Low Tech Communication Aids

 

The latest development on my YouTube channel is Memberships. In order to support my research, you can join the channel as a Donor, a Patron or a Benefactor. Here is a link:

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Among the perks available to members are previews of videos about Bow's writing, literacy and other intellectual pursuits at a time when these are not yet available to the general public. Since revenue from viral videos comes primarily from people who are not subscribed to my channel and could not care less about ape language research, this seems like a fair allocation of our resources. The general public gets to view grooming videos right away, but more recent advances in ape language studies are shared first and foremost with our Donors, Patrons and Benefactors.

Since the inception of  Project Bow, I have found that low tech methods work better and are more cost effective when working with a strong but intellectual chimpanzee such as Bow. A talking machine was quickly replaced by laminated menus, self-flushing toilet by a plastic potty chair and a touch screen computer by an old fashioned notebook and pen.

The problem that the touch screen computer was meant to solve was Bow's reliance on caretakers' hands to point at letters on the glass. This is a problem of proof, not of communication. It looks to outsiders as if Bow is being manipulated by his interlocutors to point at the letters.  But it certainly does not look to us that way, and it does not explain why Bow can tell us things we did not know and share information available only to him. So it was suggested that the intercession of a non-manipulable computer could solve this PR problem for us.

In order to motivate Bow to use a computer to communicate, certain ape language researchers suggested pairing the touch screen computer with a food dispenser, so that Bow would essentially be typing for a food reward. "Machines can't be manipulated, so he would have to say what the machine wanted him to say," I was told.

I don't want Bow to  have to say anything. I want him to be able to say what he wants to say.  Here is an example of something ordinary, but totally unexpected, that Bow recently said to his caretaker while I was away: "Go sit outside." She was confused, "You want me to sit outside? How do you mean, like on the porch?" He answered: "Yes."

There is nothing extraordinary about this exchange, but it could not have happened with a touch screen computer tied to a food dispenser. Bow could not tell the dispenser anything. He would be totally subject to its mechanical limitations.

Recently, Bow and I watched a video of an Israeli young man who lost his voice while serving in the army. Bow identified with the voiceless man. He watched as the young man talked to a reporter by writing in an ordinary old fashioned notebook by putting pen to paper. "You could do that, too," I told Bow. "You could talk to people by writing in a notebook."

Bow was moved to try. His attempt looks like letters, though hard to tell what he wanted to say.  You can contrast his attempt to write letters  with his drawing on  this other page in the same notebook, in which a  month earlier he had tried to draw a face. (The face Bow drew is only in black ink. The other bigger face in blue was one I tried to draw.)

If you want to see the videos of Bow writing and drawing, you can join as a member of my channel. Eventually, these videos will all be released to the public, but you will see them in advance, and you can know that you helped finance my research.

Thank you!

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The Things We Know and Take for Granted

I have seen a lot of deer on my property over the years. I have also seen deer making wild dashes into the road while I was driving through the countryside, as if no one had taught them how to cross the street when they were little. But city deer are different from country deer. They don't make a mad dash in the blind faith that they will be able to get across. City deer cross deliberately without haste, giving the cars a chance to slow down and avoid hitting them. City deer are sophisticated.

The video embedded above is of a deer I saw in Bloomington while visiting my mother. At no time did it run away. Its movements were slow and deliberate, and it eventually crossed the road safely, continuing on its path. This deer knows what to do, because it lives among humans. It has been assimilated into our society, at least a little bit -- enough to know how to cross the street.

We are all so steeped in the culture we live in, we sometimes take for granted most of what we know about how things work. For instance, when you open a book, which side do you look at first? It might depend on the language.

The bilingual version of In Case There's a Fox opens on both sides. It depends on which language you are reading it in,

Bow knows which way to go, depending on the language. In the video below, at about 38 seconds in, he is pointing at the Hebrew word for fox at the exact point when I read that word from that page. But notice which direction he arrives from when he gets to the word. He moves from the right to the left.

https://youtu.be/Rpwt9s8vwZU?t=34s

There are a lot of little things that show us what Bow knows. But we have to stop taking for granted that everybody should know these things, in order to observe the evidence. Bow is an enculturated chimpanzee. He behaves quite differently from a wild chimpanzee. But he is also bilingual, and he is literate, and he knows the conventions of each language he reads. He knows how to approach a Hebrew book, and he knows how to approach an English book, and his way of reading changes, depending on which language the story is written in.

