Word: congo
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True enough, but I could be forgiven for expecting more. Bonobos are an endangered African ape found only in the Democratic Republic of Congo (D.R.C.), the vast, sweltering river basin that is Africa's answer to the Amazon. Though they look like chimpanzees, they are a distinct species. They are slightly smaller, for one thing, the better to handle a life spent predominantly in trees. But it is the bonobos' social behavior that fascinates humans. While gorillas beat their chests and chimpanzees fight savage wars, bonobos appear to be largely animals of peace. They live communally, enjoy gender equality...
...hippie chimps are showing us no love. The jungle is giving us none either, with army ants, sweat bees and black gnats swarming us. But we have traveled hundreds of miles in a rickety propeller plane to reach a grass strip in the heart of the Congo Basin, nursed a wrecked jeep down 100 miles (160 km) of bicycle track and hacked all morning through vines and thorns on the promise that the peaceniks of the animal kingdom would show us what they're about. So far, there's been some rustling in the trees, a few shrieks...
...last November, an odd thing happened. The normally dysfunctional Congolese government set aside a vast new nature reserve in Sankuru in central Congo. Measuring 11,803 sq. mi. (30,750 sq km)--or roughly the size of Massachusetts--the area will serve as a sanctuary not only for bonobos but also for 10 other species of primates as well as elephants and the endangered okapi, a short-necked cousin of the giraffe. As remarkable as the protection the reserve will provide is the fact that such a set-aside got created at all. Trying to carve so pastoral a corner...
Yalokole is a town of grass-roofed huts on the edge of the Kokolopori forest, erected around a giant termite mound on which sit two wooden talking drums--still the only way to communicate long distance in central Congo. Close by, in Yalokole's mud-floor, mud-wall, tin-roof church, Tusumba is giving a speech...
Following graduation, Halberstam journeyed south to cover the beginnings of the civil rights movement before joining The New York Times and reporting from Washington, the Congo, and South Vietnam...