I’ve seen reflected in the eyes of primates, humans and non-humans, most of all political prisoners with whom I lived some steps of my life. It was not just the physical loneliness of not having someone to share and even love, it was the loneliness of abandonment, the future, the rancor of their surroundings.

Toto is one of them. When he arrived at the sanctuary weeks ago, we did not understand him. He sought isolation in the darkest corner of his bedroom, surrounded by blankets and nonwoven fabric (TNT).

Gradually he was loosening up, left outdoors and felt the presence of a group of his peers who watched him from the windows 50 meters away.

Every day he was closer to those windows, and he wished no more disappointment, as  the many ones he had in his life, when his partner died leaving him in greater  abandon,  surrounded  only by strangers humans who teased and laughed at him, of his behavior.

In the end, he approached the window. Gilberto, the alpha of the group, was not very friendly, and his son, Pedrinho, who is still a baby, only looked for games that he did not know. The females were more pleasant. Luiza, a beautiful young woman, showed herself for him, and Margaret, who is near 50, showed curiosity for the younger male, but without showing her move.

One day, those humans who treated him daily with commitment opened a door and Luiza appeared. At that moment they were really facing each other. He needed to seduce her to gain friendship, so she would stay. He used all his resources, sent her kisses, stayed close slowly, offered her food, showed her his toys. But Luiza, smart as she is, and born in the Sanctuary, calculated her opportunities and future if she decided to stay. She decided that her family and large enclosure were her best choice. She became aggressive, inconvenient, enduring all the harassments of Toto until the humans who controlled the doors sent her back to her origin.

Toto was inconsolable. He took refuge again in his loneliness and blankets. He looked from far the windows where Luiza no longer appeared and Pedrinho teased him.

But one day the door opened and he met a part of the enclosure of the family that was his neighbor. Margaret, aunt of the three babies of the family, Luiza, Pedrinho and Cecilia, who had helped mother Ditty to create them, was already a stranger in the nest. She could not follow anymore the radical play of the “kids”, who sometimes deltl with her with rigor.

She saw Toto, got down her platform, gave him a hug and went toward his room. He immediately followed her and there they were alone. Toto left her comfortable, did not want to scare her, but Margaret is an experienced chimpanzee, has lived with several males, had several children, among them Kate (who worked in soap opera “Caras e Bocas”) and Noel and Emilio, who live in the Sanctuary.

Toto is very primitive, he does not know how to open industrialized packing, never tasted different goodies, is afraid of everything. Margaret, on the contrary, is very civilized and began teach him the pleasures of human food. All he did was copying her.  She was his teacher. The family of Gilberto appeared in the window and could not accept that she had already adapted to life with one newcomer.

Something that fascinated Toto was the missing teeth of Margaret and how she could with her ​​gums process the fruits and vegetables. He sat long periods opposite her, to watch her feeding. Toto did not know what a circus was; he lived alone in a dark house, and in human zoos. “Marga”, Margareth’s nickname, is a survivor of a circus and later of a Zoo, which robbed her all the children she gave birth, to sell them in the black market. Watch the video here (in portuguese).

Toto wanted to touch her, to caress, perhaps the classic “grooming”, which he had forgotten, and Margaret left him over and enjoys his intimacy.

The look of Toto is no longer the same, the desperation of loneliness was gone, and the joy of the company and the future shines on his face.

How many “Totos”, desperate, depressed, abandoned to their r terrible fate of prisoners, without having committed any crime, are there in zoos in the world and would like to have a drop of hope in the company of their peers?

It is in our hands to give them a glimmer of hope that someday the desperation will be eradicated from their deep and lost staring.

Dr. Pedro A. Ynterian

President, GAP Project International

Images of chimpanzee Toto with Luiza and Margaret in the Sanctuary of the Great Apes of Sorocaba