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email Vanessa at v.woodsduke.edu


31 January 2008

I'm alive, and still here, but not much time to post, unfortunately. I've just started as a research scientist at Duke Univeristy, and am deep into my next two books. Some fun news is that It’s Every Monkey For Themselves is being translated into Hebrew! I guess they liked Rachel, the adorable lesbian jew? Will let you all know when the bonobo blog starts again in June 2008! Feel free to write to me - v.woodsduke.edu


10 September 2007

Hey, from 11 September 2007, my blog will be at bonobohandshake.blogspot.com for my 2007 Congo trip at Lola ya Bonobo Sanctuary. I'll be sending daily updates from the field so make sure you check it out!






4th July 2007

You know you really love someone when you’re sitting by their hospital bed, they have a IV drip in one arm and a pulse monitor on the other, their face is white and their lips are blue and you’ve just flown 19 hours and haven’t slept in 36 and all you can think about is please god please don’t let him die when you’ve been an atheist for 20 years.

I’m not even going to talk about Colorado. I put up some pics. Dude ranch was spectacular, I saw a baby moose. In laws are much more fun when surrounded by 5000 acres of pristine Rocky Mountain ranges and endless outdoor activities.

The real fun started on the plane on the way to Australia. Brian had a headache. Didn’t think anything of it. Thought it was altitude. Then he said he felt sick in the stomach. Thought it was the god awful plane food on United. Worst airline I have ever flown ps. 14 hours and no personal TV? We are Y generation, people.

Then, 3 hours after we land, Brian starts shivering. Uncontrollably. So hard he can’t walk to the bathroom. His speech is slurred. So far, classic text book cereberal malaria. Species name, falciparum, the kind that kills you in four days. Three people we know of in the last 12 months have left Africa, gone home, four months later got sick, thought they had the flu and a week later they were dead. We were in Uganda 2 weeks ago in high falciparum area. Perfect incubation time.

Mum and I put Brian in the car wrapped in a blanket and drive to Woden hospital. It’s Saturday and the Emergency ward is completely full.

‘It’s going to be a long wait, love,’ says the nurse.

I look her dead in the eye and speak very quietly.

‘I think my husband has cereberal malaria. It kills you in four days. I think he’s had it for two.’

Right about this time, Brian goes into the hot flush stage. He strips down to his t shirt and is collapsed on the seat sweating. It’s about 9oC outside.

Just under 20 minutes later, Brian bypasses the 6 hour queue, the broken noses and collar bones, the little girl who had a near fatal asthma attack who’d been waiting for 4 hours, and all the other crises who apparently don’t rate with brain eating malaria.

Normally, when you walk around outside, it’s full of healthy people who all believe nothing really bad will happen to them. In Emergency, everyone has had that bad thing happen. They’re all there, hooked up to tubes and respirators, some of them barely alive, and it scares you when someone you love is just another body in a bed, like everyone else who just got hit by the proverbial bus.

The intern’s jaw drops when I tell her what we think is wrong. ‘I’ve never really treated anyone for that.’ Uh, no shit, Sherlock. So she butchers his arm drawing the blood and they send it up to Infectious Diseases, a special unit of the hospital that deals with the weird little nasties people bring in from their travels.

Brian drops in and out of consciousness. Which could be the coma faze. Which is followed by death. Cerebral malaria hits hardest the first time you have it. Average time to live in Ghana when you first get it is 2.8 days. So I pat his forehead and tell him please stay awake, baby, you have to stay awake and tell me what’s going on.

In the meantime I read the book I’ve brought on malaria cover to cover then re read it, tring to find some clue as to where he is with the symptoms and whether Australia is going to have the right drugs to treat it.

Two hours later. Then four. Then six. I’m jetlagged as hell and doze off in the plastic chair by the hospital bed, which as anyone who’s sat in those things can tell you, meant I was really bloody tired. I hold his hand and for the first time in my life I know what it’s like to know someone you love could die. Right here and now in my arms he could die in this hospital and I just refuse to let myself think about what I will do when he’s gone.

They’re running every test known to humanity. Spinal meningitis. Hepatitis. Yellow fever. Dengue. Eight hours later and the intern finds me passed out on the sofa in the family room. She brings me to the doctor who looks grim. He has the test results in his hands.

