By Lazaro George - Guide, Greystoke Mahale
Darwin is one of the chimpanzees in the M community here in Mahale Mountains National Park. He lost his mother when he was still a young boy. Actually other chimpanzees adopted him by providing him some wild fruits, grooming, playing with and so on.
He had also the tracker, Moshi Bunengwa who really liked him when he met him in the forest, assisting him by giving him some fruits, grooming. By that behaviour he is still familiar with people nowadays. Either sitting or passing between the observing people without care what you are holding or distance between one to another.
July of this year I had one family of five guests. We set off to go chimping early in the morning. We were lucky to find them nearby camp and one of the chimpanzees we saw in that day was Darwin. He appeared from undergrowth and passed where we were and sat beside the trail next to the fig tree. Darwin started to pick up fig tree fruits and feed on them. We spend about 25 minutes watching him. It was so fun for everybody because he picked up a lot of fruits and puts in the mouth one by one and peeling out the layer by setting the fruit against the fore tooth and rolling it by using his tongue.