Someday there will be a formal way to quantify this. But for right now, think about how differently a city deer behaves from a country deer. If all deer were exactly the same with hard wired routines common to their species, why would the difference in their behavior around roads be so obvious?

Bow and the Missouri Conservationist

Bow loves leafing through magazines. Usually, he does not seem to be reading them intently, but he likes to look at the pictures. For instance, just last week he got a new issue of Harper's Bazaar and enjoyed looking at all the new fashion choices.

But last Wednesday a friend of his, who comes by and brings him bananas every week, brought him a few issues of the Missouri Conservationist, and that is a completely different kind of magazine.

Bow can be very boisterous and exuberant, and sometimes when is in the midst of a dominance display, this can seem very uncivilized to humans who observe him. But Bow also has his quiet, focused moments. He took a lot of time with these magazines, and he was very gentle with them. He would pause for moments at a time, looking at a page and thinking about it.

Some of the headings of these articles use letters in  large typeface, and they feature very familiar-looking words.

What do you suppose Bow was thinking to himself when he came across this heading: BOW FISHING ? Did he think it was about him? He stared at the man in the picture for a long time.

Or how about this easy-to-read caption: BIRDS ARE AWESOME.

I don't use words like "awesome" very much, but Bow is familiar with them, because the interns who volunteered with Bow used to pepper their speech with that word. "It's awesome that he used his words with a stranger!" Sara can be overheard saying to Allie in one of our earlier Project Bow DVDs. So Bow is familiar with these words, and this may be writing at just the right level of simplicity to capture his attention on the page.

Bow can read, but that does not mean that he will sit down and read a book cover to cover or even a page in a magazine in proper sequence. On the other hand, he recognizes words and phrases very easily. The Missouri Conservationist is full of beautiful images of many plants and animals. Bow took it all in, but he paused the longest on the images of human beings accompanied by familiar words.

The picture above, of boys and girls shooting at targets using bows and arrows, had him pause for much longer than any other image. He likes people. He likes children. And he likes  the word "bow"!

What the Day Brings

Yesterday was a warm day. Bow spent much of it outside.

I noticed in the morning that the white hyacinth in the front yard had opened its flowers for the first time this year.

The flowers in the morning

At least, I think it's a hyacinth, despite the fact that it does not have that canonical tower of flowers, all the same, and emanating form a single shaft. I suspect that my hyacinth is neglected, and that is why there is such a poor showing. But still, I thought it was beautiful!

I am not a gardener, and I don't make the flowers grow. I take no credit for this hyacinth's success, but it does cheer me up to see it bloom. In the afternoon, I checked on the forsythia bush, and I saw that insects were taking advantage of its blooms.

Some people do garden, and it is their life's work, and the success of their plants represents their own effort and their own success in life. I honor the true farmer and the true garden keeper, but that is not who I am.  My work is different. Watching the flowers bloom is entertainment for me, respite from my daily work.

 A friend asked me why I don't plant things right on the outskirts of the outer pen, so Bow could see me work in my garden. My work is Bow. I can turn my back on him for a moment, but not long enough to concentrate on a task. Indoors, I can get to him right away if he needs me and I am on the computer. But I cannot go back in the pen from the outside with ease. I would have to go back into the house and go all the way around. So that's one reason I don't garden. But it's not the main reason. It's just not what I do. It's not my contribution to life. It's not my gift.

My task is to prove that Bow can spell. My job is to explore the way language works to transmit information, even when speakers are not aware of it, to tease apart social skills from language skills, to show that while language changes in the particulars, over the long run it does not change as much as you would suppose, because the changes are circular.  My mission is to explain things that people do not see with ease, like the pernicious nature of the Neutrality Act and why it matters very much how we look at historical figures like Aaron Burr and Jean Laffite, and to allow others to see that women's suffrage existed in America long before 1920, and that the problems that we have today do not stem from giving women the vote, but from the fact that we allow people who are in debt to vote away the rights of the people who are owed money. My task is to get the Debt Collector produced.

This morning I had this exchange on Facebook with a complete stranger.

• Stranger: You notice how things have gone downhill since women got to vote?

  
  
• 

  Aya Katz Things have gone downhill since property ownership, not being in debt, and being worth fifty pounds stopped being required in order to vote. In 1776 single women in New Jersey had the vote, and it was good.
• 
  

  Stranger: You may be right there.

