The Girl With No Name: The Incredible True Story of a Child Raised by Monkeys by Marina Chapman, Lynne Barrett-Lee Page B

not sure if anyone saw me, but if they did, they didn’t make me aware of it. And perhaps I was oblivious to any attention anyway: I was completely focused on my mission to go inside. I had got it into my head that the pregnant woman who’d first led me here could be my route to being accepted by the camp.
    I stepped out from the scrubby undergrowth and planted my feet on the beaten sandy earth beyond the fence. I didn’t stand there for long, though. Open space was too frightening. Instead, I dashed to the nearest hut and peered cautiously inside it.
    The interior was dark but every bit as enticing. There were comfortable-looking beds made from grass and bamboo on the floor, as well as lots of mats, some plain and some patterned. The walls were hung prettily with bananas and other fruits – so many kinds of fruit, some of which I hadn’t seen growing in the jungle. Where had they come from? There were a couple of hammocks slung from a pole in the centre and all around were items that the people had made: baskets and jugs, things made from raffia and branches, and clay.
    The hut itself was empty, so I quickly turned my attention outside again. Just beyond it, and previously invisible to me, was a water butt. It looked like a giant version of the flask I’d drunk from. It was very wide at the bottom but quite narrow at the top and had a long neck – was this perhaps to keep bugs out? It was just wide enough at the lip to scoop water out of (for which they used some sort of half-shell), though this would have been difficult for a child if it was less than full.
    The water, I had worked out, didn’t come from the river – though I had no idea why, because it was fine for me to drink. Instead, it seemed to come to them in giant metal containers, which they would carry in pairs from some place I couldn’t see. They would put holes in the top and fix two cans together by means of a long pole, which they would use to balance two of them on their shoulders. This triggered a memory, as I had seen adults carrying water in this way at my home.
    Beside the water butt, and drinking from it, was a woman. And she was not just any woman, she was the woman who’d first drawn me here. My heart leapt at the sight of her. It was a sign, I felt sure, that I’d been right to approach. She was a mother and if she just looked in my eyes, then perhaps she’d love me the same way as she loved her baby.
    What an intense thing it is – this human need to be loved. It’s one of the most profound things that make social animals social. Just as the monkeys cared so much for one another, so I had learned that these human animals did too. And that was all I wanted: to be loved by them and cared for. And all it would take, or so I believed, was for a mother to see that need in my eyes.
    But she didn’t. As I stood there, not knowing quite when to reveal myself, she turned from the water butt and saw me. And her response was the opposite of what I’d expected. Yes, she looked into my eyes, but all I could see in hers was fear. She started skipping away immediately, keeping her eyes on me as she did so, as if I wasn’t like her but some disgusting, filthy creature, utterly repellent to her.
    Her fear didn’t seem to diminish as she backed away from me. If anything, the more she looked at me, the more afraid she became. She began stumbling over stray objects in her panic, and all the while she kept shouting at me, over and over. I didn’t know what she was saying, but it was clear that she wanted me to go away.
    Whatever it was, the drama of her delivery drew attention from other people, and as I tried to make myself as small and submissive as I could, a well-built man came running from one of the nearby huts, obviously keen to find out what was happening. He wore a fabric headband into which were stuck a pair of feathers. One was a bright gorgeous blue, the other a deep green, and as well as these he wore other brightly coloured jewellery