Moses arrived in 1990 in Beverwijk, The Netherlands. He had left Uganda, his homecountry. In Beverwijk he fully started his writingcareer.

This book has two parts:

a. an essay on the use of chimpanzees in medical research. He writes from the perspective of a chimp. He recounts the moment he was caught and brought to another place (The Netherlands) to be used by people, to be injected, to be drugged, to be mishandeld. Chimp  was used to get good medicine for man. He links the medical research to the development of a cure for HIV/Aids. I was not clear on the view of this chimp (or the view of Moses?) on the situation of HIV/Aids. Does he see it as a western trick? Or the result of western vaccinationprogrammes? He takes us back to the 1950s. In Belgian Congo was a campaign against polio. Was a virus left in the vaccin? He takes us to 1961 and a conference in Kampala, due to a sudden rise in cancer in Africa.

b. an autobiographical essay on his writingcareer and what led him to it. His father was a teacher so books were not a strange phenomenon in the house he grew up in. He went to secondary school and had a good teacher in the English language. Next step is a training for the priesthood, later on a teachertraining college. In 1983 he starts writing for a Dutch missionmagazine. When he arrives in The Netherlands he creates a new identity. He learns the Dutch language and start reading many books. After four years he writes down his own experiences.. One publisher decideds to publish him and his life as a writer starts with a big boom. His book is translated in different languages. He visits Uganda and notices that many relatives have passed away. He sees the West on a warpath to decimate Africa. Development Aid? The West gets the benefits. He backs president Mbeki in his ideas on HIV/Aids.  

Moses Isegawa – Two Chimpanzees – Amsterdam 2001