How was Dr Jane able to go to Africa and study chimpanzees?
From childhood, Jane wanted to go to Africa to live with animals and to write about them. Her family was not wealthy, and Jane’s dream was very unconventional for a girl during that time. Nevertheless Jane’s mother had always told her that if she tried hard enough and believed in herself, she would find a way. In 1956, a close friend named Marie-Claud (know as ‘Clo’) Mange invited her to Kenya. To earn money for her fare to and from Africa, Jane quit her job, moved back home and became a waitress. That summer she “worked herself to the bone.” Finally, in 1957, Jane embarked on her ocean voyage to Kenya. When she arrived, she met the famed anthropologist and archaeologist Louis S.B. Leakey, who hired her as an assistant. After some time, Leakey asked Jane if she would be interested in studying a group of wild chimpanzees in Tanzania.
