Word: faye
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...clearings open up the forest for other big animals such as buffalo, and the trails certainly make walking easy for us. As we head down one path, Joachine suddenly pauses. The brush erupts as a male gorilla charges, then abruptly stops and drops down in the vegetation to stare. Fay observes that gorillas favor the herbaceous plants growing in marshy lowlands and in places where elephants have created clearings. Farther from the water, the canopied forest suits chimpanzees. With both populations at very high levels, the Ndoki is one of the few places on earth where chimps and gorillas live...
...that we are far away from the nearest village and the temptations of < palm wine, the Pygmies begin to come into their own. Even with 14 years' experience, Fay can still lose a trail, but Ndokanda, a former elephant hunter, or any of the other Pygmies can read the very faintest imprint with a glance. In the forest they are utterly self-reliant, creating cord from vines, cups from leaves and bed mats from bark. Still, they are apprehensive about this forest, and when Fay tells them where we are going, Samory says, "Mokele Mbembe lives there." Fay is convinced...
That night termites reduce Fay's one T shirt to tatters. This gives him the excuse to try his "new system," which means stripping down to a bathing suit and sandals. "Come back in two years, and you will find me completely naked, living in the middle of the Ndoki with six Pygmy wives," he jokes. He thinks that the Pygmies have it right: the less you wear, the faster your skin dries after rainfall and the less likely you are to get parasitic fungi and footworms. Fay has already accumulated four nasty footworms, which burrow under the skin until...
...second day after crossing the Ndoki, Fay announces that we are entering the "unknown," and we set off in search of the two clearings, called bais by the Pygmies, that he failed to find in 1990. Fay is certain that the bais are elephant strongholds. According to maps drawn from aerial reconnaissance, we have to cross at least 15 km of dry land before reaching the next watershed. Unless we find a stream by dusk, we face a waterless night after a full day's hike. Ndokanda sets an uncharacteristically slow pace, so Fay decides to shame him by taking...
Entering dryer land, we come across disturbing signs that humans are affecting this forest from afar. Everywhere we see fallen Gilbertiodendron dewevrei trees with no sign of regrowth. Fay says this tree species dominates during wet periods and may be dying out because of the long dry spell that has reduced rainfall more than 10% over the past 30 years. Many scientists believe the shortage of rainfall stems from the widespread deforestation by humans in other parts of Africa, which may have changed the continent's weather , patterns. Already the Ndoki is one of the dryest tropical rain forests...