Horrors, Hope and Fish Stories   

by Jane Dewar Tuesday 18 September 2001

My birthday was the end of August. What does someone get for me? I have most everything gorilla-oriented on the planet and I want for nothing. So when I heard there was a place nearby where they routinely culled fish, unsuitable for sale, I knew exactly what I wanted- the reject, unsellable koi. Just like the dogs and cats at GH, it seemed appropriate we'd take in some of these animals bound for the bleach bucket at the end of the year. 

So in addition to FISH and his WANDAS (see ghcritters) we got about 10 new koi - a special Japanese carp known for their beautiful colors and graceful movements in Japanese water gardens (see box). FISH was in the lake when we purchased the land for GH in 1996 and according to Quinton, had been there for years and years before. He'd come when I called him, much to our many visitors shock and amusement. FISH ain't no dummy - my call meant grub! (Photo left shows kitty Squeak looking at Fish and the Wandas, circa 1998.)

I'd been spending more time than usual walking around Lake Bwindi to feed Fish and company, with the dogs and cats following me (kitties Herb and Benny apparently haven't been informed of their feline heredity and believe they are part of the dog pack, following us everywhere). I was feeling down and uneasy, having trouble sleeping - old demons from my past were haunting me and I was struggling to keep them at bay.

The world of conservation isn't always supportive and friendly, and I'd just had a run-in with a well known person who threatened to sue me for questioning them publicly and voicing my opinion. I was disgusted with the human race, but believed my efforts and those of others like me were not in vain, despite the selfishness, greed, pettiness and vindictiveness of others. On Friday, September 7th, Nightline aired the first of what was going to be a series on the Crisis in the Congo. It was about time too, since the destruction of millions of lives - animal and human, had been going on for years, with barely a word in the media. I wasn't up to watching it, so Steuart taped it for me to watch when I was feeling strong enough…. maybe in a couple of days.

The Fish & Critters of Lake Bwindi

Lake Bwindi is the combination of two man-made ponds at GH, spring fed and full of life, 99% of it naturally there.  Here are just a few of the critters who call it and the area nearby home:

JACK:   A one-eyed koi, with pinecone markings called a “matsuba” …no one knows for why, but his right eye is totally missing, with skin growing over it like it was never there.  After FISH, who’s the largest at about 30 inches, JACK is the next largest, and instantly decided he was going to be FISH’s new best friend.
JILL:  A smaller “matsuba” with blue’ish eyeliner.  I have no idea of the gender of the fish and it really doesn’t matter to me.
CALLARD & BOWSER:  Apparently there should be two “ki utsuri” or butterscotch colored koi, but for the life of me, I can only reliably find CALLARD … BOWSER eludes me at the moment. CALLARD is easy to spot -  as he feeds his upper lip gets a pointy, almost prehensile flap over it, as it scoops in the food.
VINCE aka JOLSON:   This fella was deemed unsellable, since he’s missing a gill, but is easily distinguished by his all white face and orange body – he’s a “kohaku”
ALBERT:, a “hi shushui”, is missing a fin, but is easily distinguished by his tiger-like reddish metallic coloring. 
BROWSER is a “ki kusui” with shiny orange patterns, easy to recognize by the white eye brows over both eyes.
JUNIOR is a tiny version of FISH,   I’m told they’re both “shiro utsuri”, which just means they have black and white patterns. 
TWINKLE: a “gin rin” or metallic shiny silver koi.
THE WANDAS:   I’m told, despite the fact they come in many sizes and colors with black, orange, white and golden marks, are just plain run-of the mill goldfish. 
JEREMIAHS:  Humongo and noisy  bullfrogs.
ESTHERS:  Tiny frogs who jump in the lake in sequence reminding me of old Esther Williams swimming movies. 
ELVIS:  The king fisher, always noisily chatting in one of the nearby tree.
NILES & FRASIER:   The crane brothers, spend weeks by the lake, hoping to feast on the bounty of Wandas, despite the dogs’ and my attempts to chase them off.
SNIVELY the large water moccasin snake who pops up from time to time.
MRS. TURTELL and her 2 offspring, TURTELLINI and TURTELLI:  A family of snapping turtles. I decided they were Italian,.   I have no idea why. J 

A week ago today I greeted Grady, our wonderful mailman, who's also a local preacher, always smiling and full of good cheer. I'd been babbling about something and noticed Grady was subdued, so I asked if everything was alright. He said "I'm just so sad by all that's happened in New York today." It was only about 10 a.m. and I hadn't bothered to turn on the TV yet, and hadn't a clue what he was talking about. Our gardener, Judy, came by and joined Grady in telling me the first tower of the World Trade Center had collapsed. I ran inside to tell Steuart to turn on the TV. Like most of America and the rest of the world, we were quickly caught up in horror and unfathomable destruction we were watching on TV as the second tower collapsed.

I refused to turn the TV back on. I was alternating between being nauseous and numb. Steuart's brother and his family live about 20 blocks from the WTC and around noon I got an email saying they were all ok, thankfully. The rest of the week is a blur. Friday, we told our staff to take the day off so they could join the rest of the world in remembering Tuesday's losses. I got email condolences from friends all over the world from Austria to New Zealand, but still, the numbness and nausea didn't abate.

