Chimpanzee Conservation Centre

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Oct 20 2009 | By: chris colin

I called Matthieu today. They can not fix the boat engine in Faranah so they will go to Conakry tomorrow. They will be carefull as the political situation is still tense in Conakry, but they have no choice as the boat engine is absolutly vital to reach the release camp and we can find boat mecanics only there.

Matthieu will go with our driver Balde and Melanie, our volunteer veterinarian. They decided to go together as few weeks ago, in the middle of the terrible events in Conakry, a diplomat contacted us for “his female chimpanzee” that he wants now to give to the sanctuary. This female is named Zoe, we have known her existence for at least 5 years now, and we tried to convince this man to give us Zoe as she has been living in the middle of the Guinean capital for so many years, but he always refused and we could not do anything because of his diplomatic status (we could not enter in his house with the local police).  Anyway, this man realized after the sad events of September in Conakry that he would probably have to leave the country suddenly if the situation was getting worse and he did not want to leave Zoe behind defenseless. He also agreed to help the sanctuary to take care of Zoe by making a donation.

So Matt planned with Melanie to bring Zoe back to the sanctuary on Friday night. It is always better to travel at night with a chimpanzee as the road is really long from Conakry to the sanctuary, at least 15 hours. They usually stay quiet, sleeping.

We all hope they will manage to get both the boat engine and the car fixed for Friday night so they could bring Zoe to the sanctuary as shuddeled. Zoe will go first next to Coco, our dean (and I really need to explain you all about Coco’s story), to make her quarantine. Apparently, Zoe is really sweet. We all hope she will have a better life at the sanctuary!

I will keep you posted on how the things are going on in Conakry for the boat engine, the car and Zoe!

Many thanks to Wanda, we really appreciate your generous help!

Chris

the Niger river