06/30/2025
What you see is not just a photograph.
It is a final farewell.
A promise kept until the very last breath.
It is an image of love – rare, quiet, stronger than fear, loneliness, or even death.
A story that cannot be forgotten.
Ndakasi was a mountain gorilla.
When she was just two months old, rangers in Virunga National Park — in the heart of Congo — found her beside the body of her dead mother, killed by poachers.
She didn’t run. She clung tightly to her mother, as if she could still save her.
That’s when André Bauma appeared, a young wildlife ranger.
He had nothing but his own hands.
He lifted the tiny, trembling body and held it against his chest.
He spent the whole night with her, warming her with his body, praying she would survive.
And she did.
From that moment on, they were inseparable.
Ndakasi was placed in the world’s only orphanage for mountain gorillas — the Senkwekwe Center.
There, she learned to breathe again. To trust again. To live again.
Over time, she became known around the world.
In 2019, her photo went viral — standing upright, smiling, eyes looking into the camera, as if to say: “I’m here. And I’m okay.”
Millions of people shared that photo with a smile.
But few knew the story behind it.
Because Ndakasi wasn’t just “the funny gorilla.”
She was the one who survived.
War. Poachers. The destruction of her home. Loneliness.
And despite it all — she still knew how to love.
Because for fourteen years, she had someone who never left her side.
André was her home.
Not just a caretaker. A friend. The one constant in a world full of chaos.
Then came illness.
Her body grew weaker each day.
But André never left her.
He watched over her endlessly. Wordlessly.
And when she knew the end had come — she did the only thing she knew best:
She laid her head on his chest.
And she slept.
Forever.
Imagine that moment.
The silence after the last breath.
A heart still beating — broken.
And the gentle weight of trust that had just let go.
That is love.
Not in grand gestures, but in presence.
In hands that don’t let go.
In eyes that never look away.
In a bond that needs no explanation.
Ndakasi was not just a gorilla.
She was a friend, a soul who went through hell and still bloomed — thanks to care and tenderness.
She was a piece of nature that looked us in the eye and asked:
“And you? What are you doing with the love you’ve been given?”
Remember her name: Ndakasi.
The gorilla who made the world smile and left in the arms of the man who loved her until the very end.
Let her story enlighten us.
Let her memory remind us that every living being deserves respect, protection…
and a heart ready to hold it — even in its final moment.
