At first these blogs were for the yearlong assignment that I was given: to journal everyday, then they became a way to document my time here and keep loved ones updated as to what I’m up to. Recently blogging has become a chore, a tiresome chore that I cannot possibly hope to keep up daily. There is simply neither time, nor ease of access to write and upload blogs on a regular basis.
A couple of updates since I’m a good month or two behind in them:
- Rivertrip
Good: Lived on the Rio for 4 days, purchased a monkey, grabbed some great photos.
Bad: The boat which housed most of the girls was robbed at gunpoint when we lost sight of them, most everything was stolen, even the gas for the boat.
Monkey lived with us for a week after we got back. Caleb and I made a makeshift play/living corner for Martin (monkey’s name) we kept him secure by tying his lease around some window shutters. But after a couple of days his corner started to leak a rancid stench on account of him droppin’ poo all over and washing his hands in his own urine. The girls and the Dr. told us to tie him in a tree outside so he wouldn’t stink up the house; this marked the beginning of his demise. Because he was outside, he was usually within eyesight or hearing range of the dogs. They became curious and would wait under the tree he was tied in, which in turn freaked the monkey out. Martin would not stop panicking and screeching until the dogs left his line of sight. Two mornings after we had put him outside, I woke up to an odd sound; a weak crinkling of paper, no, not of paper, of a food wrapper, right next to my head. My brain slaps me into consciousness and as my eyes open I’m met face to face with who else, but the monkey’s. He was eating our crackers! But more importantly, his leash was gone, he hadn’t just untied the rope securing him to the top of the tree, he had removed the one piece of rope that had been attached to him so long it might as well have been a part of his body.
Whenever he had gotten loose before, he had always had the lease still around his waist, making the task of catching him fairly easy. But this time he had nothing, absolutely nothing for me to grab onto before he could run away from my clenching hands of doom.
As soon as he noticed me awake, He climbed our door and jumped off the other side (Note: our door has a 2 x 3.5 ft open space above it). I ran to catch up with him, all the while trying to figure out how I was going to catch this bugger. He hadn’t just gotten loose, he had “broken” into our room and was looking our food! This grievance could not be forgotten. I chased him all around the house, which is actually alot harder than it would seem. The design of the house allows for one way movement through the building. The outer edges are the guy’s rooms and the “inner sanctum” is the girls’ living area, pharmacy, “lab”, and isolation chamber (a dinky little one man room, with just enough space for a mattress and suitcase to fit inside). The “lab” features open slats at the top of the wall connecting to the outer hallway to allow airflow, and also monkeys running away from an angry father.
I expertly deduced that I wasn’t going to be able to squeeze the life out of him because it was impossible to catch him without his leash on, so I returned to our room and removed a small packet of strawberry oreos from our snack bucket. I opened the package and separated the two halfs of an oreo so that its pink innards were exposed. Then the waiting game began.
As expected, Martin smelled the sugary goodness of oreo and came to investigate. There I was, sitting on my bed, holding out half of an oreo at arms length in offering. Martin, although as stupid as he was, analyzed the scene with skeptical eyes. What trick was this? I had just chased him around the house, and now I’m offering treats? But in the end stupidity overruled paranoia and he took a few steps toward my gift of oreo.
I stood up, managing to keep my arm outstretched toward the monkey but showing no real interest in him other than that. I walked past his equally outstretched hands going for the oreo and stopped a good 15 feet down the hall. I squatted and called him over. This process repeated until I had him under the tree where I found his leash still attached to a high branch.
I re-tied the rope around his waist and made sure to give him no slack in the rope, allowing him only a 6 in radius of movement, as punishment for getting loose and being a thief. Because this had all started around 7 am, I was still beat from being up late the previous night, so I went back to sleep.
I woke up sometime around 2:00 when Caleb came in and asked if I had seen the monkey. I told him of the events in the morning, and he replied with “its not in the tree anymore”. So we set of looking in each tree for any sign of our lost child. Caleb noticed that the dogs were nowhere to be found, even when called, no dogs showed, which is quite out of the ordinary. He figured that where we found the dogs, we would find the monkey, up in some random tree way out nowhere. The dogs finally showed after we had been calling them for 20 minutes straight. But they came from the back of the property and tried to avoid us for some reason. Caleb and I looked around where they came from, but…no monkey.
Day after (Sat)
Found Monkey’s charred corpse sitting in between the houses on the grass in plain view of anybody. What the heck happened? We only have theories at this point. He was burnt badly, there were no eyes, and he had two holes in his side (bite marks perhaps). The theories as of now are that the dogs killed him and buried him in the trash pit, which people then burn trash in daily, explaining the charring. The monkey was electrocuted somehow and the dogs found the body and left out in the open. Struck by lightning. Spontaneous combustion. As stupid as he was, and as much as I hated him sometimes…I miss the little guy
