Claudine arrived in Congo as a child, with her father, who was a veterinary surgeon, and has lived there ever since. She ran an art boutique, sourcing and selling rare art works. She married Victor and has five children. When war disrupted daily life in Kinshasa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of Congo, in the 1990s, Claudine worked as a volunteer in Kinshasa Zoo, because the animals had been neglected and were starving. Elsewhere in the country, people were finding traditional food production difficult, because of the war, and turned instead to bushmeat to feed themselves and their families. This in turn led to orphaned bonobos turning up for sale on the streets of Kinshasa - and it was from this situation that Claudine started Lola ya bonobo.