How I Met Dian Fossey
Don’t you hate it when you hear something like, no that’s not possible at this time? That’s what we heard from Earthwatch about the Orangutan Project in Borneo. One door closed and I thought, well, I'm going to open up a window of opportunity. So, I wrote to Dian Fossey. A month later, I get a letter back from Dian inviting us to Karisoke. I was so happy; I've never been so happy in my entire life.
Our first face to face came with Dian Fossey in June of 1985 at a lecture for the Leakey Foundation in the L.A. area. Hearing her speak in public, she had the audience enthralled with all her stories about the gorillas. She did vocalizations and showed us fantastic slides, and it was a great lecture. She came off the podium and came and sat down with us.
It took us about a year to go there, and meanwhile, we were writing letters back and forth. She would tell us what was going on in camp with the gorillas. I am a survivor of CSA, childhood sexual abuse, and so was Dian Fossey. And it isn't unusual for us to have a burning desire to look for something bigger than ourselves, or to make a difference. And look at the difference Dian Fossey made. She saved an entire species. That's the story of how we met Dian Fossey.
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