‘He doesn’t have cerebral malaria.’

What then? I nearly scream. The doctor looks visibly upset. It’s HIV. It’s some kind of flesh eating bacteria.

‘He has the flu.’

‘What?’

‘Your husband has the flu.’

I put my hand over my mouth to stop myself from laughing. The doctor is totally pissed.

‘Are you sure? You know the falciparum might not show up in the blood smears because he’s been on prophalaxis. And if it’s the early stages, the count might be too low…’

‘We didn’t just do smears. We tested for antibodies. Your husband has the flu.’ The doctor turns to the intern and she’s also looking like I’ve cheated her out of a lifetime experience. ‘I want him discharged immediately.’ In the tone of voice that says ‘I’ve got real emergencies to see to.’

And in the middle of the night, I hit my flu infected husband and whisper screech like a harpie you fucking asshole you stole 2 days of my sleep I hate you and I never want to see you again you goddam hyperchondriac I was so scared and now I swear to god I’ll divorce you… and so on and so forth until I sleep the happiest sleep of my life and wake up one of those people bad things don’t happen to.



16 June 2007

In Uganda. Just in time too. Have been working on my next book, or trying to. Everyone said the second book would be easier, and like an idiot I believed them. Writing it is like pulling teeth. I’m so worried Every Monkey was a fluke and really, I’m not that good a writer and all the critics are just waiting to slam my next one. But the good thing is, I’m writing about the time I did that chimp census in Uganda back in ‘99, and it’s great to be back in the forest again. Now I remember what it smells like, how the wet leaves slap against your pants until you’re soaking wet and grumpy.

Elizabeth Wrangham took us to one of her schools yesterday. She runs the Kasiisi Project which helps rural school kids around Kibale National Park, which is prime chimpanzee habitat. They’ve just built some new buildings and sent some teachers to Boston on exchange. But one of their biggest problems is the girls drop out of school when they start to get their periods. They can’t afford pads or underwear, and all us girls know what it’s like to have an accident. If they hadn’t invented tampons, I would have dropped out of school too. Kasiisi Project is raising money right now to help buy pads and undies so the girls can stay in school. Check it out if you can, www.kasiisiproject.org





13 June 2007

The night before my 30th birthday, I had my head over a toilet bowl. It wasn’t the way I planned it, believe me. In fact, I’d made a conscious effort to be sophisticated, right down to my black cocktail dress and red shoes from Paris. Turning 30 didn’t have to mean death. It was the age where you felt you could justifiably spend a week’s salary on a pair of shoes. And spend enough to feed a small village on a resort in a third world country.

But the amount of vodka in the lime daiquiri just about killed me. So there I was, in the most exclusive resort in Zanzibar, crouched over the toilet puking up my sautéed cocktail shrimps and crayfish into the lemon scented toilet.

I’d already had a moment of panic earlier where I looked around the buffet breakfast dining room and saw it was full of clones. There were seriously 30 corporate couples on honeymoon.

‘Are we like these people?’ I whispered to Brian. He looked around.

‘Yup.’

Right on cue some abomination from Florida started saying loudly,

‘God, wasn’t Nairobi airport a nightmare? And the plane had no air, it just stunk, didn’t it?’

The Tanzanian waiters and waitresses were looking at their feet, pretending she wasn’t talking about them.

‘Hey,’ I wanted to say. ‘Did you know Africans think you smell like off milk? Do you know your body sweat, even under all that perfume, makes them want to gag?’

She kept going. ‘And have you seen that adorable quote they put up in the bathroom? The one about life being a rollercoaster and you should get to the end all worn out and beat up crying ‘woohoo! What a ride’? I love that quote. I want to see if they have it in the gift shop.’

We all knew the quote. It’sthe mantra of 30 somethings these days. It’s ok to bust up everything as long as you had a good time. And with my head over that toilet bowl, looking at the cocktail shrimp gone yellow with bile, I had to ask, Was I any better?







31 May 2007

Zorba of Zorba’s tavern let out a great big fart in the middle of his restaurant. Brian looks at me as though it’s my fault we’re here, even though it’s really his fault because he can’t make a decision if his life depends on it. So when I say ‘what do you want for dinner?’ and he says, ‘Anything, but I don’t want pizza’ then I see Zorba’s tavern with it’s cute little dingy exterior, I think, ‘what the hell, let’s go in there.’

