Today was a special day. Not like an announcement, a party, or even a birthday kind of special – those things are rare, but they always happen at least once a year, like clockwork. No, today I completed a goal of mine, one I have had for years at this point. And the emotional effect was one I hadn’t anticipated.
For a long time I have been fascinated by apes. It’s one of those little things about me that I may have never really told anyone, but the signs are there. I came within a hair’s breadth of an Anthropology minor in University, and originally that was fueled by a passion to understand the origins of humanity, from Australopithecus to Homo Erectus and Neanderthals. If you go far enough back you’ll find a creature somewhere in Africa which branched out along evolutionary lines to create what we today call The Great Apes, of which we are only one of five.
I think deep down, we all have a fascination with the other four apes. For evidence, look no further than the decades long-spanning Planet of the Apes franchise, or even internet sensations Koko and Harambe. The love of those creates close enough to recognize, yet far away enough to intrigue, exists in all of us. Look no farther than these open-air zoos which give us a look into the lives of one of our evolutionary siblings.
At the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center, you are given the chance to see the lives of, you guessed it, Orangutans! Sometimes they swing from trees, sometimes they sit and eat, other times they just lay there. If you’re lucky enough, you’ll even see them play with each other in a brief show of physical force. If you replace the first example and switch it with the phrase “Sometimes they take the wheel of a car,” all of those are things we humans do from time to time too. And perhaps what astounded me most about my experience here was how human they all seemed to me.
Every day the center provides a “public” feeding twice a day for the orangutans in the area. An observation platform sits among the trees for us walking apes to “silently” (at least as intended) watch as a different walking ape delivers food to a feeding platform. Sometimes orangutans come. Sometimes other animals come. If you heard about a free buffet a mile away, wouldn’t you walk there to grab a bite instead of cooking for yourself? Wouldn’t a mother, whose full-time job is taking care of her dependent child, happily bring their kid along for those few minutes of peace and quiet where they and their youngin get a full belly for basically no effort? Standing on the walking ape platform, all I could see here was a mother, hoping to get a meal for her and her child.
She was intent on keeping her back to us the entire time. If you decided to go to that buffet and were stared at while dining, wouldn’t you do the same? A few glances back at us from time to time sent the message “Do you mind, I’m trying to eat here.” Once momma orangutan got her
From there it was a short trip over to the nursery. See, here at the center they have a specific mission: find those orangutans which have been abandoned by their mother – either through happenstance or walking ape intervention – bring them here to teach them the ways of their people in the wild, and hopefully one day have that indelible human trait take hold deep in their minds as they go off in search of a life on their own. It is noble, bold, and maybe in some small
These workers are amazing! I personally cannot imagine being in their position. Every day they interact with our distant siblings. They form bonds and relationships involving both caring and mutual respect. They learn to recognize each other not just on their looks, but also on their behaviors with themselves and the others around them. The workers teach the orphaned orangutans and in the process end up learning from them. Growth is shared all around. For some of us, that growth is in skills that can be carried onto the next task, and for others that growth is in skills that determine one’s survival. The work they do here at the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center is nothing short of amazing, and the respect I feel for them helped me grow as well.
Here in the rehab center, orangutans jump, climb, eat, and play. They learn carefully from human trainers how to do it all, and perhaps most importantly they learn how to socialize. Some of them spend years here before leaving the nest, and that leaves plenty of time to make friends. But it isn’t always that those resident orphans are the only ones in the enclosure.
Here you have three wild orangutans, who’ve just missed the feeding time at the feeding platform, but are aware they have an alternative at the rehab zone. Another mother carried her baby from platform to platform, carefully avoiding the strange orphans around her. She trusted them, it would seem, but one resident was curious. There was a little one! One littler than all the other residents. One still clinging to his mother. One who still had a mother, and had never known what life was like without one. The orphan followed the mother and child around for a time, with an intense interest in the baby, always trying to get a closer look. Just as any mother would do to any creep, though, she kept rotating to place herself between them – while never putting down her snack. That’s called parenting.
