. Will is wisely waiting in the truck. All the shops are now closed. The rest of our shopping must wait until tomorrow.



We drive up the main street to a café. Soaked but not uncomfortable, we eat local fish served whole. Fine pointed noses and small wicked teeth. Grilled to perfection. Spiced spinach and fresh cooked beans. Coke in recycled glass bottles. Will digs in using his fingers to convey his food. All those fresh camp-cooked rainbow trout at home have prepared him well for this experience. Lodging that night is at Antoine’s house. He is another chimpanzee researcher who works with Bill and Kristin. He has flown home to England for the holidays. The well-kempt house is ours to use during our stay. We stay up late drinking South African red wine and talking about our day.

Saturday, December 22 – North Coast Zanzibar, Sunset Bungalows

Our snorkel cruise thwarted by high waves, K, B and I opted to lie under a thatched shade hut on the beach, none of us overly disappointed. Brian rallied and attempted windsurfing with marginal success – just enough to claim having wind surfed on Zanzibar. Samuel and Paulo joined Kristin and me and our conversation from yesterday continued. Kristin, being fluent in Swahili, was much better able to converse clearly, though we agreed that we had done pretty well yesterday thanks to Samuel’s English. It turns out he speaks four languages – Swahili, English, Italian, and the native language of their Masaai village. All this from a 22-year-old with hardly any formal education. We learn that he and Paulo are half-brothers, their father having two wives. Samuel laughs when I ask if they are married. No wives yet! During our conversation, Paulo’s cell phone rings. It is so incongruous to see a person dressed spectacularly in traditional Masaai robes pull a cell phone out of somewhere and go off to converse. Brian returns from his sail and joins us. Samuel asks if we remember the song from yesterday. We sing the song for the video camera and play the clip back, laughing. We exchange addresses and phone numbers. What are the odds of seeing them again?
The rest of the day was much the same. Lunch in a shady, semi-outdoor restaurant, relaxing walks on the beach. Bill and Will return from their dive. They have seen sharks and barracuda on the reef. They share yet another connection to each other. At times, I think they are each other’s incarnation.
Dinner that night was lobster for Bill and me. Various fish or chicken dishes for the rest of the group. What luxury! Lucouss succulent chunks pulled out of the shell. Caught fresh hours ago, not flown across the country. Will has been doing extremely well finding plenty to eat though tonight he enjoys a big plate of fries. Home is everywhere.