by Alejandra Juarez, Cordoba, Argentina

After years working with animals, especially primates, the large and small ones, every day you can get surprised and learn new things. In my case, I almost never go out or travel so far… The fact to be able to keep the Carayás monkeys free in a 20-year work makes it difficult for me please to visit other sites with animals in captivity. I have been very critical and somewhat resigned, always thinking something is missing or that it is necessary to do something more.
In my beginning at the zoo, my first “no human” friend was Silvio, a chimpanzee with whom I established a relationship for many years until we were separated due to human circumstances. Along with Silvio, there were also Nenita, Coco and Yeni, great people whom I loved and with whom I interacted.
At those times there was no information about the work with great apes, such as Jane Goodall’s research, in our country. Therefore, my friendship with them was natural, as an instinct. I could not comment on what I felt in those moments, or what I was seeing in the attitudes of those "hairy little men" because I would be told to be crazy. But when the information and results of field studies of researchers as Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and Birute Galdikas began to be promoted, I felt relieved and did not feel like "a rare person in this world" … With this sensation and based on the reality of chimpanzees, I started mey work with the Carayás, and it was almost by accident.
Still, what I believed and could see was understood only by us, who worked with them daily.
When I was first appointed to be representative of Great Ape Project – GAP in Argentina, I was invited to go to Sorocaba, Brazil, place of the international headquarters of GAP and of the largest chimpanzee sanctuary of Latin America. This invitation was as a reward for me and I waited with anxiety for this trip, especially when it had to be delayed by weather problems.
I looked at photos and videos, but had no idea of what I would find at that place, which allowed me to re-encounter with my purest past, with my beginning with animals. Not that my current relationship is not pure, but over the years facing such resistance, we let scientism gets it, so that people take us seriously, and, tired of so much injustice, we change a little our relationship and treatment with these beings.
Actually, what I want is to report what I experienced during those ten days in the "city of chimpanzees," so I considered GAP sanctuary was.
It scares me to travel, I know that I leave behind many obligations, but I realized that this trip was my moment.
Dr. Miguel, who is an Argentinean from Cordoba, was waiting for me at the airport in São Paulo, and this gave me more confidence. We left the airport by car and took the road for an hour to reach Sorocaba. We entered a stone path until an automatic gate at the entrance of the sanctuary, where there was a sign of GAP project.

