Coming Home .....

Apparently i'm not the only returning back to native lands this month .... this is a really sweet story about 4 gorillas who were illegally gorilla-napped from Cameroon and taken to Malaysia .... somehow amazingly they didn't suffer the fate of most monkeys/apes that are sent out to the far east (very lucky indeed - i once went to a chimp sanctuary in kenya ... and it broke my heart what evilness is done to these poor animals)..... and even more luckily they were kept as a family and made it to Taiping Zoo ....

However three years ago - the endangered apes were semi-returned to Africa first journeying to Johannesburg ..... and now finally they've made it back to their home country .... where they were received by government ministers at the airport!

What really also amazes me is that the gorillas had to go via Nairobi ..... probably in part because South Africa really doesn't see itself as part of the rest of Africa - and so has no direct flights anywhere in the continent (barely) .... but any of you who have ever travelled through Africa will know that there are rules to flying here .... basically never check luggage if you can help it and especially never if you are transitting ..... (i learned my lesson once when i landed in Nairobi but my luggage didn't land with me - and so had to spend the first three days of my trip with no clothes or anything .... and instead had to resort to feeding people vats of whiskey to distract them from my increasingly filthy state) .... so it was very brave for the gorilla-movers to chance a stopover (i know i know - it would have been very hard to misplace 4 great apes .... but this is Africa ... and anything can happen) ....

Anyhow these poor gorillas after gallivanting around southern and eastern africa ..... are now settling in back at home (well - on a sanctuary at least) and getting their bearings back .... which is a lot like how i feel here in england .... especially the sanctuary part given i'm squatting at my friend sonia's .... almost like a rehabilitation camp to prepare my for my release back into the wilds of north london ....

Me and the monkeys .... rediscovering "home" .... and missing South Africa .....


(picture: me and chimp friend taking a sanctuary stroll)