About book Bonobo Handshake: A Memoir Of Love And Adventure In The Congo (2010)
A story about creatures with whom we share greater than 98% DNA. For me, this was an intensely emotional ride that opens windows into the dirty recesses of biomedical research, illegal wildlife trade, and Congo’s political history. It is inundated with atrocities and insights into the brighter and darker sides of humanity. A photo of a frail, suffering Kata (who had her mother torn from her) snuggled in the arms of a woman who has given so much of her life caring for these animals sums it up with its caption: “She is too sad to live.” Our world is just so messed up. The author says- "If I have learned one thing from Congo, it is this: If there are those you love, whoever or wherever they are, hold them. Find them and hold them as tightly as you can. Resist their squirming and impatience and uncomfortable laughter and just feel their hearts throbbing against yours and give thanks that for this moment, for this one precious moment, they are here. They are with you. And they know they are utterly, completely, entirely…Loved." Vanessa Woods considered chimpanzees her primate of choice for study. After spending time in the jungles of Costa Rica, she had an opportunity to return to Africa, specifically Uganda, where she had worked before. When she arrives, she meets Brian, an American who has recently finished his PhD and is there to do field research on chimp behavior. She quickly falls for him and agrees to marry him a few months later. Instead of working there, Brian becomes fascinated with learning about bonobos, a close relative of the chimpanzee, which is only found in the DRC and are on the endangered species list. For the next several years, Vanessa learns a lot not only about bonobos, but also about the people of DRC and herself. I ended up enjoying this. The sections describing their actual experiments of bonobo and chimp behavior were tedious. While chimpanzees tend to "make war" to resolve differences, bonobos "make love". Much of their studies were to attempt to understand the high sex drive in the species. The title represents the fact that when bonobos meet, their greeting is a rubbing of the genitals of the other. While I could have done without the extensive sexual references, I don't know how it could have been told any other way. The rest of the story - as she comes to appreciate all that the people of the DRC have been through and also the way she and Brian came to care about the animals they were studying was interesting. It's easy to see how the experiences changed her to want to do what she can to protect a species.
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A history lesson, an anthropology lesson - definitely a new way to see humanity.
—beka7772
This book made me want to do what Vanessa Woods does.
—ariana
