Womankind – August 2019

93

Noble Women

What was your first encounter

with orangutans?

I first met orangutans when I was

a teenager during a work placement

at a zoo. I guess I did fall in love

with them at that time, but in my

wildest imagination I never thought

I’d be working with them one day.

I was just a normal 14-year-old girl

living in Northern Jutland, Den-

mark. Orangutans were far away.

But when I finally did meet them

as a mature adult, I was very much

taken with that ‘human way’ they

look at you. They have eyes just like

us; they have the white around the

pupil, and the iris as well, and their

faces say it all. If I look at a gorilla or

a chimpanzee, I don’t feel the same

thing. Orangutans remind me of

little Buddhas. They’re very much

at ease with themselves - they’re

one with nature, laid-back, slow

moving. Chimpanzees are proba-

bly more like us because they have

warfare, but it’s the calmness of the

orangutan that speaks to me. For

some reason, I can read orangutans

fairly easily.

When watching orphaned

orangutans, you can feel the loss of

the mother. You can feel the fear.

I would often think about how the

mother had been killed, what had

happened to her. Because if they lose

a mother at nine months or a year

old, they’re traumatised. They have

nightmares and wake up screaming.

And they look at you with such loss

in their eyes. Some of them give up,

and don’t want to live when they’ve

lost their mother. It was these little

ones that won my heart.

When the palm oil industry

started invading Borneo back in the

late 1990s and early 2000s, and I saw

adult animals suffering, it suddenly

became something else... it turned

into something a lot bigger. Every-

thing else that had mattered to me

in the past suddenly was not worth

anything any more. I went back

home to Denmark, gave up my job,

sold everything I owned, and said,

“This is what I’ve got to do.”

How easy is it to just ‘give up

everything’ and change direction

in life so suddenly?

I was 33 when I gave up my job.

Being an air stewardess wasn’t bad.

I received a good salary and got to

see the world. But when you work

with different crew members on dif-

ferent flights every day, you never

get to know anyone... and the job

became very superficial. I wasn’t

unhappy, but I knew there was more

to life than that.

At age 33, Lone Drøscher Nielsen quit her job as an

air flight attendant for Scandinavian Airlines, sold

everything she owned, and moved to Indonesia for a

cause she would devote herself to for the rest of her life.

Interviewee

LONE DRØSCHER

NIELSEN

Interview by

STAV DIMITROPOULOS

93 A LIFE’S CALLING

Noble Women

What was your first encounter
with orangutans?
I first met orangutans when I was
a teenager during a work placement
at a zoo. I guess I did fall in love
with them at that time, but in my
wildest imagination I never thought
I’d be working with them one day.
I was just a normal 14-year-old girl
living in Northern Jutland, Den-
mark. Orangutans were far away.
But when I finally did meet them
as a mature adult, I was very much
taken with that ‘human way’ they
look at you. They have eyes just like
us; they have the white around the
pupil, and the iris as well, and their
faces say it all. If I look at a gorilla or
a chimpanzee, I don’t feel the same
thing. Orangutans remind me of
little Buddhas. They’re very much
at ease with themselves - they’re
one with nature, laid-back, slow

moving. Chimpanzees are proba-

bly more like us because they have

warfare, but it’s the calmness of the

orangutan that speaks to me. For

some reason, I can read orangutans

fairly easily.

When watching orphaned

orangutans, you can feel the loss of

the mother. You can feel the fear.

I would often think about how the

mother had been killed, what had

happened to her. Because if they lose

a mother at nine months or a year

old, they’re traumatised. They have

nightmares and wake up screaming.

And they look at you with such loss

in their eyes. Some of them give up,

and don’t want to live when they’ve

lost their mother. It was these little

ones that won my heart.

When the palm oil industry

started invading Borneo back in the

late 1990s and early 2000s, and I saw

adult animals suffering, it suddenly

became something else... it turned

into something a lot bigger. Every-

thing else that had mattered to me

in the past suddenly was not worth

anything any more. I went back

home to Denmark, gave up my job,

sold everything I owned, and said,

“This is what I’ve got to do.”

How easy is it to just ‘give up

everything’ and change direction

in life so suddenly?

I was 33 when I gave up my job.

Being an air stewardess wasn’t bad.

I received a good salary and got to

see the world. But when you work

with different crew members on dif-

ferent flights every day, you never

get to know anyone... and the job

became very superficial. I wasn’t

unhappy, but I knew there was more

to life than that.

At age 33, Lone Drøscher Nielsen quit her job as an

air flight attendant for Scandinavian Airlines, sold

everything she owned, and moved to Indonesia for a

cause she would devote herself to for the rest of her life.

Interviewee
LONE DRØSCHER
NIELSEN

Interview by
STAV DIMITROPOULOS

A LIFE’S CALLING