Testimonials

After having read an article about Jane Goodall's work in Tanzania, Bill and I decided to become involved in the plight of the chimpanzees at Gombe National Park. This led to a trip to Jane's Africa that took us to the most wonderful sights ranging from the baby elephant rescue to the wildlife of the Ngorongoro Crater and then onto the Serengeti plains. As guests of the wonderful wildlife denizens of the Serengeti we were treated to the most amazing and unforgettable sights on the open plain from leopards napping in tree limbs to masses of wildebeest, some of whom were giving birth. Yet, for me, the most memorable experience was that of Gombe National Park. I had not expected the incredible silence of the Gombe forest. This unanticipated stillness was suddenly broken by the solitary call from a chimpanzee nearby. The call was followed by a reply. All of a sudden the whole mountain came alive with bushes rustling, followed by more calls from other members of the group. Some were in trees and some traveled single file along a narrow path with young carried on backs. When we reached a small clearing near the top of the mountain we witnessed an entire troop of chimpanzees grooming, playing and just plain lazing about. It is a memory I will always keep and which reinforces my hope that these extraordinary places in Africa will remain for future generations to experience.

—Mollie Cowie
   Windermere, Florida

The safari was a trip down memory lane as well as the fulfillment of a dream. Twenty years earlier I finished my college career in the back of a lorry in Kenya. This is where I truly began to understand conservation, sustainability and the affects of globalization. Jane Goodall was a role model for this young biologist. Many years later I heard Jane speak about her chimpanzees, about sustainability, about the environment and how we all make a difference. She talked of Roots & Shoots and her reasons for hope. I immediately joined Jane’s Peak Society - how perfect for a person who dreamt of sitting next to Jane in Gombe. Spending time in Kenya brought back many memories of observing lions in the grass and trying to dance with the Maasai. Traveling to Gombe, crossing paths with a mother chimpanzee and her babies, sitting on Jane’s Peak listening to distant pant-hoots, was a dream fulfilled. It could not be better for this old biologist. Through the TACARE program the environment was being healed while people were helping themselves. A Dar es Salam Roots & Shoots group helped an orphanage which in turn formed its own Roots & Shoots program. I came back even more dedicated to the mission of the Jane Goodall Institute.

—Jerilyn Prescott
   Portland, Oregon

Not a day goes by that I don’t think of Africa and of the JGI trip to Kenya and Tanzania that I joined last February. The gift of such an incredible experience – one generously bestowed on us by Africa and the people we met - is difficult to put into words, but many images come to mind.  

I daydream of the Serengeti, Lake Tanganyika, Gombe, and of the rescued baby elephants at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Nairobi. I think of the Roots & Shoots children striving to make their world a better place and of the people in the Bubango-Chankele area working to obtain the necessary money and equipment to construct and maintain a tank to provide potable water for themselves and numerous other villages that currently have no reliable water source. I picture the small camp and conservation area at the Gombe Stream Research Center on the banks of Lake Tanganyika where Jane spent so many years doing her research and where we were able to see chimps from the same families that she studied while in her twenties.  I visualize sitting on Jane’s Peak where she spent so many devoted hours, where butterflies landed on us in the shade of the rocks and trees and remember how we cooled off under the waterfall there, in the crisp deluge provided by the falls of Gombe.

It is in those places in Africa: in the forest and the small towns, where I felt the very specific and distinct presence of something so much greater than us, something of infinite beauty. I was reminded of how ephemeral places like these are in modern times and that to lose them and the wonder they inspire would be to lose an essential part of ourselves.  With these musings and memories comes the question of what we can do for Gombe and its people- what could possibly compare to what has been done for us? Specifically, I wonder what we can give back to Jane for all that she has shared with us - most particularly the opportunity to join her in Africa and to live, briefly, in a state of grace – while tracing a few of her steps in this amazing place.

I have admired and looked up to Jane from afar ever since I was a child. After this trip I remain in awe of what an incredible person she is.  Her life’s work, and the work of the Institute, remains something we all must support in whatever ways we can from wherever we are. Along with that comes the most important gift that any of us can give to Jane which is the integration of all that we learned while in Africa into life in the States, and to figure out a way to stay involved in her work no matter where we may be.  Thank you Jane and thank you Africa!

—Sarah Warren Hoffman
   Jackson, Wyoming