Woods was an Australian primate lover, flitting from job to job while  she tried to decide what to do with her life. Brian Hare was a newly  minted American PhD. They met at a chimpanzee sanctuary in Uganda, fell  in love, and a year later were on a plane to the Democratic Republic of  Congo, which had suffered a decade-long war, fought over its vast  resources of diamonds, gold, cobalt, and other minerals, and in which  more than five million died. The human suffering had fostered a rise in  the bush-meat trade, and one of the prime targets was bonobos, the  other chimpanzee. The story of Woods and Hares research at the only  bonobo sanctuary in the world mixes the intimacy of memoir with the  science of behavioral research. As Woods comes to know her new husband,  she also begins to know the resident bonobos. Bonobos share, use sex to  settle arguments, and possess almost 99 percent of our DNA. This mostly  joyous book is not afraid to talk about the terrible recent history of  the Congo, but ultimately it comes down on the side of hopefor the  Congo and the bonobos.