Monkey Business (part the second)

We all have to be afraid of some kind of animal (or at least one), right?  For me it is definitely monkeys and snakes.  I will touch a snake (if it is not poisonous and does not look like it wants to consume me head first), but monkeys I just do not trust.  They are too much like people, I think, for my liking.  Their brains are too developed and I cannot tell what they are thinking, whereas I can usually outsmart my cats or turtles, or the average fish.

Having spent a week in Africa, I have also had several up close and personal monkey encounters that scared the bejeesus out of me!  Unlike the interactions of many americans with our monkey cousins (sorry if I have offended any creationists, but I have to say what I think), there were no zoo enclosures or bars involved in these encounters.  The scariest of these events I detailed in the previous posting.  This one is much more tame, but still gives me nightmares......

borrowed from http://www.awf.org/content/gallery?media=image&wildlife=987

Since we are not completely unpacked here, I could not find the picture of the exact perpetrator, I have posted the picture above, which is most likely a close relative.  This fellow is a black colobus monkey.  My nemesis did not have the long white fringe on his sides, but the coloring is similar.  My monkey, let's call him Spike, was about the size of a small german shepherd, but MUCH faster and more sneaky!

Spike and I met while I was visiting my friend Caroline in Kenya.  

Most evenings during our stay in the Masai Mara game reserve, we ate outside at the pool.  Our first night it must have been raining, as we ate inside.  The landscape outside was much more interesting to me as the sun was setting, and I kept peeking outside.  Taking one break from conversing with my fellow photo safari travelers, I noticed a large monkey sitting on the balcony railing outside the window, watching the humans eat.  I went back to my delicious meal, but every time I looked back at the window, there was Spike, watching us.  I am sure that he was salivating at all the yummy veggies and fruits we were eating, while he could only watch.  If he could have gotten inside he would have, but I think he realized (probably from experience) that the employees would have shooed him out just as he tried to open a door and gain access.

After dinner we decided to spend a little time at the pool before heading to our luxurious tent, and there was Spike, still sitting on the railing.  I really did not want to pass by him, but Caroline assured me it would be fine.  Yeah, right!

I followed her toward the pool, and just as Caroline passed him, Spike jumped between us and touched her shoe.  Not sure why that was, but I think he just wanted to prove that he could, before he ran away as she shouted at him and stamped her feet.

YIKES!!

The next afternoon, we were sitting out by the pool before lunch was served.  I had a roll left over from breakfast that I was breaking into small pieces and feeding them to the very colorful birds which were hanging out to get a free lunch.  I saw Spike lurking about 20 yards away on the 10 foot wall that enclosed the compound.  I pointed him out to Caroline, and she just laughed at my uneasiness with poor old Spike's presence.

I want back to feeding and photographing the birds, and forgot about Spike for a while.  A few minutes later he had scaled down the wall and was sitting on the ground, now INSIDE the compound.  I tried to play it cool, but he started loping towards our location.

I mentioned this to Caroline, who replied something like, "don't worry about it, you don't have anything he wants, so he won't,"  she broke off her comment, as Spike was now charging towards us at full speed.

Turns out that Spike thought he needed some grains and carbs at that moment, and he was making a move for my roll fragment.  I started to grab for the remnants of the roll, but Spike's little furry hand was grabbing for it at the same time, and I did not think I would win the struggle for the roll, so I withdrew.

At this point the staff saw the theft in progress, and they started whooping and heaving stones at Spike so that he would leave the compound.  Case closed.

Monkey Business (part the first)

[Disclaimer:  This story has nothing to do with the fibreglass Chris Craft that played a role in the downfall of Gary Hart's presidential hopes]

borrowed from monkey_news.jpg

This monkey may be looking for the business section, I did not zoom in enough to find out, but my title is emblematic of my one of my monkey adventures in Kenya.  I will relate it here for your perusal.

Several years ago I got to spend about a week in Kenya visiting my friend Caroline, who had grown up there with her British ex-pat parents.  She was working there as an inspector for the Agency for International Development, doing worthwhile projects like ensuring that the cooking oil the US was sending to the country was going to the people who needed it, rather than being stockpiled by the elite and later sold to the people who could ill afford this basic purchase.

Caroline and I had spent a few days at the Masai Mara game park, sleeping in big tents on concrete slabs with solar showers, and we were heading back to Nairobi.  There was a drive thru park that Caroline wanted to hit on our way back to the big city.  She was about 10 meters away from the car trying to convince the guys in the guard shack that I was her sister, so the entry fee would not be so large.  [We were both short white women with approximately the same shade of brown hair, but she has a british accent, and we had different last names on our passports, so I think she was having to concoct quite a good story, so it was taking a while.]

I was sitting in the passenger seat of her british drive car, looking thru my camera bag to figure out how many rolls of film I still had.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw a grey brown flash to my right, to which I paid no attention.  I kept on with my film roll inventory, but saw the little flash again.  I looked to my right, and found that there was a small monkey on the headrest looking at me.  She had a baby monkey hanging on to her chest.  I instantly flashed back to something my friend Kathleen kept saying to me before I left for Kenya, "You are going to get bitten by a monkey and get AIDS."  I am not sure if she was saying this just to annoy me, or if she actually believed this, but I instantly jumped out of the car.  

I tried to close the door behind me, but the monkey was following me, and I didn't want to crush it.  Caroline had already told me that I should stand my ground and stomp my feet and yell when a monkey was being naughty, but I was not ready to adopt that strategy yet.  The monkey continued chasing me around the car until Caroline came to my rescue with the stomping/yelling technique.

I got back in the car and sealed myself in by closing all the windows and the sun roof.  Now I was broiling in the mid-day sun, and I hoped that Caroline would conclude her haggling so that we could get on our way.

She started waving her arms at me, and making a photo-taking sign (pretend your are holding a camera up to your face and clicking the shutter with your right index finger) then pointing up.  I just ignored her because I figured that she wanted me to get out of the car and take a picture of the monkey, who I assumed was now on top of the car.  I had already taken hundreds of pictures of monkeys, and did not want another one of my tormentor.

Then I noticed that there were things flying off the roof of the car; small objects, which I hoped were not monkey feces.  As I looked closer, I saw that the objects were things like:  lens cover; film canister; empty film box; etc.

In my haste to get back in the car and seal myself in, I must have left my camera case on top of the car.  The monkey was going thru it looking for something to eat.

I got out of the car, because I did not want all the exposed film canisters to be strewn out into the dirt.  Now that monkey had made me mad!  

It is possible that I did not get out of the car until Caroline had come over to my rescue once again.  Memories get a little dim with the passage of time.......