Does it matter? Will it stick? Maybe, maybe not, but I think it is worth trying. Will it matter thirty years from now? I've been thinking about that ever since I read this post by  a friend

http://photographytoday.sweetbeariesart.com/will-this-matter-thirty-years-from-now/

The issues I am striving to clarify will matter thirty years from now. But if I am not successful in making people listen, it's true that maybe my efforts will have been in vain.

Thirty years from now, the Neutrality Act, if not repealed, will still matter. The rights of creditors will still matter, whether they are upheld or denied. Language and how it works will still matter, and the cognition of chimpanzees will still be important. But will anybody care that yesterday the hyacinth bloomed in my garden?

The flowers had opened up quite a bit by yesterday evening

No. But it keeps me sane to be able to go outside and look at the flowers. To me they are not the main event, but just something that helps remind me that the show must go on regardless. They are like the unimportant gossip about what each day brings that keeps us interested in life, between major plot points.

By evening, when I looked at the hyacinth blossoms, they had opened up quite a bit and their pollen was spilling out.

Just before sunset, with the doves cooing in the trees above us, I knelt and examined each petal. Thirty years from now, none of this will matter. But sometimes we have to feed the soul so it can live to fight another day.

Sharing the Fat

Lawrence called in this morning to say his wife is sick, and he can't come today. This is just as well, except that we've run out of bananas and are about to run out of apples. (I usually do my major grocery shopping on Mondays, when Lawrence comes in.) It's not a big deal, my pantry is well-stocked,  and we won't starve. Tonight, after Bow is in bed, Sword and I will go to Wal*Mart and get more fruit. Meanwhile, I served Bow a bowl of pork and beans along with his apple. I figured it would keep him full till dinner time, and he won't mind. He actually likes pork and beans, and he made happy, excited noises when he saw he was getting that.

When I came in to pick up the empty bowl, I noticed there were two little cubes of pork fat still in the spoon. The bowl was very, very empty, all except for the fat in the spoon. I wondered whether he had decided he was too full or whether he thought the fat wasn't for eating. But as I approached, Bow sat back down by the bowl and picked up the spoon. I thought he was going to finish eating, but instead he held up the spoon toward me. "You want me to eat that?" He indicated "yes" by motioning with the spoon toward my mouth.

"Okay." So I ate the fat. I had been worried there were too many carbs in my lunch, anyway, so this will probably increase my fat to carb ratio for the better. Funny, though, the ideas he gets about what he will or will not eat. He eats cardboard, you know, if I leave him alone with it!

Christmas Experiences and Outlook for the New Year

The end of the year is a time to look back. Project Bow has many supporters, some very vocal and others more hidden. We received cards and donations and good wishes and even reviews. I'm very grateful for all of that!

You probably are curious to know what Bow got for Christmas. From Lawrence, he got in one gift-wrapped package a pair of shoes about his size, a little toy tractor that makes sounds when you push the right buttons, a green hulk like little humanoid figurine with huge muscles that has arm action, and a green octopus like plastic mold. From me he got two new blankets, not for sleeping with, but to have during the day, as long as he is good. One is brown, and the other has an orange reddish brown pattern. (He calls the second blanket "the pretty one".) From his uncle, he got a fruit basket, full of apples, oranges and pears.

Bow enjoyed all his gifts, but sometimes being too happy makes him act up. So he got in trouble several times over the holiday. Sometimes he is very sarcastic when he answers my accusations. "Did you drip on purpose?" I ask.

"Yes."

"So this was your plan? You planned this?"

"Yes."

"It was your intention to get in trouble and ruin everything?"

"Yes."

Believe me, I'm not making him say "Yes." I would rather he said "no" and "I'm sorry", but he looks at me totally defiantly and intentionally spells "Yes." I guess I have another tween on my hands.

We hand him the computer, and he has sense enough and self control enough not to destroy it now. But if you ask him to say something, he spells "Why" and then promptly turns it off.

So what is my plan now? I have to find a way to motivate him to do something constructive. I'm also planning over the next few months to contact colleagues and try to arrange for them to share their grad students with me, so that I can have help with the project,  and Bow can have more friends, and my colleagues can have access to a chimpanzee who has language abilities. There are many ways that people can help each other achieve their common goals. One of the challenges that we face is finding creative ways to do so.

Happy New Year!

"See Yours"

Bow and I got a Christmas present ready for Lawrence this Wednesday when he came. Before Lawrence came in, Bow spelled in Hebrew on the glass: "Give Uncle Lawrence the present." I guess he thought I might forget.

I didn't forget, so when I left Bow and Lawrence alone with the touchscreen computer, I had already given Lawrence the gift. It was in one of those gift bags covered with tissue paper, so it wasn't hard to see what it was.

