Final Project: The Redemption of Magnum

Project Paper
Stephen Mugo
Final
As if in a choir, one-by-one led by the female ape, the monkeys break into laughter. Debbie Magnum laughs back, mimicking the apes, her face radiating with a broad smile. Momentarily, the gap between man and ape is bridged by these transcendent signals. In a playful expression of contentment, the monkeys hop from tree to tree, their cracking laughter getting louder but discordant, eventually receding into the back peripheries of their cage. Magnum moves to the gorilla cage, calling out each of the four gorillas by name, as one would greet a human friend. It is only 7:30 a.m. Magnum has been feeding the animals for the last one-and-a-half hours.
For the last 11 years, Magnum, 33, has been working at the primate department of the Oklahoma City Zoological Park . Standing at 5 feet 8 inches, averagely built, and with flowing brown hair, this mother of two walks in hurried strides, perhaps revealing what she calls her clustered schedule. She works ten-hour days at the zoo, six days each week. “The level of enthusiasm with which she goes about her zoo job is unmatched” says Amy McFarland Dean, Magnum’s department manager.
Several times every year, Magnum travels to the Democratic Republic of Congo where she works to save the wildlife in the Congo Forest . A native of Norman -- a campus suburb within the Oklahoma City metropolis -- Magnum wants to save the apes of Congo from possible human-triggered extinction. She has received international recognition, including a Conservator of the Year Award, 2004 from The Wildlife Club International, for her work in Africa . She says that her work in the Congo Forest is her first passion in life. “The endless conflicts have led to a drastic reduction in the ape population in the Congo Forest ,” Magnum says. “These animals have become victims, too.”
Due to recurrent civil wars in Congo which have resulted into widespread poverty, large swaths of the Congo Forest have been cleared to avail farmland for the landless poor. The rebels fighting the government use the forests as their hiding places. The trees have been cut and burned to make cooking charcoal. The wildlife has been illegally poached for meat. Magnum says that the Congo Forest is the largest habitation of apes in the world. She says that while the world has focused on the human crisis in Congo , the wildlife problem has received little attention. “The humanitarian crisis has received some world attention, but the animals have almost been forgotten,” Magnum says.
Magnum says that her sympathy for the threatened wildlife in Congo is drawn from the fact that she suffered neglect for a long period in her life. She has joined a non-governmental organization called Ape-Refuge which sensitizes the warring parties in Congo to the wildlife problem, and rescues trapped and injured apes. Magnum volunteers her expertise gained at the Oklahoma City Zoo to rehabilitate these rescued apes. Magnum says that her goal in life is to give a second chance to the suffering animals. She says that her passion to rehabilitate comes from the story of her life, which she says is a story of redemption.
Magnum’s parents, Eli and Irene Magnum, divorced a few months following her birth, primarily because her birth resulted in disagreements and in financial problems. “A few years ago, my mother confessed that my conception was a mistake,” Magnum says with teary eyes. “At one point, my dad suggested to my mum that she aborts me. My mother rebuffed the idea.”
Magnum would never see her dad again. Eli Magnum eventually ended up in jail for the offense, according to Irene Magnum, of aiding in a robbery. Although he was sentenced only to 18 months in jail, a riot broke out in which the inmates held up for two days the Illinois jail facility where Eli Magnum was held. In the ensuing melee, a fellow inmate killed Eli Magnum, mistaking him for a sex-offender. He was only 41. “Eli was a handsome man, sometimes a wonderful husband. But he was tragic,” says Irene Magnum, now 49.
The imprisonment and consequent death of Magnum’s father affected her greatly. “I saw life as completely out of my control. I made no great efforts to shape my life as I expected to die early, too,” says Magnum. Magnum’s mother was unable to keep up with her daughter’s needs resulting in her delay in commencing school. She never caught up. Discouraged by successive poor grades, and compounded by endless quarrels at home with her mother, Magnum quit school at the tenth-grade. “By then, I had failed in three relationships, one of which was violent,” says Magnum. “Over this period, I went to jail several times for drinking, buying drugs and for petty theft.”
Irene Magnum never remarried, and never had any other children. Nevertheless, she led a life marked by misfortune. According to Magnum, Irene Magnum suffered bouts of depression for which she spent periods of time in psychiatric facilities. Irene Magnum’s relationship with her daughter remained for the most part antagonistic. Magnum relied more and more on her friends, who she says led her into deeper problems with drugs, the law and into increasing disinterest in life.
Shortly after she quit school, Magnum says that it appeared as if the curse of her father would sooner or later catch up with her. Magnum says she had given up her fate to circumstance. “Magnum was frail in health for neglect and substance abuse,” says Ashley Croswell, Magnum’s long-time friend. “Aimlessly wandering through life, she seemed at the twilight.”
However, not too late, fate intervened to redeem Magnum. It was in July 1998 when within a few days of each other, two events occurred that changed the trajectory of Magnum’s life. One day as she walked with four of her friends in downtown Norman , Oklahoma , Magnum says that a stranger walked up to the group, stopped her, and told her that she looked like the leader of the group. The stranger told her that she looked outstanding. Magnum says that the group was without a formal leader, and without the necessity for one. She says that the stranger did not stop long enough to explain his words but that the incident focused a lot of attention on her from her friends.
Magnum says she had received little attention in her life. She recalled that she often went unnoticed at school. “I never was the most noticeable in a group. I knew many people in downtown Norman but never got to know who this stranger was. Never saw him again. But his words couldn’t get off my mind,” says Magnum.
Magnum’s friends noticed the incident, teasing her afterwards saying that she was the “strange leader” of the group. Ashley Croswell, Magnum’s long-time friend, found the incident odd enough that she nicknamed Magnum “boss.”
“I had not experienced strangers say words like those. Usually, they flatter, saying you are cute and such, but never any serious descriptions,” says Croswell.
Within a few days following the incident with the stranger, all of her friends called Magnum by her new nickname “boss.” This, she says, kept the stranger’s words alive in her mind. Later in the same month, Magnum’s mother was admitted to a psychiatric institution for treatment. Magnum visited her mother in the hospital and got into a chance conversation with one of the psychiatrists caring for Irene Magnum. A little into the conversation, the psychiatrist told Debbie Magnum that she was a Type-A personality, meaning she could perform complex tasks and solve sophisticated problems. However, the psychiatrist told Magnum that Type-A personalities have short attention spans making it difficult for them to follow through on tasks.
Magnum says that the conversation with the psychiatrist was a breakthrough moment when she began to comprehend the intricacies of her life. She remembered the stranger’s words on the street in downtown Norman . She imagined that both from her appearance, and from her words, the complexities in her life were manifest. Evident, too, were her unique abilities, she imagined, which led a stranger and a psychiatric professional to perceive her then untapped potential.
“These two incidents brought a breakthrough into my life,” says Magnum. “Instantly, I could explain almost everything that had occurred in my life.”
Soon after, Magnum found that she could easily overcome the thoughts that often led her into despair. She felt an increasing urge to apply her newly discovered potential into worthwhile causes. “The feeling of understanding myself produced confidence within me,” says Magnum. “The energy to restart my life was released.”
Magnum loved animals although she says she had never owned a pet in her life. Had she made it into college, she says she would have studied to become an animal biologist. Magnum says that she chose to pursue to excellence the next best choice. “I persistently applied for a position at the zoo until I was hired. I applied myself and my abilities found expression in my work,” Magnum says. “Now, I am trying to resolve a complex international wildlife problem in Africa .”