NGM MAPSthe two-year-old’s eviscerated body stashed under a
nearby bush. He died en route to a regional hospital.
Months became years, and the chimp raids contin-
ued. Finally, the Sematas broke. Though the house
was their prized possession, in August 2017 they
abandoned it. I visited shortly after they moved into
temporary lodgings—cramped, no garden, but also
no aggressive wild apes.
The Sematas’ losses embodied the worst of the
human-chimp conflict that National Geographic
sent Quammen and me to document. My images
would help tell that story. But I also hoped they might
honor the human tragedies and spur change, such as
moving the chimps, to end this conflict.
Omuhereza and Ntegeka gave me their
empty home’s key and permission to take
photos there. To get in, I had to push my
shoulder against the door, which hadn’t
been opened in months. Several win-
dowpanes were broken—by the chimps,
Ntegeka had said. As I stood in the dark
and dusty room, I thought of Mujuni’s
grisly fate and wondered whether his parents had
relived it every time they’d seen chimp faces at
the windows.
Officials of local governments and international
NGOs have urged the farmers here to learn to live
alongside chimpanzees—but do they know what
that’s like? I wanted to capture some sense of how the
Sematas felt inside their home during chimp visits.I WALKED FROM ONE window to the next, waiting for
chimps to arrive. I saw a single chimp sitting quietly
at the edge of the yard. Soon more came, also quietly.
Then the mood changed. A teenage male standingon two legs grabbed a fistful of vegetation and shook
it while striding toward the house. As he picked
up speed, he reached the house at a run, dropped
the branches, leaped into the air, and pounded the
side of the house with his heels in quick succession.
Bah-boom! The entire house shook.
The group’s biggest male, the one I presumed to
be the alpha, stood and swung his arms, warming up
for his show of prowess. He broke into a run, picked
up a softball-size rock along the way, and hurled it.
Skipping once off the ground, the rock slammed
thunderously into the house. My heart raced as I
photographed this behavior. I knew the chimps
were only shadowboxing their reflections,
but it did feel like an attack. Eventually, as
the daylight faded, the chimps returned
to their tiny forest and I was able to leave
the house.
I was eager to share the images with my
National Geographic colleagues, and those
officials who preach peaceful coexistence,
but I worried about showing the images to
the Sematas, for fear of stirring up their grief and pain.
On my last visit with them, in November 2017,
Ntegeka asked if I had photos of the chimps. Reluc-
tantly I presented the image below, on my phone. She
began to laugh—and laugh—finally pausing to say,
“My God, they look like humans.” I pulled up more
photos. “I know all of them, aside from the babies.
Look at that baby; it’s light-skinned,” she said, chuck-
ling. Then the family proudly showed me their new
plot of land and the large pile of bricks that would
become their new home. They were rebuilding. And
with Ntegeka’s laughter, I felt they had moved on in
more ways than one. jGathering outside the family’s abandoned house, the chimpanzees see their reflections in the windows as a challenge.
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