My first impression was of a great city surrounded by walls. Of course within those walls lived in large, in many large spaces, wonderful beings who walk the streets through the windows and internal walls, and showed their hands, with friendly signs and gestures of "Come, get closer." I was astonished, could not believe in what I was seeing.
There, waiting for me, was Dr. Pedro Ynterian, a man who I had only seen in pictures and videos, very nice and with appearance of a patriarch, and his wife, Vania, who is quiet, charming and very sweet.
During those ten days I felt I was immersed in a place of happiness for chimpanzees, where everything, absolutely everything, revolves around the chimpanzees. I stayed in the room of the house, not knowing that, at night, during the early mornings, I would receive the kicks on the wall of my room of Emilio and Guga, as they were on the other side. I was a kind of intruder in their world.
For someone like me, involved in conservation and protection of animals, this was the most that could happen, enriched by having the opportunity to know the intimacy of the people who manage the place, who speak my same language, and whose experience and style are not measured with calculations, formulas or other numerical ways.
Seeing Dr. Pedro walking with the chimpanzees calmly touched me. When I saw the look of admiration and love of Guga at him, I felt I was on another planet, or in a "backwards" world…. Seeing Billy counting on your fingers until five, and see, see, see … what happened there and what I would do to pass this information through when I got back.
I met and lived the ideal of any conservationist and animal defender. I usually do not let me impress quickly, but there it was nothing to criticize or add. Everything was there.
Last year, “Muito Interessante” magazine published an article entitled "The ladies of the primates, which told story of several women who have worked and work with chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, etc.. But now it is not really known only the president of GAP, but the "gentleman of chimpanzees," Pedro Ynterian.
A businessman, entrepreneur, with a passionate story since he was young, from Cuba, who suddenly becomes a collector of animals, which was very common in the past. Later he became a man who gives his life for chimpanzees in Sorocaba Sanctuary, and it is worth mentioning that he also support North-American sanctuaries and helped to promote the creation of three other sanctuaries in Brazil.
In Brazil, all chimpanzees were rescued from circuses and live within these "walls" in a very, very happy way. Pedro says that he got aware of the cause of the great apes with Guga, who was the inspiration for the creation of the Sanctuary.
Unfortunately, all the material filmed in Brazil was stolen and I have what I posted on Facebook, produced in an improvised way. Articles and imagens that show Pedro’s stories. I was impressed when I asked him what was a chimpanzee? And he replied: "A primitive man." Actually I think this too and it can be biologically explained. And Pedro has the authority for this definition. He is not a scientist, and does not observe in nature passively, but cares for them, and spends a lot of time with them for many years, and there are over fifty chimpanzees in the sanctuary.
The afternoon chat with Pedro were very awaited for me because I was facing a true sage. And what did we talk about? About these "hairy little men", of every experience with them and of how he viewed a hopeless future for wild chimpanzees.
The walls of the sanctuary replaced the electrified fences of the early times, because the chimps learned to cross them using blankets, branches, wood and isolating the electricity. Pedro currently continues to invest his money in chimpanzees and says "when a man decides to invest his money in favor of another kind, is because he has crossed the threshold …" I personally believe that what happened to him was some kind of enlightenment.
From Friday to Monday Pedro is dedicated entirely to chimpanzees, the other days of the week he works at his company.
At 5 am starts his routine of preparing delicacies for chimpanzees. In the afternoon he sleeps a siesta with Guga and Emilio, who expect and enjoy it.
I wanted to tell it. It is real and there are people like that.
And when one can observe what happens in the city of chimpanzees, regains confidence and understands the need to join a cause of heart and action.
And speaking as Vania, "When one begins the path of conservation, so compromised, there is no turning back."
When she speaks about the main house that now is the center of the Sanctuary, Vania adds: "This was my home, today is their home, the chimpanzee’s home."
I loved to go with Vania in the enclosures of the chimpanzees and see the tenderness with which she speaks to them and teaches them. Much of the intelligence of chimpanzees in Sorocaba is due to her work. Vania told me that we should "help the chimpanzees in their evolution," as it is obvious that the world tries to prevent this evolution.
Today chimpanzees in Senegal have taken refuge in caves, use spears to hunt species, among them there are different cultures and, as Pedro says, the day will come when some of them will begin to speak … Chimpanzees who are urban, the ones who do not live in freedom anymore; and if they had to choose, would be to urban amenities. Pedro tells me that when they have had the opportunity to escape to nearby woods, all have returned. Pedro and others began a movement for change, with a more human understanding, and a new path is being built, and we should spread out and participate.
I do not enjoy living between beings that are already urban Their knowledge and intellectuality disturb me. I can not accept that there are chimpanzees in obsolete captivity, it’s crazy, it is what we did with the slaves.
This trip really opened my head, I remembered my beginning and I felt that I was with my ancestors during the 24 hours of the day for 10 days.

She cried in silence when Pedro told me the story of a chimpanzee that was castrated so that he could be controlled to continue to work. Or like many others which had their teeth pulled out and a case of one whose eyes were blinded with boiling water. This chimp has recently been operated by a medical team and regained sight in one eye. Pedro tells us about the moment he began to see and could see a kitten that he had been hearing the sound for days, and that no longer needed to hold hands to walk through the room. It was touching when Samantha gave birth to their baby, wrapped her in a blanket and gave her for the care of Pedro, as in a calculated move.
For many years reproduction and selling of chimpanzees were normal and allowed in Brazil. Mothers were accustomed to have their children taken out when they were still babies, to be sold. Pedro ended up with this horror, which endangered his life on several occasions – including an attack attempt in a day light -, but he continued to struggle.
I would like to remember the case, that happened not many years ago, of a chimpanzee who had participated in a program of learning the language of the deaf and dumb, and ended in a laboratory for scientific experimentation. Years later, when Roger Fouts visited that site, one of the chimpanzees remembered him in sign language and asked him "Roger, please, get me outta here …" This is very scary.
I think: what we have done and do with these creatures? Our passivity makes us accomplices? I feel that Pedro carries on his back the guilt of all humanity for the atrocities inflicted on these creatures.
I am committed to the cause of the GAP, but mainly to the cause of Pedro, and invite everyone to get involved in this way.
Thank you! Pedro and Vania, by running this difficult path, but full of great truths.
Thank you! Guga, Emilio, Claudio, Samantha, Billy Jr., Noel, Carlos for having taught Pedro the way to go.
Thank you! Victor, Dolores, Carolina, Jango, Lucke, Leo, Pongo, Caco, Alex, Billy and others for illuminating Pedro to continue this fight and have helped him to break the species barrier.
Thank you! Sofia, Sara and Suzi. With their birth, we can envision a future of hope for chimpanzees.
And thanks for letting me share it!

See photos and the original text in Spanish here