A life changing louse - Photo story #2 - 7 World’s Continents Photo Challenge - African Wednesday week

A life changing louse

My entry for the African Wednesday week @czechglobalhosts

Whilst cleaning the fur of the younger ones from louses, this old chimpanzee named Poco got struck by a moment of contemplation. Either the last louse was mind blowing delicious or he got taken back to a point in time where being in Africa and surrounded by his own kin was unimaginable. A time where human contact meant pain and fear. This old guy was held in captivity for the early years of his life. He was used as an attraction in a cage above a workshop in Asia to lure in ignorant and sensationalist tourists whilst they went on deluded shopping sprees.

They held him in this cage for the duration of his performance where he had to endure the constant hords of people whilst being forced to stand up every time a customer came into the shop.

When he wasn't being abused by his captors he was held in this box, with collar around his neck and fixated to the bottom.

But luckily this is not where his story ended, with the help of the incredible people of the Sweetwaters Chimpanzee Sanctuary he was rescued and brought into the sanctuary around 1995 to meet his own kin for the first time.
Although his past should have taught him otherwise he still loves people and interacts with visitors on a constant basis.

After watching carefuly and reluctantly for a long time Poco learned how to clean members of the group of chimpanzees by gaining their trust. Imagine a blind man seeing for the first time, that must have been the impact the won trust and his first louse had on him. So in Pocos way a louse can be life changing.

Almost all apes in the sanctuary share Pocos fate to some degree and all had to overcome human cruelty and abuse to such extent that resocialisation means an enormous amount of work, huge expenses and time of which the caretakers only have very limited amounts.

But there are ways to ease the workload and expenses, take a look at http://www.olpejetaconservancy.org/adopt-a-chimpanzee and you can adopt a chimpanzee for one year or more. Every cent will go directly to your chosen ape and his life will be helped immensely.

Thanks for reading till the end, if you are interested in more stories and pictures of my travels take a look at my blog.

Interested in more? Check out my photo story on homelessness on South African streets.
https://steemit.com/photography/@mjphoto/my-first-steemit-post-introduction-and-vituko-and-raul-homeless-in-south-africa-photo-story-1

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