海角大神

The war came to the zoo here on a Friday, just after the afternoon prayer.

It was 2014 and Aliyu Yusuf, the head of the zookeepers, was doing his rounds. He looped past the crocodile enclosure, where a dozen of the scaly green reptiles napped on the concrete beside their pool, mouths gaping. Nearby, the zoo鈥檚 two skinny elephants, Jummai and Izge, dangled their trunks over a muddy vat of water. He passed by them and moved toward the primate enclosure, where a teenage chimp swung from the bars of his cage like they were, well, monkey bars.

That鈥檚 when the first explosion hit, a clap of sound so powerful it rattled the ground beneath him. When Mr. Yusuf looked up, he could see a cloud of smoke rising from the direction of the post office just beyond the zoo鈥檚 gates. People were screaming. Around him, the animals began to panic.

His ostriches ran frantic zig-zags across the length of their pens. An eland antelope charged back and forth in his enclosure, horns bared. And Yusuf ran, not stopping until he reached the zoo鈥檚 administrative building nearby.

鈥淵ou don鈥檛 think when you become a zookeeper that someday you鈥檒l become afraid to do your job,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ut that day, I became afraid.鈥澨�

Nearly a decade ago, a violent insurgency began to put this city in Nigeria鈥檚 arid northeast, known locally as 鈥渢he home of peace,鈥� on the global map for a very different reason. Splashed across the world鈥檚 front pages, Maiduguri suddenly became 鈥渢he birthplace of Boko Haram,鈥� a place of random terror听and brutal suicide bombings.

But it was never only that.

Even in the war鈥檚 darkest days, as hundreds of thousands of people poured into the city to escape Boko Haram鈥檚 campaign of terror in the countryside and attacks showered the city, normal life also carried on, as mundane and ordinary as ever.

Maidugurians still gathered for meals of goat meat and fragrant red jollof rice. Students at the local university still stayed up late cramming for exams in biology, accounting, and engineering. The city prayed, it haggled, it gossiped.

鈥淚t speaks to the resilience and vitality of the place that people have determined that life will go on,鈥� says Geoffrey Ijumba, chief of the Borno field office for UNICEF, the United Nations鈥� children鈥檚 agency. 鈥淭hey are saying, Boko Haram won鈥檛 shut down this city, they can鈥檛. We will keep going.鈥�

And people went to the zoo.听

They went to the zoo a lot, in fact.

鈥淲hen the insurgency was at its peak, this was one of the safest places in the city, because it was a kind of no man鈥檚 land where you wouldn鈥檛 be worried that you would be a target,鈥� says Peter Ayuba, the director of forestry and wildlife for Borno state, where Maiduguri is located. 鈥淚t got to the point where we could hardly manage the influx.鈥�

Public-private oasis听

All day long, people would stream into the zoo, and they often stayed for hours, looping around the enclosures or slumped on park benches. Every evening at closing time, many visitors had to be coaxed to leave, says Mr. Ayuba. 鈥淣o one wanted to go home.鈥澨�

But if people鈥檚 reasons for going to the zoo shifted over the course of the war, it had long been one of the city鈥檚 most iconic cultural institutions. For decades, during holidays and festivals, its green walkways had filled with families in shimmery boubou robes and dramatic wax-print dresses, posing for photo after photo against the verdant backdrop.

鈥淭here is nobody who鈥檚 somebody in this city who doesn鈥檛 come to the zoo, especially during festivities,鈥� says Tijjani Ahmed, head of veterinary and conservation education at the zoo.

It鈥檚 also the place where an untold number of the city鈥檚 romances have begun.听

鈥淚t鈥檚 a place away from prying eyes, like our parents for instance,鈥� says Ali, 20, as he and his girlfriend Ruqayya, 17, sat watching the zoo鈥檚 two elephants chow down on acacia leaves on a recent afternoon. (They asked that their last names not be used in this story, since the whole point of going to the zoo was to avoid drawing attention to their relationship.)

In the zoo鈥檚 small tin photo studio, meanwhile, Elizabeth Siktuwe and her boyfriend, Alex Ibrahim, had just changed out of the matching red dashiki tunics they had donned for a zoo photo shoot.听

鈥淚鈥檓 studying to be a microbiologist, but this is maybe the only place I can actually go safely and be in nature,鈥� she says, her eyes flicking over the photos.

Ayuba, too, discovered the zoo as a student. When the young ecologist began coming here, 鈥淚t was like seeing my study books in three dimensions,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t sparked my curiosity. I began to ask questions.鈥�

And he quickly became committed to the zoo鈥檚 mission. 鈥淚t鈥檚 so our kids and those still unborn know the natural heritage of the place where they come from,鈥� he says.

As Boko Haram has devastated communities across northern Nigeria in recent years, it has also blighted the country鈥檚 landscapes. The Sambisa Forest, for instance, is now the insurgents鈥� hideout, where they keep camp and hold hostages like the Chibok girls, who were kidnapped from their boarding school in a nearby town in 2014.

And so for many in Maiduguri, the zoo is the last remaining patch of open space they have.

鈥淭he place I come from looks a lot like this,鈥� says Binta Lawan as she wanders between enclosures one morning recently. Ms. Lawan has come to the zoo with a group of about 100 others, all of them residents of a bleak displaced persons camp on the city鈥檚 outskirts called Bakassi. In the four years they had lived in the camp, several say, this is the first time they鈥檝e gone into the city for anything other than collecting firewood or buying food. In the camp, Lawan explains, the landscape was flat and monotonous, row upon row of tents staked in the gray dust.听

鈥淗ere there are trees, there is shade,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t revives me just being here.鈥�

Nearby, meanwhile, the organizers of the trip 鈥� representatives of a local businessman preparing to run for office in next year鈥檚 elections 鈥� have rigged a pair of speakers to a generator. A campaign song blasts out:

All the people are yearning for him to run.听

He is cool headed.

Just like cold water.听

He is the man for us.

'We did it for the love'

Still, Mr. Ahmed is the first to admit, the zoo has challenges far beyond the insurgency. For one thing, they鈥檙e broke. Each day, zookeepers trawl the city looking for acacia branches they can prune to feed the elephants, and some months they have to beg rotting meat off local butchers to feed the carnivores. (The park鈥檚 50 naira admission fee 鈥� US $0.15 鈥� can鈥檛 cover the costs). The crocodiles, meanwhile, swim through thick knots of garbage 鈥� ice cream wrappers, pineapple juice bottles, empty water sachets 鈥� that have gathered in their pools.

On a recent morning, as Ahmed circled the zoo with a visitor, shouts went up from the elephant enclosure. When he glanced over, Izge had her trunk curled around the waist of a small child, and was lifting him off the ground.

Then, just as suddenly, she dropped him, and the boy, a street child wandering the zoo to collect plastic bottles for recycling, scrambled out of the flimsy enclosure to safety.

The zookeepers seemed unperturbed. 鈥淜ids are always breaking the rules and jumping into the cages,鈥� one muttered quietly.

The crowd around the child quickly broke up and moved on. A boy clutching his mother鈥檚 hand motioned toward a woman walking past with a tray of dates and peanuts balanced on her head. An ice cream vendor鈥檚 cart clanged as it made its way over the rutted paths.

For Ahmed, who has nursed the zoo鈥檚 lion cubs in his own living room and let baby chimps roam his office until they were ready for their adult cages, seeing the zoo alive like this reminds him why he keeps showing up to work each day.

鈥淭here have been times, in the early days of insurgency, when even coming to feed our animals was a risk,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ut we did it for the love of this place.鈥