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For the first week, shortly after sunset,
we would meet in the main house for a dinner of local thai
food. We learned a great deal about local cooking and ingredients,
some dishes more appealing than others. Pharanee would sit
with us after dinner and the conversation would flow. We would
find ourselves lost in her world. The world of the gibbon
sanctuary and the history of her life with Bill. She was an
open book and all we had to do was to flip to a chapter that
intrigued us. The reality of her life is one of which books
are written and movies made.
Pharanee Chotiros, a native of Thailand,
was living in Los Angeles, California when she met her husband
William "Bill" Deters in 1973. They fell in love
and were married shortly thereafter. They lived and worked
in the US until they bought the 35 acre plot of land in this
remote area of Northern Thailand in 1990. They had hoped for
a peaceful retirement and intended on transforming the land
into a small farm. Over one of our nightly dinner conversations
Pharanee recalled, "We were just going to grow things,
have some turkeys, geese and other small animals."
When they moved to Thailand in 1991 their
quiet retirement took an unexpected turn when a poacher brought
a baby gibbon to their farm. The gibbon had an injured finger
from a fall from the tree where the poacher had shot and killed
its mother. The Deters were so sad for the little orphaned
gibbon that they took it in to their home, named it Chester
and nursed it back to health. They sought help from several
veterinarians and primate experts in how to care for the baby
gibbon. Word traveled rapidly in the local community and,
years later, the Deters found themselves being asked to care
for more and more orphaned and injured gibbons. The Highland
Farm Gibbon Sanctuary grew as gibbons came to the Deters from
government officials, monks, missionaries, and Thai citizens
from all over Thailand. "How could we turn away a gibbon
in need?" Pharanee laughed. So the Deters' peaceful retirement
farm turned into a busy retirement home for abandoned, injured
and mistreated gibbons.
Over the next 10 years, the Deters transformed
this once barren landscape, cleared of tropical rainforest
for agricultural use, back into a beautiful oasis of forest.
With trees donated by the Royal Forestry Department the land
has once again bloomed with flowers and twenty-one types of
fruits and nuts with thousands of trees. It truly is an oasis
of wildlife in the hills.
Bill and Pharanee quickly accepted their
role as gibbon care-providers and adapted their entire lives
to the irresistible singing apes. Then one day in 2002 Pharanee
traveled to Bangkok to handle some business affairs while
Bill remained at the Sanctuary to work on the countless unfinished
projects. A tragic twist of fate would change things at the
sanctuary forever. The gibbons, for whom tragedy had played
such a pivotal role in their lives, would once again have
their world turned upside down. And thing would never be the
same.
Normally the couple had hired Thai workers
to help with the many chores around the sanctuary, but illegal
Burmese workers would gladly work for a mere 70-80 baht per
day compared to the 250 baht per day for which a local Thai
could be hired. On a limited retirement budget, Bill and Pharanee
found the inexpensive labor to be quite a bargain. So they
hired several Burmese workers and one, in particular, who
had helped them work on the house had never forgotten the
fact that Bill had several guns hidden in the attic.
Several years later, on May 10, 2002 he
returned to steal the guns alledgedly to sell to drug runners
along the Thai-Burmese border. By all accounts, Bill had interrupted
the burglary and was fatally shot. Several other workers at
the house at the time apparently witnessed the event and were
shot and killed also, including an eight year old boy. When
one of the farm workers failed to return home that night a
family member was sent to the farm to inquire as to his whereabouts.
The bodies of the four workers were discovered but Bill's
body remained concealed. The distraught family member fled
to the police station and, not having discovered Bill's body,
reported to the police that Bill had gone crazy and had shot
all of his workers. The police arrived at the scene and located
Bill's body.
Pharanee received a phonecall at her friend's
house in Bangkok, "Do you know what's happened at the
farm?" She replied that she did not. She was told of
the events that had unfolded and attempted to make the long
trip alone in her car before being intercepted by a friend
who drove her to the police station in Mae Sot. The gibbons
had been unfed for 2 days before a family friend picked up
the task. After ruling out Pharanee's involvement she was
advised not to stay at the farm until a the killer had been
apprehended. It wasn't long before a suspect was identified
and confessed to the horrific crime. Today he remains in jail
with the death penalty hanging over his head.
Pharanee suffered many months of deep depression
and despondency over her beloved husband's death. "He
was so good to me!", she recalled with tears rolling
down her cheeks during one of our many dinner conversations.
Lisa and I sat in silence and just listened as it was obvious
to us that she needed to talk about it. Our eyes teared up
as she fought back the emotions and bowed her head and whispered,
"You probably think I am weak." We thought quite
the opposite.
In the face of so much adversity, Pharanee
had managed to move forward and care for the gibbons. A year
after her husbands death the Royal Forestry Department would
make a visit, intent of enforcing new laws, to inform her
that she was running an illegal operation. Gibbons are protected
species and recent laws required she have permission from
the government to operate the sanctuary. It would be a defining
moment for Pharanee. She sat up straight in her chair and
banged on the table as she explained to us how she told them,
only once, that the gibbons were all that she had now and
that if they [the Forestry Department] took them away from
her she would have no reason to go on living and she wouldn't
be quiet about it. They backed down and to this date Pharanee
continues to carry on with the work of running the sanctuary.