So I spent a lot more time with the fish and animals outside. This has been one of the most beautiful weeks in recent memory. A mild fall chill is in their air and the leaves of the black walnuts are starting to come down with the winds, but the skies are blue and GH has never looked lovelier. Leaf-Lookers will be coming to see the fall foliage in the next few weeks. How can I be surrounded by such beauty and good fortune? How can there be people on the planet filled with such anger and hatred? (Photo left of Lake Bwindi, circa June 2001.)

I wondered who these people are - who think flying a plane into some buildings, killing thousands of innocent people is an honorable thing… Do they have mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers or any other human on the planet they love - do others love them? Is their god really going to take them up in the Rapture for their deeds on Tuesday? Where and how does this kind of hatred and anger start? For years I've been dealing with the horrors going on in Africa - from the 1994 genocide in Rwanda to the massacres continuing today in the Congo … But Tuesday's outrage hit me and most of us much closer to home.

My own life story will have to wait for my book, but suffice it to say life was not always fair or kind. Animals have always been a source of comfort to me, from a small child and my earliest memories. Long ago I decide life is how you choose to react to it … Hey, I had this one figured out even before Oprah found Dr. Phil! And I decided to turn my outrage and hurt over my own injustices into something good - and for me, helping animals seemed to do the trick.

Psychologists tell us most serial murderers begin with torturing animals, so I'm convinced someone who holds life sacred - animal, plant and human (regardless of race, gender, creed, etc) - could not be consumed by the blind hatred which fuels the likes of the perpetrators of Tuesday's atrocities. If it turns out to be Bin Laden or some of the people of Afghanistan, where abuses against women have been reported for years, it makes some sense, in that context. After all, if you don't even respect another human being of your own religion, race and nationality, who bears you and your children, it's a closer step to not respecting lives in another country and culture. Animals don't even appear as a blip on the radar of such people, but I'm convinced if they were able to appreciate animals and the uniqueness of their lives, then they wouldn't be so immune to the compassion necessary to prevent blind hatred to build to such a horrific level as the world witnessed on September 11, 2001.

Religions of the world help people cope with life's inequities, but most do not stress enough the teaching of tolerance - especially at times like these. To my Muslim friends around the world, I feel your sadness that the sanctity of your religion has been bastardized by these sick fools. Timothy McVeigh was an American, but he didn't speak for me or anyone I know, so I can and will not judge any one person, country or religion for this sad situation.

It would be nice if everyone could appreciate the preciousness of all life, without the species arrogance that often accompanies opinions. I'm a white, blue-eyed, Anglo-Saxon woman, but I don't think I'm better or worse than the Afghani women across the planet. If we are all part of God's world, how can any of us claim to be superior? History is filled with humans' need to feel superior including the Crusades to Hitler and on ad infinitum. Why isn't different just different, not one right and the other wrong?

Cats and dogs are supposed to hate each other, but you'd never know it looking at our little menagerie of ragamuffin strays and rescues. Koko, our 70 lb rottweiler mix is Earth Mother to all the animals, especially kitties Shelley, Peaches, Herb, Cali Philamena, Benny and Belle. As Koko lays on her side, the kitties rub her snout and face, or lick her nose, as she patiently tolerates it, wagging her tail - ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-thump. I guess no one taught them they were supposed to be mortal enemies. Even C.G., a kitty taken in from neighbors housing him alone in their garage, and Ginger, an 8 year old dog we adopted from friends moving away, sleep side by side (photo left).

Our one-eyed fish, Jack (photo right), swims along with the others in the new group of fish in Lake Bwindi and his lack of an eye doesn't seem to make him any different than the others. Pinkie, the white chimp featured in our last update is one of her group, with little evidence her uniqueness matters to others in her new family. We're all part of a Circle of Life - a rich tapestry of differences in colors, textures, thoughts and views. To me, these differences are what makes life beautiful.

I'm grateful I had the ability to love animals at times when humans were failing me, or else perhaps the same bitterness, jealousy and anger could have welled up inside of me like terrorists and criminals around the world. Even now, as I'm dealing with selfish, idiotic and arrogant fools, I'm able to be comforted by the simple, unconditional love of my family of "reject" animals. I fantasize about blowing such idiots outta the water, then I cool off a bit and realize anger and hatred just beget anger and hatred, and the world has plenty of that already.  It's tougher being tolerant, patient and taking the higher road. But I believe some sort of Karma or accounting will and does take place eventually, and everything - even the most heinous events like this - has a meaning and something to teach us.

I hope that lesson will be tolerance and love is stronger than hatred and revenge. Gandhi apparently said something like, "If we continue with the eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth philosophy, soon, we'll just be a bunch of toothless, blind fools." Still, we need to make sure the cowards backing Tuesday's horrors know there will be a day of reckoning - if not in this world, then in the next, for sure.

In this week's PEOPLE magazine,  (24Sep01 page 120) a prayer spoken at a meeting of Muslims, Jews and Christians alike had a nice sentiment, I'd like to end this with: 

I believe in the sun, when it is not shining.

I believe in love, when not feeling it.

I believe in God, when God is silent.