As birthdays go, this one was pretty special. No, in fact, it was outstanding! How often do you get to spend time with your very extended family in their natural surroundings? Generally, everybody is relaxed and their might be nothing but the odd familial squabble. Easily ended, just as easily forgotten. Here was a place we could all get together for the weekend!

Under African skies, on a Ugandan island far out in Lkae Victoria, what a better to re-connect with loved ones? Being 98.7% chimp, it is hard to divorce that fact that we are part, and parcel, of the animal kingdom. It is just that 1.3% that seperates us from our closet relative. But then genetics are not all that separate us from them. Attitudes and consciousness more than widen that gap. Complete greed and ignorance do much to ensure that it never closes.The Ngamba Chimp Sancutary - www.ngambaisland.org - was set up by various large conservation bodies to provide a sanctuary of sorts for orphaned, abused, confiscated chimps from the Great Lakes Region. There are also some chimps rescued from circuses in Eastern Europe too.

Here is a place that they are given the chance to lead a better life than what the future might have held in their previous lives. But it is not their normal habitat. By no means of imagination! Once an animal makes it here, it is unlikely that they weill be going back to the wild. They are too "far" gone for re-intergration into the wild.

Here 95% of an island with natural forest is home to the 42 chimps. Like any troupe, there is a complex social hierachy that is dynamic and flexible. Every member has a rank and "privileges" attached to it. The alpha male dispenses discipline and justice to all in the troupe. He also has first refusal on all the females, if they know what's right for them. But each female has a contraceptive inserted.

Life here is as normal as what can be managed.The troupe has run of the island during the day. They can choose whether they come back to the enclosures at night or not. But why not, out there you have to do everything yourself. In here, it is all provided for you. You just need to watch your back. Just in case. It is a chimp eat chimp world here at the sanctuary.

Should you choose to do so, you can walk with the juveniles in the forest in the morning. Just like children, they love to play, grapple, be tickled and dominate your attention. A piggy back ride is a particular favourite. Expert wardens and rangers ensure that all is conducted safley for both human and chimp. But the day for the chimps is divided very firmly into when feeding occurs. With no watches, the chimps are governed by their stomachs.

0730 is a little breakfast and then into the forest

1100 is when it literally rains food.

It is unfortunately necessary to ensure that there is an electric fence between the forest and the admin side of the island. Like any cognizant being, the chimps had learned how to get up and over the fence. They soon learned how to do it with the electricity onto. The chimps are constantly looking for ways to make life a little easier. On the forect walk in the mornings, one chimp had found an empty water bottle washed up on the beach. She has sinced stored it in a nearby tree and every morning she will feel it up, drink from it and then stash it away again. Amazing? Not really. They are, after all, 98.7% human. Isn't that what you might do too?

To ensure that all the chimps get a balanced diet, as the forest cannot supply all their needs, they are hand fed. Rangers stand on the platforms and throw the food to the chimps spread out below. Feeding time is accompanied by the howls, hoots and screams of the troupe coming through the trees! Alpha male gets first dibs on everything and at feeding time, rank structure is followed through strictly. But there are always flexible alliences made for mutual benefit. Every last piece of food is eaten. And long after the feeding time has finished, there are low ranking members still looking for the scraps that were missed!

1430 is lunch and a different diet. Where the morning was fruit and Ugandan pap. The afternoon is more vegetables than fruit. Except for the time, it could be the morning session all over again.

1800 is when the troupe makes its way into the enclosures for the night. The troupe is separated into different groups according to their ages ans status. Getting everybody into the right place involves a lot of hooting, howling, screaming and shouting. Standing just behind the cages as the troupe comes in, and watchin them swing from bar to bar, screaming, baring their teeth and beating their chests, it is an incredibly frightening sight to behold! Thank goodness there was thick steel bars between us and them!

Although the troupe settles down for the evening feed, the stillness is periodically broken by the same screams, hoots and howls as before! The evening feed are bowls of cold maize porridge. Looking on as the chimps crowd the bars with outstretched hands clutching cups and bowls near the ranger dishing out the food, you can't help to compare this scene with those from the rougher prisons around the world.

Darkness soon falls and silence reigns as the chimps climb into their nests (in the enclosure they are like little cargo slings) and await the daylight hours.

Far into the night, the silence is punctured by the howls and screams. Tucked up in a warm bed, it is not hard to imagine that somebody had a chimp nightmare and woke up screaming. With the pasts that these chimps have had, it is not to far of a stretch of the imagination to think so.

Attached to the main enclosure, is a smaller section. This section is for the little ones. Chimps stay with their mothers until well into their teens. It is at their mother's knees that they learn how to interact, integrate and behave within a complex social structure that is a chimp troupe. But orphaned chimps need a surrogate mother. Here in this enclosure, two little ones were slowly getting the chance to meet their potential new mothers. It was also a chance for the mothers to meet their new charges. Maternal instincts can never be repressed by artifical means!

Little chimps have no fear of humans, so the little ones were very happy to have their backs scratched, their tummies rubbed and their fur groomed. Looking into their moon sized eyes and clutching their strong little hands, you feel a very real connection with your relative. With the bars between us, it seemed a symbolic image that they needed protection from us.

Who was civilised? Who of us was primitive? Are we so very advanced? Ghandi was once asked about western civilisation. He answered that it would be nice if it had any. I suppose if you asked a chimp about human civilisation, it wouldn't really be a surprise if his answer was the same as Ghandi's.