When Bow got around to using the touchscreen, sometime later, he got the computer to say: "See yours." At first, Lawrence wasn't sure what Bow meant by that. Then he realized that Bow was indicating the present.

More Swinging

Even though the weather has turned cold, Bow and I have been going outside more lately, because Bow has been asking to go outside specifically, repeatedly and adamantly. I end up pacing a lot, because it's too cold to sit down and stay still. But Bow seems especially energized. He plays chase. He tries to incite the dogs. And he swings. He especially likes to play tag and use the swing as the protected zone, where he is out of reach and untouchable.

I managed to capture better shots of him on his swing this morning than the ones I posted last time.

Once Bow has had his fill of swinging and running around, he retires to the human chair, not his metal bench. I think he believes the bench is more for exercising.

News About Kanzi

Bow and I live in isolation in a protected zone inside our pens. We have an internet connection, and we subscribe to a couple of magazines, but we don't watch TV, and we don't get any newspapers, except the ones that arrive for free and are used to line the bottom of Sword's bird cages. However, when something that affects us happens in the outer world, the news eventually filters down even to us.

Yesterday, as usual, Lawrence was trying to get Bow to use his computer. Bow spelled something on the glass. (I don't remember what it was.) And Lawrence said to him: "Why don't you say that on your computer?"

Bow took the chopstick from Lawrence, strode purposefully toward the computer, poked at it once, and the computer said, in its robot voice: "Why?" Lawrence didn't see what key Bow hit, but he figures it must have been the letter Y. Nevertheless, "why" is what Bow seems to have meant. Why should I spell it on the computer when you can understand me perfectly well when I spell it on the glass?

Well, the answer might have been: so you can go on Oprah. When Lawrence was leaving, he turned to me and said: "My family tells me they saw some chimp on the Oprah Winfrey Show, and he wasn't just an ordinary chimp; he used symbols to communicate. And also, he could blow up balloons."

I raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure it was a chimp? It sounds like a bonobo. What was his name?"

"I don't know. I didn't see the show. My wife and kids saw it."

"Well, it sounds like Kanzi," I said.

"Oh, so you've heard about him?" Lawrence asked.

I smiled. "I've met him."

When Lawrence had gone, Bow said to me: "Bow is trying not to be mad that Kanzi is important."

This made me laugh. Jealousy doesn't have to be all bad. It could be a very good motivator for Bow. Then I called my mother, to see if she had caught that Oprah show. She said she hadn't. So then I googled it. It's not very hard to find. Just google "Oprah Kanzi" and immediately you'll find evidence that Oprah had a segment about Kanzi recently.

One of the articles this search led me to had a very nice picture of Kanzi, and underneath, it said: "Kanzi has English comprehension on the same level as a two and a half year old human child." That's based on a study conducted decades ago. I shared this with Bow and asked him what he thought about that. "Those people are stupid," he said.

Kanzi's comprehension is not limited to the weird novel sentences that were used to prove his understanding of English syntax. His English production ability is not limited to the lexigrams at his disposal. Anyone would sound like a two year old if limited to lexigrams and not allowed to spell out words. What primatologists manage to "prove" and what they actually know about the primates they work with are two different things.

This morning Bow was still thinking about that. Before breakfast, when I was expecting him to tell me what he wanted to eat, he spelled out: "Kanzi is not a baby. Kanzi is big. Everyone knows Kanzi is not stupid."

"Yes, you're right, Bow," I said.

Kanzi is thirty years old. And, no, he's not stupid. Neither is Sue.

Can versus Will

Yesterday afternoon, while Lawrence was watching Bow, I baked a cake. No, I didn't bake it from scratch. It was from a lemon-poppy seed muffin mix, but I baked it like a cake, and I used three eggs instead of two, because of the surplus of eggs that we have. I haven't baked anything in ages, because the oven is in the kitchen, and I need a sitter just to be able to get there.

Well, that's not completely accurate. I bake chicken and sweet potatoes practically every day, but I have that down as a routine, and I don't spend one extra minute in the kitchen. I just stick them in the oven as fast as I can. Cakes, though, even when they come in a mix, require a little more time.

Bow can see the kitchen from the pens. That's one of the nice things about the house layout. The pens open up into the living room, so Bow can see anything that goes on in the living room with no extra effort. In order to see the kitchen, he has to stand in a certain spot and peer at an angle.