I’m thinking that it might be one of those local places hidden away from tourists, one of those little gems where all the locals eat. Delphi is a city in the clouds. Thousands of years ago, the Greeks etched a city into the mountain. From where we stand we can see the sea of olives – an olive grove with 400,000 trees that date all the way back to Apollo’s priests – all the way down to the sea.

We walk into Zorba’s and there’s no one. No locals, no tourists, no one except this deaf French guy slurping his soup.

Before we can back out, Zorba himself is guiding us to our table.

‘Where you from?’ he bellows.

‘Er,’ says Brian. ‘I’m American and she’s Australian.’

‘Beautiful,’ cries Zorba. ‘You American, she Australian – then you make love! Where your father from?

‘Actually he’s half Greek,’ says Brian. Not now, I say silently. This is not the time. ‘Yeah,’ Brian continues, ‘My grandmother is from Trikala.’

‘Hillbillies,’ says Zorba. ‘Never mind. Your grandfather and your grandmother, they make love. Then your parents make love. Then we have you.’

‘Can we have a pizza?’ I blurt out. Brian gives me a death stare.

‘Sure, pizza, takes 15 minutes.’

We sit down at our table covered in black grime. That’s when the first fart comes. It is so loud, I think our table cloth moved. Our pizza arrives. It’s a McCains microwave pizza. Zorba wasn’t doing bad business. Buy frozen pizza for 3 Euro then sell it for 7 to dumb tourists who think they’re getting the local experience. Zorba talks a bit more about lovemaking, his friend the mayor, and the Sydney Opera house.

‘Do you have any desert?’ asks the deaf French guy. As Zorba takes his plate, he throws a piece of unfinished bread back in the bread basket.

That’s when the second fart comes. Brian and I eat our frozen pizza then walk back to the hotel, praying we don’t get food poisoning. The rest of Greece was great. Gigantic, meaty olives, the creamiest fetta, sticky baklava. Mmmmm…

Mykonos was especially pretty except it was overrun with Eurotrash. Apparently the Greek kids all got 5 days off school while we were there so the place was crawling with screaming adolescents.

Delos was my favourite, the island had a giant penis that was supposed to be some kind of protection talisman – and people put plaques of winged penises outside their doors. Crazy Greeks.

15 May 2007

Saw Svante Paabo last night and offered him 100 bucks to give my book to Oprah. For those of you that don’t know, Svante is in the middle of decoding the Neanderthal genome. He’s one of the Time 100 (100 Most Important People). Not Most Important Scientists, but people. Right up there with Queen Elizabeth, Osama Bin Laden, and of course, Oprah.

Svante said he had already been to the party but next year he’d do it. Awesome. Except he wasn’t sure what she looked like. Seriously. Who doesn’t know what Oprah looks like??

Then he said he would only do it if I wrote a flattering paragraph about him in my next book. I was like ‘Svante, if you give my book to Oprah I will write a whole novel about how you are the greatest genius that ever walked the planet.’

It was cute. But some people haven’t responded the same way. In fact, people have become terrified to talk to me, in case they end up in my next book. If they do talk to me, they are self conscious, guarded and often nervously giggle ‘this isn’t going to end up in your next book is it?’ Which is a bit hard since I am also a journalist and do interviews for a living.

13 May 2007

Milo died. It’s been awful. Brian and I could barely come home. We took him in for a routine check because his stomach was swollen and he was peeing all through the night, and then they told us he had a tumour the size of a basketball and they had to operate. He didn’t make it out of surgery.

He was such a funny stepchild. When I first moved in with Brian, he hid under the kitchen table for 2 weeks. Then he finally got used to me. I was so lonely when I first started living in Germany, I didn’t know anyone and Milo stood by me while the stupid Germans were yelling at me for things I didn’t understand. Like the lady at the corner store who screamed at me for weighing only one paprika instead of two. In Germany you have to weigh your own vegetables and put the sticker on it yourself. Seriously, what check out chick knows the approximate weight and cumulative price of two paprikas? ‘Why are you stealing our paprikas?’ she yelled. Milo was there through all of it, panting faithfully. He knew I didn’t do it.