Reading of Bill's tragic death and being concerned that the
gibbons would suffer most in his absence we felt a strong
call to go and see if there was anything we could do to help.
After several conversations over meals we
quickly realized that we would be of most help by working
to help Pharanee communicate her needs to the outside world
and what better way to accomplish this than rebuiled her website.
I would write some of the content and Lisa would do most of
the work putting the site together. We spent an entire day
ssessing and trying to piece together computers that had been
donated by past visitors. Unfortunately they were very old
and even the computer store in Mae Sot with its limited supplies
did not have necessary pieces. So we focused on organizing
the content of the site and interviewed Pharanee for accurate
details to be included on her new site. We also offered to
pay for the domain registration and hosting for one year as
our gift to the sanctuary.
So we settled into a routine...more accurately
a routine had settled onto us. Arise to the first songs of
the gibbons sometime between 4:30 AM and 5:30 AM. Pretend
to sleep for another hour. Get dressed and go chop fruit and
place equal portions into 40 bowls. Deliver to gibbons. Chat
with and interact with gibbons as they eat. Around 9:00 AM
we were allowed to eat our own breakfast. Then we went to
work. Alternating days between computer work and website work
with physical work we spent nearly two weeks in the remote
hills of Northwest Thailand.
In the afternoons when the gibbons were
lethargic from the heat they seemed to be most responsive
to affection. I would visit my favorites in the late afternoon.
Holger, five year old black concolor gibbon with white cheeks
and clean jet black fur with crazy long arms would push his
fuzzy belly against the chain-link fence as I approached.
I would oblige and scratch his belly as he oooo'd and squeeked
softly. We had bonded early on and the other gibbons would
watch us intently. Holger was a four year old gibbon, not
yet overly aggressive but dangerous nonetheless with his inch
long canine teeth rapidly growing in. As soon as I would stop
scratching his belly he would turn his back and push it against
the fence hoping for more scratches. I would oblige and he
would suck his thumb and say, "OOOhh". I wanted
to hug him so bad.
Holger was born in captivity, on Jan 6,
1999 at Thai Samut Center at Park Chong, Nakon Ratchasima
in Thailand. We was born premature and immediately rejected
by his mother because he could not hang on to her fur. After
one week he was moved to WAR (Wild Animal Rescue) in Bangkok.
Then two weeks later, On January 24, he was placed at Highland
Farm where he has been hand reared. Holger is very active
and playful. In the beginning he was kept in the house, but
now he’s less dependent and stays in an enclosure. He
is one of the "lucky" ones as he has no physical
injuries. But because he can never learn the skills necessary
to live in the rainforest he will remain at the Highland Farm
Sanctuary for the rest of his life which could be 30-35 more
years.
I moved on to my girlfriend of the Pileated
species (Lisa was okay with this). Her name was Sally and
she was very affectionate. Not only would she solicit back
scratches but she would reach through the fencing with both
arms for hugs and to have her warm little ape hands held in
mine. It was quite intimate and we sort of fell in love.
But it was Kristy whom I had wished I could
smuggle home in my luggage. She was the most recent guest
to arrive at the sanctuary. Her matted fur was sticky with
dried fruit. She looked like a well loved teddy bear (with
really long arms). As I approached her enclosure she would
immediately swing to the side of the enclosure and push her
back against the fence to solicit back scrathes. I would scratch
her back and massage her hands and arms. Sometime we would
just hold hands and stare at each other.
Kristy, who came to the Sanctuary on Christmas
Day, 2003, was wearing a belt and tied to a post along side
the road when found by a police officer. The officer took
her thinking he could care for her. After a few weeks we brought
her to the Sanctuary. The belt she was wearing was too small
and cut into her tiny waist. When she arrived she had little
fur around her middle section because of the belt rubbing
against her skin. She still has scars on her abdomen because
of it. But after having the belt off for more than four months
her fur is growing back and the scars are barely visible.
She screams violently if anyone brings a belt near her cage.
Pharanee guessed that she is about 2 years old and she is
very affectionate. The day before we left we helped bathe
her and when I said goodbye her fur was so clean I wanted
to bury my nose in it and kiss her.
Pharanee made us feel so welcome and took
the time to explain in great length the stories of all the
gibbons. To see her playing so affectionately with the gibbons,
some of them hand raised by her since birth, was to witness
a rare relationship between human and ape. We began calling
her the Jane Goodall of Thailand, quite a fitting name for
this Florence Nightingale for the apes of Thailand.
The ride to the bus station was silent with
a heavy sadness for having to leave our new friends. A tear
or two might have been shed but I'm not saying who. We made
it a point not to say goodbye but only "until we see
you again". Once on the bus we had already begun to plan
our return at some point in the near future. We'll miss our
fuzzy little singing ape friends.
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