I could see Bow and Lawrence standing there, watching me as I prepared the mix. Then, when the cake was in the oven, I called Sword to the kitchen so she could lick the bowl. I glanced in the direction of the pens. Bow was standing on his tippy-toes watching all this intently.

Sword is not a very efficient bowl licker, so there was plenty left when she was done. I brought the bowl into the entry way of the pens. "Would you like to lick the bowl, Bow?" I asked. "Tell Lawrence on the computer."

We are still trying to coax Bow to use the touchscreen computer rather than the letters on the glass. We do not use food as a reward. But licking the bowl isn't really about food. It's almost like a recreational activity.

Bow didn't answer me, so I left the bowl there and went to check my email. When I was gone, Bow took Lawrence to the glass and spelled: "I want to lick the bowl."

"Can you say that on the computer?" Lawrence asked.

"Yes," Bow spelled. Then he went over to the computer, but didn't spell anything. After that, he took Lawrence back to the letters on the glass.

"Okay, Bow, I know you can spell it on the computer," Lawrence said. "But will you spell it on the computer?"

Bow spelled: "No."

"Why not?"

"It's hard."

Let Me Go to School

Sword started her first day of sixth grade yesterday. She has three teachers, each in charge of a major subject area, science, language arts, and math, and these will be her teachers for the next three years. Each year, one of the teachers will be her home room teacher and will be in charge of her overall performance. But regardless of who is currently the home room teacher, those same three educators will get to know her really well, and they will watch over her progress in their particular area of expertise for three whole years.

Sword has been attending the same school since pre-school. It runs all the way through eighth grade. She has known most of the teachers at  the school since she was three years old, and most of the students in her class have been with her since kindergarten, if not earlier. I myself never had this level of continuity, because we traveled back and forth between Israel and the United States for much of my childhood, and we tended to move a lot within the U.S. By the time we settled down in Grand Prairie, Texas, I was about ready to be home schooled. I didn't like school much.

Sword is happy to go back to school, and excited to have finally reached the elite "middle school" area, with its lockers and special teachers, and the greater privileges enjoyed by the older children, who are all at the far end of the building, and rank higher in status and schooling.

Meanwhile, Bow and I are stuck at home doing the same old things. Counting strawberries for breakfast; looking at videos of other chimpanzees for entertainment. After he had asked for all the food that there was this morning, Bow took my hand and started to spell:

תני לי

"Give you what?" I asked. There was nothing left to give. He had eaten it all.

תני לי פעם ללכת לבית הספר

That means "let me go to school once". (In Hebrew, "give me" and "let me" are the same phrase.) "Bow, they won't accept you at school."

He spelled:

כן תני לי בכל זאת

That means: "Yes. Let me, anyway." 

I wish I could let him. But how?

Good to Be Home

Sword and I were away for four days, and we returned home last night around 10:00 pm. Bow, who was supposed to be asleep, was watching me from the pens as I unlocked the front door.

Sword went straight for her room, to check on her parrot, Summer. The chickens were already locked away for the night, and the dogs were in the laundry room, where they've been sleeping. Everyone was in tip top  condition, thanks to Lawrence who stayed here close to thirteen hours a day in my absence.

After Bow has gone to bed for the night, I don't usually like to disturb him, but since he was wide awake, I went in and sang him "the Pomegranate Tree." He was very mellow. There was no teary reunion. He had been in good hands in my absence, he was happy to see me, but not at all surprised. I had phoned and talked to him every day during my absence, and he was apprised of my itinerary.

This morning, I asked him: "Did you know I was coming back?"

"Yes," he spelled.

"Was everything okay when I was gone?"

"All okay," he spelled.

Later, at breakfast, he complained: "The guy didn't give me enough grapes." (This is not a complaint I take seriously.)

"What did he give you, instead?"

"Just stuff."

"Did he let you have some of his cereal?"

"Yes."

And then he added: "Every mommy is good." That was as close to a welcome back that I got.

"Thank you, Bow," I said.

It's good to be home.

Bow's New Bench

Yesterday was Sword's birthday, and I spent the day with her, and Lawrence stayed with Bow. While I was out, Bow got a present, too. His new outdoor bench was installed.

In the outer pens, ever since the pen system was erected, we had a black metal glider, on which Bow, and whoever was with him, used to sit and swing. The glider was originally intended to be part of the furniture at Orchard House, before there even was a pen system.

 Bow liked the glider, but he also enjoyed trying to take it apart and damage it. Bow's enjoyment of all objects is essentially destructive. He's the kind of consumer who longs to consume the product in its entirety, until nothing is left. As far as Bow is concerned, a product left unconsumed is a product not fully used.

