Jane Goodall Describes Waking Into a Dream

Speaking to an auditorium of Des Moines women, famed anthropologist Jane Goodall described what it was like to wake into – rather than from – a dream.

It happened when she was 23. After arriving in Africa under cover of darkness and sleeping in the wilds under the stars, she woke to find that everything she had imagined for herself since the age of 11 was coming true that very morning. That “everything” was indeed to live in Africa and to study the animals living there – chimps, in particular.

Throughout her talk, which was a part of the SmartTalk Series, Goodall named several of the people who were instrumental in the achievement of her dream. She called them “the feathers on my eagle.” Among them, her mother had what seems to have been the greatest impact.

In a soft-spoken (yet not small) voice, dignified with the most proper of British accents, Goodall recounted the ways her mother believed in and supported her dream – even when they came at a cost to her.

There was the time little Jane disappeared for four hours, scaring her mother to death. Jane had been stalking a hen, waiting patiently for it to lay an egg. There was the time little Jane brought worms to bed only to have her mother calmly explain they could not stay, as they needed the earth to live.

And then there was the time when the British government forbade Jane to travel to Africa without a companion. No funds were available for an escort. So who went with her? In Goodall’s words: “That same mother who supported this little girl right from the beginning.”

Goodall’s admiration for her mother seemed to find a way into her research, as well. She gave account Thursday night of the way there are good mother chimps and bad mother chimps, just as there are good and bad human mothers. She told heart-wrenching stories about “ancient” mother chimps who fought young, viral males twice their size to protect their children; others about mothers who sat by helplessly as their babies suffered unbearable pain.

You could feel her love for chimps, but also for the human race. She talked at length about the problems we have created for our home planet, but wrapped up her talk by listing the four things that give her hope: youth, the resilience of nature, the human brain and the human spirit. 

I couldn’t help but hope as I drove away that she is right to have such hope… because someday I’d like to join her in that optimism.