Kiss The Candle Goodnight 3
By tmt
- 441 reads
Chapter 2
Jana.
Jana shuddered as she thought about Fifi. She had started to eat her dead baby, after carrying him around with her for five, long, hot days. They had even seen Fifi’s older offspring, a female adolescent, eating some of her little brother. If Gregg posted the story on Facebook, people might find out about her eating her dead baby. They could not afford any bad publicity, especially with the Indo-Norwegian talks happening.
Jana guessed at possible trigger points for the cannibalism, there was enough food available so hunger had nothing to do with it. Stress over loss of habitat through logging and psychological problems were possible. Chimpanzees sometimes did this, but not orangutans, not until now. She also worried that maybe they had seen humans killing and eating these primates. There were bones analysed at the terrorist camp last year and her father, a military general, said they were orangutan. There were few taboos when it came to survival.
A quick look at her watch told her she had about two hours before the presentation this afternoon. Once Sophie, the new intern arrived, she would take over these tourist talks. Jana felt pressed for time as she also needed to get ready for this bespoke trek. She made a quick phone call to the office to get the paperwork drafted that Gregg would sign before going on the trek. She didn’t need adverse publicity and an agreement to say nothing about Fifi in exchange for the trek seemed perfect.
The trek was arranged a fortnight ago. Jana had just got back from a huge international NGO conference, where her presentation, ‘Snare’ was hailed as a seminal work on poacher - exporter profiling. It even made the international news. She was in the lab, watching a technician extract the venom from a Russell’s viper when her private mobile rang. Some Australian guy said he was given the number by someone at the conference, she wasn’t happy and it wasn’t until he mentioned money that she cheered up.
Jana laughed, remembering how the lab technician said her tongue had suddenly snaked out and wetted her lips. Steve, the Australian, had offered her five thousand dollars US as a donation. The centre could do so much with that. He said his wife was from the Lisu tribe and their children were used to living in rainforest, even though they were only four year old twins. She understood why they wanted to take their children to see wild life and explain more about their heritage. It seemed normal when she agreed to it, besides the Lisu was one of the ethnic groups she studied for her anthropology degree.
Another person had signed up for the trek, just this morning, an American journalist, called Mike, and he too had paid top dollar. Now Jana could start that project teaching locals about eco-tourism and draw people away from acting as middlemen for the poachers. Soon there would be nothing left to poach and what would they do then?
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