Little by little, parts of the glider began to drop off. A decorative pattern welded onto the back rest, shaped like flowers, was broken off and might have been used as a knife, had it not been confiscated. The lower grill, which is part of the seat, was chewed on until part of it jutted up, and I ended up with a hole in the bottom of my pants every time I sat there. I had to take a towel with me to sit there, and Bow resented the towels and wanted to bite them. One day the frame of the glider broke. That was about three weeks ago.

I set out in search of a metal bench to replace the glider. I realized that moving parts were just an invitation for destructive behavior, so I wanted something simple: a welded metal bench as strong as the pen itself. I thought I had seen such a thing at the local feed store, but my memory was from last year. This year all they had were benches that came in flat boxes and had to be put together with bolts. Anything we could put together Bow could easily take apart. The Do It Center had nothing better. Everything available was mass produced and arrived dissassembled.

I began to search the flea markets, hoping to find a sturdy bench produced before the industrial age. In front of one flea market, I saw a bench that looked just right. It was all metal, welded together, painted black, with a backplate with a floral design, and it looked like something no one could take apart. I tried to lift it, to see how heavy it was, and then I realized it was bolted to the cement in front of the store. It wasn't for sale. It belonged to the city. That's when I noticed that this city had such benches every block or so, all up and down its main street.

I stopped by at the city hall to ask who had made the benches. They directed me to the local florist's shop, where the welder's name and phone number were divulged to me. And that's how I came to order Bow his own made-to-order bench, which was delivered yesterday, and bolted to the cement of his outer pen. It's supposed to be indestructible, but if this proves to be an exaggeration, I will know where to go for repairs.

The welder is a kind man who understood Bow's need to fiddle with things and make them move, so he added, at no extra charge, some nonfunctional moving parts, metal nuts that ate like a baby's beads on a stroller or high chair. You can move them up and down, and nothing happens.

Bow watched the work proceed from indoors, and when he was finally allowed access to the bench, he threw himself at it, trying every which way to dislodge it, but to no avail. He then proceeded to use it for a series of gymnastic maneuvers. Later, when Lawrence asked him what he thought of his new bench, Bow spelled: "I like it."

Where did the chopstick go?

When I turned on the older touchscreen yesterday, the calibration seemed to have fixed itself by some mysterious means. You could touch the letters in the center of each colored square, and it would register. So I left the chopstick in Bow's possession and went to work on the computer in the adjoining pen. I hadn't looked away for more than five minutes, and the next time I looked, there was no chopstick. I went back in with Bow and, after searching visually throughout the pen, I asked him: "Where's the chopstick?"

" ש-ם" he spelled. That means "there".


"Where?" I asked. He gestured vaguely at one of the doors to the pen. I went all around the outer perimeter of Bow's pen, to see if he had placed the chopstick outside the pen by passing it through the openings in the grid. There was no chopstick.

For a short while, I actually believed he had swallowed it. But when a whole day passed and it did not appear in his stool, I came to the conclusion that this theory was unlikely to be correct.

This morning, when I turned on the computer, Bow gesticulated toward it, as if asking to use it. "But where's the chopstick?" I asked.

"Mommy remembers so much," he spelled.

"What did you do with it, Bow? Did you eat it?"

"No."

"Well, then where is the chopstick?"

He spelled: "It fell in the hole."

At this point I tend to believe him. He must have dropped it down the drain at the center of the pen.

Telling on Bow; Calibrating the Touchscreen

Yesterday, while Lawrence was watching him, Bow dripped on the way to the potty. When I came in to talk to Lawrence, Bow put his hand over Lawrence's mouth, as if to say: "Don't tell." Later, there was another dripping incident, and Bow asked Lawrence not to tell me, by spelling it out on the glass. When all that failed, Bow spelled out at lunch: "Lawrence is bad."

"Why is he bad?"

Bow spelled: "Because he told you."

Yesterday afternoon was the first time Bow tried out the other touchscreen, the one that was donated to us, after having been used in a bar to advertise liquor. It was supposed to be very tough, as it was meant to stand up to the assaults of inebriated customers, but in fact the screen is a bit scratched up. I would not trust Bow with it in direct contact, but it works well with a chopstick. The screen is bigger than on our other Project Bow computer, and Tracey helped me select a lower reslution display, which makes the keys for the letters appear much bigger. This makes using this touchscreen easier. There's just one problem: it's not calibrated correctly.