Farther back on the left you see an old man. Clearly an adult based on his size, and one who was used to being the most important man in the room. He left all of the orphans on alert during his time there. He just wanted to eat, same as anyone. But he lumbered from platform to platform, plopping himself down to the brief chagrin of the others present. No one it seemed disliked him and everyone was happy to share their food, they just weren’t familiar with him. He did create a ruckus though when it was time for the orphans to go back inside. Either from curiosity or from an intent to extort, he placed himself between the orangutans holding hands with walking apes and the door to their home. For 15 minutes the standoff continued. I’ve no idea how it resolved, but if I had been the big one, all it would have taken was the allure of a fresh snack in some other direction for me to leave the area.
While this post is meant to focus heavily on our siblings the orangutans, I would be remiss not to share a funny personal story that has been burned into my mind from now until the end of my days. You see, as I was walking to see the afternoon feeding (the featured image for this post) I happened to be late. I was alone on the walkway from the entrance to the observation deck, or so I thought. Up ahead, almost out of sight I saw a Macaque. Just one. I snapped a pic and picked up my pace thinking he would move on before I reached him. By the time I closed roughly half the gap, I heard a noise. Turning around I was greeted by the sight you see in the picture above.
So now I’m surrounded by monkeys. Mind you, Macaques are not overly aggressive, but these are wild animals, they can act in ways you’d never expect. As I lost sight of the fact that food was nearby, I had no discernible reason for why I was suddenly surrounded. I pressed forward, but the original was still ahead of me with the distance rapidly dwindling and he was now joined by another. Turning around, the ones behind me were gaining as I slowed in hopes of not spooking the ones ahead of me and they were also joined by three more. As the bubble of personal space I’ve come to forge in life slowly collapses in on me, I am given a reprieve with the sight of the feeding platform; I feel safety is guaranteed on the observation deck. But as I approach, what do you know, there is a metal gate on the walkway. I am stuck.
You see that Macaque on the left side? Do you see the empty space behind him on the right? Just moments before, I was in that spot. I could have reached my arm out, taken a step forward, and felt fur. My heart was racing. I searched the gate for a lock to open it. What do you know, it sits directly under the monkey’s yellow cheeked butt. I weigh the options, and quickly calculate the chances of having my finger bit off. I look up, I make eye contact with the Macaque. Nervously, though trying to appear in control on the surface – you know, so the monkey doesn’t smell weakness – I look to the right. All the other ones are just kind of staring at me. I dart my eyes to the left beyond the gate. Standing maybe 10m away is Hugh, a man I met earlier and whose story I’ll share with you later. With a soothing smile, and a wave of his hand he gives me the idea of hoping the fence. I do just that! The Macaque lurches sightly but realizes what I’m doing is no threat, and lets me be. I go off to take photos, he goes off to get to the free food. It was a good time.
Now, I’ve spent a lot of time talking about how I felt a connection between myself and the orangutans at the Center. And while everything I have described so far has certainly been laden with that feeling somewhere in the background, none of them were what fully triggered it or inspired the theme of this entry. The moment came after the orphans in their enclosure needed to head home for the night. The walking apes building had glass on each side so you could see them play, and you could see them go home. While every moment I spent at Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center helped me connect with our distant siblings, the image that encouraged my subconscious to think of them that way was this:
Don’t worry, he’s not in a cage. He (and yes it’s a he) is just protected from the glass. He’s lounging, and enjoying (what I think is) a coconut. My phone camera thus far hasn’t been so great for long distance shots, but up close it captures things pretty well. No matter how well the camera has captured this shot, however, it has failed to capture even 1/10 of the majesty of being this close – maybe two feet away.
This is where the connection took place. It was where I officially came upon the realization that he, and I, in some way, are both human. Maybe it was the goosebumps on his skin? Maybe it was the detail of his teeth as he gnawed on his coconut? Maybe it was the look in his eyes as our gaze locked? Personally, I think it was the fact he seemed not to care that I was there. He only cared about his food and the shade he’d found. It reminded me, deeply, of the neutral apathy we encounter on a daily basis from those people we pass on the street every day as they go about their lives. That we can be so absorbed in our own business while acknowledging that others are around us, though simultaneously not caring that they are
That’s not to say no one cares, or that this orangutan was incapable of acknowledging me. Clearly, he cares for his friends and walking ape handlers, just as I care about those people in my life. But this astounding connection, or perhaps lack thereof (depending on how you think of it), is the exact kind of thing I hope to combat with A Journey Sonder: to make small connections and to encourage you to do the same.
After
