African Dispatch: A Weekend With Jane Goodall

Peter Standring
National Geographic Today

February 14, 2002

For more than forty years National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Jane
Goodall has called the Gombe Stream National Park, in Tanzania, "home."
It was here that Goodall arrived in 1960 at the age of 26 to begin her
four-decade long research project, and where she started her enduring
rapport with the National Geographic Society.

Travelling with producer Chad Cohen and videographer Chuck Walter, the three of us traveled to Gombe to rendezvous with Goodall in the place "where it all began."

Gombe is a narrow stretch of mountainous wilderness situated in eastern Tanzania along Lake Tanganyika. The park is a natural refuge for hundreds of animals, mostly primates, including three groups of Goodall's beloved chimpanzees.

Getting to Gombe was a long haul. We caught a charter flight from Entebbe, Uganda and flew to Tanzania, cruising just 8,000 feet above Lake Victoria in a small, two-engine, four-seat airplane. After clearing customs and immigration in the port city of Mwanza we flew to Kigoma, a small town in eastern Tanzania—the departure point for Gombe.

Traveling in a long, wooden boat (which seemed about a hundred years old) we headed toward Gombe. The lake is long and narrow and we could see the hills of war-torn Congo (formerly Zaire) just a few miles across the way. We passed small communities on the eastern shore: collections of mud huts and homes haphazardly assembled at the base of the mountain ridge, which has been almost clear cut and cultivated for crops.

We knew we were approaching Gombe when the farmland abruptly ended and was replaced by thick relatively untouched forest.

Gombe opened to tourists in 1978. Between 100,000 and 200,000 visit each year. Most come to see the chimps in their wild surroundings.

Like the majority of visitors, we stayed in a very basic hostel: a single-story cement structure with five small rooms. There were no lights, no running water, just beds and clean sheets. There is also strong wire mesh and bars on all the windows and doors. We were told to always keep the doors to the hostel closed tightly. Evidently, the massive population of baboons has a keen ability to sniff-out food. We were warned that they are bold enough to come in and take it from unsuspecting guests.

Goodall was instantly recognizable—her long hair was swept-up in her trademark ponytail—although her blonde locks are now mostly gray.

These days, Goodall spends most of her time traveling around the world, delivering a message of "humanitarian-conservation" and so she visits Gombe only a few times each year. On this occasion, she was back to check on her friends and colleagues charged with the day-to-day running of the Jane Goodall Institute and its many programs.

Although Goodall's visits to Gombe are short-lived, they do appear to be comfortable. Goodall has a very basic house equipped with a kitchen, living room, and several bedrooms. There's no running water or electricity, but it's cozy. Goodall invited us for a lunch of rice and beans, potatoes, and stewed vegetables. We sat alongside "Mr. H," the stuffed toy ape Goodall has kept with her since childhood.

During our visit a group of schoolchildren arrived at Gombe from a nearby village. They gathered in the shade at "Dr. Jane's" feet to talk with her and to ask her questions.

This is what Goodall does all over the world. With "Mr. H" on her lap, Goodall told the kids about her early dreams of coming to Africa and living among animals.

Alternating between English and Swahili, Goodall talked in plain terms about the importance of environmentalism, conservation and the value of protecting the Earth. She told me she hopes to inspire children everywhere and to encourage them to "do the right thing": to respect each other, to work hard, and to follow their dreams.

She also spoke to them about the life she leads now, which is a continuous educational outreach conducted around the world.

During our visit we saw the site where Goodall had originally set up her tent some forty years ago when, each day, she would climb through the jungle to observe "her" chimpanzees. By the way, only one of those chimps she first encountered is still alive today: Fifi, a female, now 44 years old. Fifi has had eight offspring, and remarkably, is pregnant again.

That night, after another communal dinner at Goodall's, we sat in the dark and marveled at the night sky, cloudless and filled with bright stars and shooting stars. Before dawn, the loud, guttural barking of baboons awakened us. They were everywhere. I saw a group of four or five saunter by the front of the hostel, glancing over at us. To my relief, they decided not to break in and rob us of our stash of bananas!

As Goodall had told me, she is indeed "always on the go." Besides running her vast organization, she's also working on two new books (one deals with finding hope in the wake of the events of September 11th).

Before dawn, we got back on the boat with Goodall and her crew and made our way back to Kigoma. The sun rose behind the ridge, so the western sky was a magnificent pink and blue. It was a beautiful morning.

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