Gorilla Food

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Francois, our guide, slowed his pace just enough to pull a few eucalyptus leaves off a low-hanging branch. I guessed he would soon pop them in his mouth and chew — and he did. Raising my eyebrows and smiling, I held out my hand in his direction, ready to try a taste for myself.

Though we've met only a few times, I trust Francois not to offer me a toxic plant. He's one of those people who exude warmth and kindness; you feel as if you've known him forever. But that's only part of the reason I trust him. A tracker-turned-guide, he has worked in the mountain gorilla park for 30-plus years. Francois knows the place and the animals as well as anyone. He's undoubtedly walked every trail and cut many of his own through infinite numbers of bamboo stalks, vines and thistle. He also knows the people.

Tourists return from his treks glowing about what they learned, remarking on his repertoire of gorilla-like noises.

Equally important, to me anyway, this one man has as much experience as a dozen others combined when it comes to hands-on vet work with the gorillas. Over the years, Francois has helped out with many "interventions," the code word for anesthetizing a gorilla because it has a life-threatening problem.

Though rare, these events are challenging and risky for everyone involved. His experience runs the gamut of incidents: snare removed — gorilla recovers fine; vet team working on sick female charged by silverback — serious injuries avoided; mother and infant anesthetized for exam, baby stolen by other females — baby eventually recovered.

So, if there's anyone I'd trust to put me through a mountain gorilla food taste test, it's Francois. And today was my chance. I'd joined a group of tourists — supporters of MGVP from Maryland — on their way to visit the Sabinyo group. As we walked through the fields leading up to the park wall, the questions began to flow. Francois answered each one carefully, mixing a bit of French with his English. Listening to him, I realized yet again how much I have to learn.

As for eucalyptus, I know the gorillas often come out of the forest to eat the bark. No one knows for certain why they do it. This plant was introduced as a source of wood and charcoal 100 years ago. Mountain gorillas didn't evolve with it, but they routinely leave the forest for the farms to eat it. Some say they take it as medicine. Others think gorillas will go for any novel food item.

Francois shook his head when I asked if those particular leaves were safe for me to taste. I don't know why he answered no, actually. He swallowed them and led me over to another tree. Using his knife, he cut into the bark and peeled it away to expose the softer inner layer, then dug in a bit more. Using his fingertips, he scraped out a tiny bit of the pale green pulp and offered it to me, saying, "Take the water only." I interpreted this to mean that I should put it in my mouth without chewing it and then spit it out. So I did. The delicate, slightly sweet, mint taste answered my question. The gorillas must simply like it.

A half-hour later, just outside the park boundary, Francois picked a strand of gallium, a bright green vine with tiny leaves arranged in a starlike pattern. This gorilla food has a peculiar sticky quality — I'll find bits of it stuck to my sleeve or in my hair after a few hours in the forest. The gorillas pull it down from the trees and often wrap it up to make a big wad; they sometimes cough when it catches in the back of their throat. This plant has such a bitter smell that I wasn't surprised Francois didn't eat it.

Fifteen minutes into the park, we stopped again after a short but slippery climb. Francois put a thick green stalk in his mouth and began to chew. Someone asked him if this was something gorillas eat. He shook his head and continued chewing, now with his mouth open. Water began to dribble down the side of his chin. He grinned, pulled the green remnants out of his mouth, and explained that if you're in the forest and thirsty, this is the plant you look for.

I still don't know the plant's name and am not entirely sure I'd recognize this green stalk among the thousands of others. The scientists at the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International have catalogued the forest plants as well as the gorilla's diet; someday I'll make time to study them.

At our next rest break, Francois disappeared into the forest and returned with two kinds of plants, quizzing me on their names (lobelia, white celery) and smiling when I identified them correctly. He demonstrated that the sap from the lobelia plant can be wiped on your skin to soothe wounds from stinging nettles. (That fact I knew, though it hadn't helped me the one time I'd tried it.)

Next, he peeled the outer layer from the celery stalk, took a bite, broke the next bit off, and handed it to me. Having watched the gorillas eat this plant for hours, I confidently took a taste. Wow, even better than eucalyptus — sweet but mild, soft and very different from our supermarket celery, more like a tender stalk of fresh broccoli.

We took one more plant-tasting break before meeting up with the gorillas. This time, Francois displayed two very different choices. One was a type of thistle, not the smaller-leaved stinging nettle that's covered with tiny bristles, but a broad-leafed plant with large white spines.

He held the stalk in one hand, then bent each leaf back and down so that all the spines pointed downward. Again, I'd seen the gorillas do this, but I thought he'd stop there. Instead, he took several bites from the top of the stalk where the leaves bent, showing that if you handled the plant properly the sharp bits wouldn't get you. (This was not a move I was willing to try. Later in the day, Elisabeth told me she’d tasted this plant —just once. The spines weren't the problem; it made her violently ill!)

The final plant, a huge, thick bamboo shoot, appealed to me much more. One of the first subjects I'd tried to cover with the trackers when I arrived was my own diet: vegetarian. We often spend hours together moving from one gorilla group to another, and this is a topic for which I thought my French vocabulary was good enough for a casual conversation. But no one understood me until I pointed to the bamboo. Then, everyone laughed. Apparently, bamboo shoots are for gorillas, not people. I tried to explain that other animals in other parts of the world rely on bamboo, like giant pandas. This information effectively ended that particular conversation with the trackers. Theirs is a world of gorillas, buffalo and bushbuck.

When Francois finished peeling the bamboo stalk, he repeated the earlier move —taking a bite first, then breaking off the next section and handing it to me. It tasted more like water than vegetable juice. It was so refreshing that everyone else took a taste too. No wonder the gorillas grunt at each other and scuffle over fresh bamboo shoots.

The Sabinyo group was resting in a small green clearing that was full of potential gorilla food. Francois positioned us a safe distance away so we could watch the family eat, sleep, play and groom each other. I backed up to give one of the tourists a bit more room and stepped on a huge stalk of celery, flattening it to the ground. Quickly, I looked around to see if the nearby adult female had noticed my clumsy move. Nope. Good thing. I remembered some early advice given to me by Dr. Chris Whittier, one of the field vets before me: Never stand on the gorilla's food. The more familiar I become with plants that gorillas regard as food, the harder not stepping on them is going to be.

[Rwanda, May 17, 2007. Pictures: Lucy Spelman/MGVP]