Rambling Naturalist Wil Reding shares stories at PI District Library

There stood Wil Reding, dressed in safari clothing, and sporting a long shaggy gray beard, playing a plastic made-from-plumbing-PVC pipe flute. The lilting melody of notes floated across the Constance Jordan Room at the RC Library, before Reding began his slide presentation into the Goombe Stream Natural Park, the land Jane Goodall created for her beloved chimpanzees. The ?Rent a Rambling Naturalist? was staying with his former college student Mike and Ann Kosiara of Rogers City. Reding gave a presentation earlier in the day in Mike?s RCHS class and was raring to go again Friday night to the audience that ventured out into the freezing temperatures to gain a bit of insight and tour parts of Africa with Reding.

REDING BEGAN his journey at the Kalamazoo Nature Center where his wife still works, and where Jane Goodall came for visit one time. She was enthralled about the ?Hands-On? room and wanted to start one in Tanzania, which was where Reding, his wife and a friend went for an eventual visit. ?We arrived in a small plane in Nairobi?guys had AKAs on their shoulders and there was only one road, in very bad condition,? Reding said. The airfield was dirt and nobody spoke any English; Reding and his party did not speak Swahili. They found themselves being interrogated by a general who wanted to know why they were there.

Reding praised the obstacles Goodall overcame to become the international spokesman for her cause. ?She couldn?t afford college, but she did get secretarial training and did waitress jobs to earn a two-way ticket to Kenya,? Reding said. ?She loves chimps and wants them to remain alive, so she has to save the people to save the chimps, as well as the land itself.? Reding described the slow easy-going pace, and wonderment expressed by those living there, at the developments we take for granted. Their guide was Joffat, a young man who spoke English and who was excited about helping his own country and land to have clean water and grow food.

?HE WAS like a kid in a candy store,? Reding said. ?Everything was new and exciting to him.? The people wore flip-flops for shoes, grew peanuts and corn, and got their oil from nuts. A meal took four and a half hours to prepare because everything has to be obtained from natural means. ?They are learning what kinds of trees to replant and for what purposes using an organic process,? Reding said. ?Goodall is trying to offer birth control to stem a tradition of having six kids, not being able to afford them, leaving the wife with the kids then starting over with a new wife and six more kids.?

THE CHIMPS need saving from people who like to catch them and eat them. ?In Tanzania, all the land is owned by the government,? Reding said. ?You can rent it for 100 years at a time, but you can never own it.? Reding found all the students there to be well behaved, but had only one

book to share for the entire class. ?It?s hard to give them money as it?s always intercepted,? Reding said. ?We found the people swept their area each night so they could tell if a black mambo snake had slithered in the dirt leaving a telltale track.? There are no doors or windows, so the threat is a very real fact of existence.

Reding finally reached the area in Tanzania of the chimps and baboons where Goodall?s center is located. The group was fascinated by their behavior and enchanted with all they saw and learned. Reding promises he will return to Africa some day for another visit and an attempt to help out.

The next TAALES presentation will be Jerry Dennis, Thursday, February 12 at 7 p.m. Dennis will present ?The Living Great Lakes.?