Becky
Feb 21, 2007
On January 21st, 2007, our beloved Becky, one of the first three residents of the Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center, died from internal bleeding. The following is a tribute by Dr. Sheri Speede, Director and Founder of the Sanaga-Yong Center.
Tribute to Becky
1980 ~ January 21st, 2007
 Already when we met in January 1997, your childhood and your adolescence had been stolen from you. But your penetrating, imploring brown eyes stared at me from behind the bars of your tiny cell, and I saw that you were surviving and curious and hopeful in spite of all you had lost. Confined and bored out of your mind for so many years, somehow you were still vibrant. Becky, your eyes grabbed my heart, and they never let go.
Like it was yesterday I remember you grabbing my long, white dress, pulling it into your cage, leaving me barely enough cloth to cover my behind, me pleading with you, you nonchalantly using the lovely cloth, along with a bottle of water I had given you, to clean your filthy cage floor, finally giving my dress back when you had bored of the game, in exchange for an apple. Then you pointedly turned your back on me, leaving me alone with my guilty freedom.
But we got you out of there Becky . . . finally. Finally on August 31, 1999, we freed you from that prison. We drove Pepe, Jacky, and you away in a gutted bush taxi, we humans squashed against the sides to make room for the three transport cages, because we had no money for a big truck and the roads were closed to big trucks anyway since the rains had come. Despite all advice, I refused to leave you in that cage at the hotel for three more months until the roads dried up. I knew that every single day counted for you, and that your fortitude deserved mine. And so we got disastrously stuck in the mud somewhere near the middle of our 18 hour journey. We exhausted humans waded knee-deep in muck pushing that taxi with all our might, while you three screamed your heads off from inside that rocking box until it finally bolted forward, leaving some of us sprawling belly-down. It was an illustrious start to your new life.
But dearest Becky – tough chick, sweet lady, flirt, goofy face-maker, lover of your comfortable “nest” made of an old tire where you slept for 7 ½ years, overeater of bananas, surreptitious plotter, cleaner of cobwebs, “sister” of Pepe and Jacky, mourner of Pepe, best friend of Dorothy, frustrator of pubescent boys, adoptive mother of Gabby who was the only one to ever share your food, matriarch and protector of little Luke, Lucy, Future, Emma and others – during your years with us at Sanaga-Yong Center I know you had a life that you cherished. And oh how we cherished you!
My friend and my inspiration, I will never, ever forget you. Rest in Peace.
More stories about Becky
Some folks are interested in making a donaton to IDA-Africa in honor of Becky. If you'd like to donate, click here and please reference Becky in your submission...thank you.
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Since Becky's death Dorothy spends several hours a day
sitting near Becky's grave which is just outside the enclosure. |
Becky and Emma |
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