Lawrence told me that at first Bow was very interested in the new computer and used it a lot, but he only selected random letters, and after a while he lost interest.

This morning, after breakfast, Bow gesticulated toward the big, hulking computer. (It's on a stand, and Bow has to use it standing up.) "What do you want, Bow?" I asked.

He took me to the glass and spelled out: "To play with the computer."

I gave him the chopstick, and he started pointing with it. Every time he hit the screen, it made a kind of beeping sound. (The other one doesn't do this.) Then I noticed that the touch was not registering in the right place. Bow was pointing at letters, but the computer was registering the touch between the letters.

"Bow, it's not calibrated correctly," I said, taking the chopstick from him and demonstrating. "You have to hit it to the right of the letter, like this, see?"

But Bow lost interest again. I think we will need to recalibrate.

Sleepover

Sword had a friend sleep over for the fourth of July. Bow was excited about the guest. We had watermelon  and cheese cake for dessert, both of them among his favorite foods. Bow was happy.

The girls did not sleep much all  night. In the morning, Bow complained: "Why didn't they try to sleep?"

I asked: "Did they disturb you, Bow?"

He said: "I heard them laughing." The pen is on the opposite side of the house from Sword's room, but chimpanzees have good hearing.

He had to go work

Over the weekend we had guests, friends of mine from grad school. It was really nice to see them, and we had a lot to talk about. Their daughter and Sword really hit it off, too. We wanted them to stay longer, but the husband had to travel to Mexico to do some fieldwork, so the visit had to be cut short.

Bow kept insisting that I not allow them to leave. "Don't let them go, Mommy," he kept spelling. When I explained about the trip to Mexico, he kept wanting to know why. "He has to go work." "But why?" "There's a language that is about to die out, and he has to write a dictionary." No matter how many explanations I gave, Bow didn't understand, and he thought I should stop them from leaving. "Mommy, why does he have to go?" "There are people who have a language, but it isn't written, so he has to write them a dictionary. Do you understand?"

Bow spelled: "Yes." But two minutes later he was asking me the same question, and he kept asking it after they left. That was yesterday. But Bow is a realist, and he accepts the inevitable, even if he doesn't understand.

This morning, before breakfast, Bow took my hand and spelled: "The guy had to go to Mexico to work."

"Yes," I answered. "That's right."

He's so easy going!

I have some friends coming in for out of town today, people from grad school. Yesterday, I had Lawrence help  me with Bow, so that  I could prepare.  When I came in to take over for Lawrence, he pointed out that two little drips by the potty were not Bow's doing. Lawrence had rinsed out the potty with water, and some of it had dripped. He wanted to make sure that I knew it wasn't Bow, so that Bow would not be in trouble.

When I came in to the pen, Bow immediately took my hand and led me to the glass. "Bow is not mad at the guy," he spelled.

Lawrence was making his way out of the entrance to the pens, so I told him: "Bow says he's not mad at you."

"About what?" Lawrence asked.

"That you dripped, I think," I guessed.

Lawrence laughed. "Thank you, Bow," he said.

After Lawrence left, Bow spelled: "Yes, Mommy understood right."

Bow doesn't understand why we get so upset if he drips on the floor. He was trying to make a magnanimous gesture of forgiving such a misdeed by somebody  else.

Goodbye to Megan

Today, Bow and Sword and I said goodbye to Megan. She decided last night to leave early, and this morning she came and brought all the keys back and her unused Wal*Mart card, and we said goodbye. She lasted two weeks and two days. She's done better than some, but certainly not as well as we had hoped.

Bow is sitting here making raspberry sounds as I write this. I think he doesn't want me relating this story, as it does not reflect well on him. Also, there are cookies in the oven, (Sword has a friend over), and he doesn't want me to forget to take them out before they get too brown.

I just went over and asked Bow what he wants. He spelled: "Don't tell that I bit. Try to say that she was bad." Well, I can't say that. Megan was not bad. And Bow didn't exactly bite. He did kind of scratch up her face though, nothing serious. It will heal fine. But it was scary for her, because she didn't see it coming.

I took the cookies out of the oven. While they are cooling, I'll give a short sketch of what happened.

Bow was a perfect gentleman with Megan for the first two weeks, up until the last hour or so of last Saturday. He used the potty. He spelled for her. He didn't do anything aggressive -- or at least,  nothing that she reported. Last Saturday, toward the end, he got a little rowdy, and she gave him some time out.

