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May 19, 1975
It had been a routine day--as routine as a day spent in central Africa studying wild chimpanzees could be. I had awakened before dawn to join up with Rugema, one of the Tanzanian Gombe Park rangers/guides, to follow a chimp mother with her 3 year old and 8 year old offspring on their travels for the day, recording their location and activities every minute on a check sheet and into my tape recorder, to be transcribed later when I returned to camp in the dark. Rugema waited patiently as I struggled through clutching vines and thorns, and in Swahili, he reassured me I would soon be a "fundi" (an expert) at following chimps with time and practice. Our target chimpanzees were nested high in a tree atop the ridge called "Sleeping Buffalo" which rises abruptly from the shore of glistening Lake Tanganyika. Arriving at the nest before the first light of dawn, we sat beneath the tree, waiting for the chimps to stir as the tropical forest awoke before our eyes. It was as if we beheld the dawning of the First Morning. The forest unfurled to the touch of the sun, exposing a multitude of colors, sounds, smells and wildlife.
There is a strong undercurrent of life and death flowing in such a forest--everywhere there are living creatures, breathing a collective breath, vocalizing in collective voices. Each individual breath, whisper, song, and shout joins the others, until like the rushing streams of Gombe, they form a river of voices, overwhelming to the senses. In contrast to the familiar rain forests of the Pacific Northwest where I grew up, the African bush seemed deeper, denser, more complex.
As the sunlight filtered through the foliage canopy high above our heads, the three chimpanzees moved in their nests. They rustled in their leafy bed as a chorus of chimpanzee voices were heard across the valley and up the next ridge. Our targets raced down the tree and off into the brush to join their comrades. Able to follow only the vocalizations, we plunged after them, occasionally glimpsing the white tuft of hair on the baby's bottom as he bobbed up and down, jockey-style on his mother's back. Chimpanzees don't follow trails, nor do they do much traveling from tree to tree. They are expert at traveling through impenetrable thickets, leaving no trace of their whereabouts. I clambored slowly along, listening for the excited voices up the hill, as my shirt caught on countless thorns and vines reached to trip me. About the time I was ready to call it quits, I found myself atop the slope and was rewarded with a sight which made the hard climb well worth the struggle. Above us and around us were no less than 25 chimpanzees, celebrating an early morning reunion with a tremendous din of shrieks and hoots. They jumped from branch to branch, slid fireman style down tree trunks only to race back up again, shook and broke off pieces of foliage and pelted the ground with hard round palm nuts. Several other researchers had followed their target chimps to this same spot and we sat, open-mouthed, watching these amazing creatures who are so similar to ourselves. Later, over dinner, we compared our observations, shared our awe at the privilege we shared in the ongoing Gombe research that started with Jane Goodall's arrival in 1960.
All of the researchers at Gombe, European and American, mostly college undergraduates and graduate students, lived in metal sided thatched roof huts, sharing space with geckos, the occasional poisonous centipede and scorpion, and rarely, a deadly black "mamba" snake which would "take possession" of a hut, and we'd have to vacate. These huts were scattered up the steep wooded mountain side that rose from the shore of Lake Tanganyika. Below, along the beach, were the ranger huts and a house where Jane lived with her 8 year old son "Grub".
On this evening 30 years ago, around 11:30 PM, while all in the research station slept, a group of armed soldiers arrived by boats from Zaire, a country formerly known as the Congo located about 12 miles across Lake Tanganyika from our location in Tanzania. The soldiers seized one of the rangers and demanded to be told where the researchers were. The ranger refused to provide information and was severely beaten. The soldiers divided into smaller groups and headed up the trails leading to our huts, coming upon four sleeping student researchers, taking them hostage at gunpoint and forcing them into boats and taking them across the lake back to Zaire.
Awakened by the shouting and commotion, we were all in great confusion and terror about what was happening, who the invaders were and whether they were still in camp or not. Gun shots had been heard. Had someone been injured or killed? No one knew for certain. We were told by the park rangers to run and hide in the bush at a predetermined gathering spot until an "all clear" signal was given.
That was the longest night of my life, sitting in utter darkness alongside Jane and Grub and other students, not knowing what to think, say or do. We had no weapons, our boat had been taken, and no way to communicate with the outside world. We had no idea how many of us were missing, or possibly dead.
When the morning of May 20 dawned, we were found by the park rangers who pieced together the events as best they could--the soldiers were Zairean rebels living in remote mountains, fighting a resistance movement against the Zaire government. Seeking funds for their cause, they saw a kidnapping as a way to raise quick funds and world publicity and sympathy. Four of our friends/coworkers were missing, the camp was ransacked and the rangers hurt but with no life threatening injuries. We were able to send a message to the nearest fishing village, and a radio call was sent out to the nearby town of Kigoma, then relayed to Dar Es Salaam and Nairobi. Help arrived in a few hours, when a United Nations boat which had been monitoring civil war activities in nearby Burundi pulled off shore near our camp. We were told we needed to evacuate Gombe, and would be taken to Kigoma, and then flown by bush pilot to Nairobi, Kenya.
In Nairobi, at the US Embassy, I met my first CIA agents who viewed our wild chimpanzee studies with some suspicion. Each of us was grilled as to our political beliefs, our activities at the camp and whether we may be somehow involved in subversive actions against the Zaire or Tanzanian governments. We were dumbfounded that our own countrymen would be so skeptical about our motives for being in Africa. The agents did not shed any light on whether our friends were alive or dead. We were then hustled into a press conference where we were interviewed for television and print media by the worldwide news agencies, and my parents saw me on the CBS evening news before they heard from me directly.
It took over three months for my friends to all be released from their terrible ordeal in Zaire. They exhibited incredible courage and were so stoic in the face of the most unbelievable stress. What they went through is their story to tell, and I can only marvel at the fact that such a high profile political kidnapping by terrorists should have ended as quickly as it did without loss of life. Only a few years later, hostage taking became a routine part of the news from the Middle East and elsewhere, usually with much more tragic outcomes. I believe the Gombe kidnapping ended as it did due to the willingness of some people to risk everything for the safe return of the students, and due to the incredible personal strength of the 4 students themselves. I cannot believe I could have coped as they did.
Thirty years later, when I awoke this morning at dawn on the farm, the air felt moist and heavy from an all night rain. The grass is waist high and the tree branches are hanging low with new growth. It feels very much like I remember those mornings at Gombe, familiar through every sense, smelling similar smells, feeling the dampness all around me. I know the safety and comfort I feel here at home is illusion, but yet it feels more certain than the unstable and tenuous existence lived by so many people in so many parts of the world, in fear of drought, of disease, of war, all in their own backyard. All I have in my backyard is Haflingers and too many barn cats.
I hope never again to feel terror, but know that it can take a mere moment for it to happen, whether it is an earthquake, a fire, a horrible accident, a dread diagnosis, or an airplane intentionally flying into a building--we are never truly safe while treading the sod of this imperfect world. True safety lies elsewhere.
Thirty years have not diminished the memory of May 19, 1975. What of another thirty? I hope to be able to remember again in 2035.
Emily
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