Word: ndoki
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Ndoki River is the real barrier. Unnavigable and meandering, it is 3 m (10 ft.) deep in places and spreads out into swamps several kilometers wide. Even at its shallowest points, it can take eight hours to cross on foot and is impassable much of the year. We use a pirogue that Kuroda's team has built to resupply his tiny station. Parched by the precarious walk to this point, we cool ourselves with the absolutely pure waters of the Ndoki as we pole through the river grass. Fay thinks he knows why the Pygmies have historically kept...
...only dna analysis could tell for sure. Fay thinks it's possible, since he has documented leopard attacks on gorillas. Samory, one of the trackers, claims leopards kill the immensely strong apes with surprise attacks in which the cat quickly snaps its jaws around the gorilla's throat. The Ndoki may be innocent of humans, but it is not a peaceable kingdom...
...have left behind the overhunted west bank of the Ndoki, where elephant trails are abandoned and overgrown. On the east side we see fresh signs of elephants everywhere. We do not, however, see the great beasts. Because of the vast territory they roam, and perhaps because of their ability to communicate with one another, they are the only creatures in this ecosystem that know about humans. They stay away from...
...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 close together. Fay and the Japanese researchers have even seen gorillas and chimps feeding in the same fig tree...
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...