When Megan returned on Tuesday, after her two days off, again everything seemed fine between the two of them. Bow used the potty. He asked for food at dinner. He specified exactly which apple he wanted, the yellow or the green. She put him to bed, and, according to her, he was very sweet.

Then, on Wednesday morning, just as she came in to the pen, Bow jumped on her back, and he grazed her with his teeth, not biting, but scratching. I was there on the other side of the glass, and I had her come out at once, and I put Bow in a smaller space, sprayed him with water. I went out with Megan, abandoning Bow in his punishment cell,  and I gave Megan some Betadine to put on the scratches. We went for a walk with Brownie, and talked about what had happened and why.

It turns out, in retrospect, that there were some warnings, moments when Bow overstepped his bounds, but was not disciplined. For instance, at bedtime, Megan was reading Bow Where the Wild Things Are, and he grabbed the book, and she told him "No." And he then held on to her finger and squeezed for a moment. She let that pass.

When Bow does something to make someone uncomfortable, overstepping personal boundaries, he has to be confronted in a low pitched, aggressive voice, and he must be disciplined at once. If not, the next incident will be worse. Things escalate.  But in this society, many of us have been socialized to forgive and turn the other cheek, and these are not good strategies to use with chimpanzees. Or with human beings, for that matter. People take advantage. They react to kindness as if it were weakness. They misread each others' signals.

Lawrence arrived at 9:30, when Megan and I were just finishing our walk. I asked him to walk with Brownie some more, so that Megan would have a chance to punish Bow herself. I showed her how to spray Bow with water, and I watched as she hosed him down. Bow screamed.

There is a place for forgiveness. That place is after the perpetrator has been punished and shown remorse. I hoped that Megan and Bow would make peace by the end of the day. She sat on the other side of the glass, and every time he used the potty, she went in and emptied it. Bow did not once break his potty training in all this. He dutifully used the potty every thirty minutes, then every fifteen, then every ten minutes, in the hopes that Megan might stay in with him. But she kept her distance.

Lawrence was scheduled to do lunch with Bow, and Megan came in at two to relieve him, but she and Bow did not play. She sat on the other side of the glass and emptied the potty every time he used it.

By three-thirty, she had decided not to stay and finish up the internship. I asked Lawrence to take over for her, because I  had to take Sword in for her music lesson.

When someone falls off a horse, they say, he should get right back on again. I myself have never fallen off a horse, so I can't say. It could have gone either way. Other interns have been scratched and went on to be very successful with Bow. It really depends on their emotional reaction though; the successful ones were angry enough with what he did to exact some vengeance and win his respect. Those whose reaction is sadness and fear never stay, and I never ask them to go in with Bow again, because it would not be safe.

I do appreciate the one intern in the past who, without  ever having been scratched, admitted that she was not up to the task of going in with Bow, but stayed to complete her internship, working behind the camera and editing and writing reports. I gave her a very good recommendation, because she knew her limits, but honored her commitment.

While Megan has not chosen to stay, I still appreciate her honesty and her effort and the degree of success that she did initially have with Bow.  We parted in a friendly way, and I am grateful for the time that she gave us.

From here on in, it's twelve hours in the pens for me once more. But that two week partial vacation was really nice!

"Why didn't the guy tell me it was spelled wrong!"

Sunday was a quiet day, no Megan, no Lawrence, just Sword, Bow and me. Mostly, we relaxed. Sword had her first horseback riding lesson in a while. I talked on the phone to friends and family, while Bow listened in. We went outside and enjoyed the green view and the clucking of  the chickens.

Before bedtime, Bow and I watched a video called "Panbanisha and the dog". Bow became very animated watching it. Panbanisha seemed to be having the same sorts of problems relating to that dog in the video, as Bow himself has with our dogs. After the video was over, Bow told me that he wanted Panbanisha to come visit him.

Today, Lawrence asked Bow if he'd had fun playing with Megan over the past week. Bow spelled: "Yes, I had fun playing with Magan[sic]." That's how he spelled it: M-A-G-A-N. Lawrence relayed that to me. (Lawrence knows how to spell Megan, so the error was Bow's -- yet more proof that he is spelling on his own.)

After Lawrence had left, Bow asked me in Hebrew: "Why didn't the guy tell me it was spelled wrong?" I wasn't sure why he was using the passive.  "Her name is spelled M-E-G-A-N, Bow," I said.

Only later, after dinner, when I was clearing the dishes did I realize what he meant. He meant that his way of spelling Megan's name was the correct way. The way everyone else spells it is wrong!