‘Once-a-baboon’ boy calls for human help!
MARY GWERA
Daily News; Wednesday,November 19, 2008 @21:15



A foster mother of eleven-year-old Baraka Bahati is desperately looking for money to keep her and the child going: the boy was first abandoned in a forest in Ushirombo, Bukombe district of Shinyanga region for six years – where she was brought up by a baboon.

Narrating the episode to reporters in Dar es Salaam yesterday, the foster mother, Rose Mbwambo, said the boy who is now learning how to speak was rescued from the hands of a baboon in 2005. “When I was in Bukombe district recently (October 31, this year) in my business occasion, I happened to meet this boy at a guest house where I was staying.

“The guest attendants then told me that the boy had neither parents nor a place to live …as a mother, I felt bad seeing a child like this roaming around, so I decided to ask for the district authorities for permission to adopt him,†Ms Mbwambo said. She said that the district authorities then granted her request vide an official letter, Ref. No. C.20/B/2Vol.1/30 which permitted her to take the boy, and that she subsequently took Baraka, who is still under her care.

According to Ms Mbwambo, she was informed that before the year 2005 the boy who was abandoned in a forest was under the care of a baboon - that also used to breastfeed him before game wardens rescued the boy and took him to the Bushirombo hospital. “I was told that in 2005, the game reserve wardens at the Ushirombo forest reserve were compelled to shoot the baboon … because it did not want to release the boy despite all efforts on the part of the wardens to disengage the boy from the baboon had failed,†she explained.

Ms Mbwambo said that the boy had already adapted almost all the baboon’s way of life such as walking, expressing grief (weeping) and other forms of communication. “When I arrived in Dar es Salaam I took the boy to Amana Hospital for medical examination … where doctors said the boy was physically well - except that he had contracted some skin infection,†she said.

Ms Mbwambo believed that Baraka was intelligent enough to easily and quickly learn the new ways of living … he could even speak some Swahili and that he was somewhat fluent in Kisukuma language, and so appealed for support to help the boy in his studies. “I’m quite willing to live with the boy … but I also have my own kids .. so I’m calling upon anyone willing to to assist the boy in his studies … I cannot do it alone because I’m not financially able to support this boy in his studies,†she stressed.

Baraka Bahati who is now learning to speak Kiswahili said – with some difficulty - that he was eager to join other children to study like them. However, Baraka said he was still attached to his forest lifestyle – such as eating fruits, climbing on trees as baboons do – and that he often got tempted into taking off to the forests in the company of baboons. Baraka was abandoned in a forest some six years ago, where he was raised by a baboon surrogate mother, who fed and cared for him up to the time the forest rangers ‘rescued’ him in 2005.