Then he was so cute about his pooping. Most dogs just poop wherever, but Milo had to find the exact right place. He could be combusting from the pressure in his rectum, but it still took 30 mins to find the bush with the right smells and the little twigs that tickled his butt while he pooped.

Brian and I are totally shocked about how sad we are. I keep hearing the clicking of his toenails on the floor and a thousand times a day I turn around to give him some food or pet him on the head. I know he was just a dog. But I’m more upset about Milo than I was about my grandmother dying. I bought him some flowers yesterday. Poppies. I missed him so much, I burst out crying in the middle of the markets.

9 May 2007

Going to Greece next week for a ‘conference’ which everybody knows is just an excuse for a holiday. One thing I admire about academics is they have conferences in beautiful holiday places to make sure everyone turns up for their boring talks. I want to go into that cave in Delphi and see if I can get high off the fumes and hallucinate like the Oracle. That is how she saw the future apparently. By getting high off underground fumes.

7 May 2007

Back in Germania. I don’t know how people are famous. That was 2 months of media and I’m totally wiped. The bits I liked were all the nice, non freaky people emailing me. I feel like I met lots of people in MySpace. Brian looked at my Myspace and he was like, holy shit, all your Friends are totally hot chicks. It’s true. There are almost no boys except my brother and my gay best friend Brad. The bits I didn’t like were running to interviews in high heels for 8 hours a day and everyone telling me they heard me say ‘clitorus’ and ‘vagina’ on such and such program.

Lots of people wanted to know about Sirius. Actually, mostly that’s what people asked me. Not how are the monkeys or are you glad you got out alive, but what happened to that dog? She is fine. She is living in Pheonix, Arizona. I still miss her. But that’s what you get for trying to import a flea bitten tick infested Costa Rican mutt into Australia.

Anyway in Germany it is raining. Unbelievable. It rained all through winter and now it looks like it will rain all through spring and summer. It’s amazing the whole place isn’t like Aceh after the tsunami.

28 May 2007

Did my very last interview today – Robyn Williams on ABC. I suggested that dropping a giant bag of ecstasy on the Middle East would make them all bonobo like and greatly help the peace process. Except Come Down Tuesday would be a real bitch. Wait till my mum hears that one. No mum, I never did drugs. Seriously.

12 April 2007

The Australian article came out. I had all these weirdos emailing me. One of them said he had sex with an orang–utan. Another one said we should have sex with chimpanzees and move into space. That is the last time I let myself look naked in a national newspaper.

8 March 2007

Back on the ABC. The interviewer said if I lied in my book, how did everyone know my whole book wasn’t a lie? It was the first sort of mean question anyone had asked me. I thought for a bit and then was like ‘honey, I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried’

29 February 2007

Was on Kerri–Anne morning show. They have the best greenroom. Full of cakes and muffins and fruit salad. I was too nervous to eat, but my sister had a riot with the Irish band who came on after me. They were all in love with her after ½ hr. I said sex 50 times. Forgot it was a morning show. Kerri–Anne was really nice about it, but the cameramen were all cracking up. I think I have tourettes. Will try and get through the rest of the week without saying anything offensive.

28 February 2007

Said ‘vagina’ on Life Matters

27 February 2007

Had photoshoot with the Australian today at Taronga Zoo. Wrong outfit choice. For a start, Taronga didn’t know we were coming so the monkeys were not available. Instead the photographer decided I should be the monkey and made me climb up a tree. In the red high heels I bought in Paris. His arrangement of my hair, my arms and my red halter neck top made me look naked. I bet when the article comes out I will have all these weirdos emailing me.

26 February 2007

Had my very first book interview today. It was ABC Northern Territory, so I was telling myself to be conservative. Of course then I was so nervous about being conservative for the Northern Territory when my book is all about sex, so of course the first thing that came out of my mouth was ‘blah blah blah clitorus’. The silence over the other end of the phone was deafening. I could have stabbed myself. ‘Oh,’ I said, managing not so say ‘fuckfuckfuck’ ‘Am I allowed to say clitoris on your show?’ ‘Well,’ said the interviewer, ‘we’re live so you just did.’ Good one, dickhead.