I wish I could share some useful inside information about the security problems in DR Congo and what’s happening to the gorillas, but I can’t.

The latest news I have is what everyone else can read online: rebel forces have surrounded the city of Goma, the UN peacekeeping mission continues to fail, people are leaving refugee camps with nowhere to go, and many of the rangers who fled Rumangabo station when it was attacked are still missing.  Most people are more afraid of the Congolese army soldiers than of anything else.  Diplomatic talks are under way again.

I know that Jacques, Eddy, Jean Paul, the gorilla caretakers, and the orphans Ndeze, Ndakasi, and Mapendo are okay for now in Goma.  But the situation there is very unstable.  As for the Virungas park, like everyone else, I can only read the ICCN rangers’ blog.

Several people have said they feel helpless as they watch the events from a distance.  I’m an hour-and-a-half drive from Goma, and I feel the same way.

Rwanda seems so peaceful, even tranquil, especially now at 3:30 in the morning.  There’s a sweet smell in the air from a flower that blooms after dark.  It’s a clear night full of stars, though not as quiet as you might imagine.  Every few minutes, I hear one animal sound or another.  Dogs bark and howl a few blocks away.  The town’s feral pack is making its rounds, or there’s a bitch in heat.  A cow moos.  She sounds as if she’s grazing the fresh grass along the road just outside our fence.  Roosters crow every few minutes.  A green ibis lands clumsily on my tin roof for a few seconds, his nails scraping the metal.  The crows will start cawing soon.  Sometimes I’m amazed that anyone can sleep with all this noise.

But I shouldn’t complain about my neighborhood creatures.  I’m drinking my morning coffee, which consists mostly of hot milk.  A little boy delivers a fresh liter once a day, and for all I know it comes from the cow in the street.  (Yes, I boil the hell out of any milk I drink, sometimes boiling it twice, usually to the point where it foams up and spills over the edge of the saucepan, making a mess.)  Since I’ll probably eat a hard-boiled egg later today, I can’t say the rooster is not part of my life, too.   The crows and the ibis have learned to thrive as city-dwellers–good for them.  And I’m fine with the barking dogs.  Our guard often sleeps soundly at night but Chui, our Rottweiler mix, doesn’t.  He’s out there ready to jump and bark at a stranger.

Why not fire the guard?  He works another job during the day.  And it’s not as if he’s highly paid.  The typical salary works out to only a few dollars a day.  That’s what our project can afford, and it’s the going rate.

It’s normal for me to be up early.  The Internet is faster for one thing, the power is more stable, and if there’s a sick or injured gorilla out there needing  our help, I won’t know about it for at least five hours, when the trackers get to their groups.  The morning is my time to write, think, read the news, even talk on the phone over the computer to friends and family in the US.

I used to try to go back to sleep, at least until five o’clock.  But these days, the moment I wake up, I get up.  Otherwise, thoughts of the day before and of the one ahead create a useless turmoil in my head.  People need to protect themselves, and if everything goes south in Goma, the orphaned gorillas will indeed be abandoned.  There isn’t any way right now to secure their future,  any more than we can secure the future for our staff and the many other people who call Goma home.  As I wrote the other day, there’s no rescue plan we can put in place at the moment.  We can’t cross the border from Rwanda to DR Congo and fix anything.  We must wait it out and stay vigilant, ready to help.

In my career, I’ve learned and re-learned an important lesson: prevention is better than any cure.  That’s our goal with the gorillas.  Their health depends on the health and safety of the people and other animals, as well as the plants, soil, air, and water that share their ecosystem.  This is why our project has expanded from individual animal care to a more holistic view of medicine, with programs that now include domestic animal health, human health, and community outreach.

It’s also the reason I cannot sleep.  Whenever we fail to prevent a problem, its difficulties multiply every day.  The mountain gorillas don’t need a passport, but this war is affecting all of them, directly or indirectly.  Their home is rapidly being degraded on the DR Congo side as more people struggle to survive by taking water, wood, and food from the Virunga park.  Mining continues uncontrolled.  Infectious diseases are running rampant.  And the damage may very well spread to Rwanda and Uganda.

The gorillas didn’t start the fighting, nor can they stop it.  Only humans can. 

Thanks to all of you who have sent good thoughts our way, made a donation, or posted a comment on this blog and others.  Be assured that when you make a donation, we’ll put the money to good use.  It will be spent here in Central Africa.  It might go into our emergency cash fund to be spent as needed during this crisis–to pay our cell phone bills, to refuel the trucks, to pay local vets to continue vaccinating domestic dogs for rabies, to gather data on respiratory diseases in people living around the gorilla park, to buy more milk formula for the orphan gorillas. 

This is bush medicine.  We may not be able to prevent the problem, but at least we can be prepared to help when circumstances allow.