Week of the monkeys

We had another good working week, got quite a bit accomplished. On Monday, our driver Emma dropped us off and we finished some more surveys and soil sampling in the area closest to the field station while he took the vehicle to be worked on in Fort Portal. It had been making some squealing noises and we were afraid one of the belts might be about to go out, and we didn't want to end up stranded somewhere far away from help. When we had finished the field work we just hiked back to the field station which was only about 2 miles away. The village we were in is called Kansojo and just about all the maize fields we wanted to survey were at the bottom of a large, steep hill or on the hillside on the opposite side of the valley. I ended up climbing up an down that stupid hill four times so that by the time I had walked back to the field station I was exhausted. Definitely the most tiring day of work thus far.

Monday through Wednesday this week our house was visited by a very rascally baboon. On Tuesday, I was sitting on the front porch when I heard Mike say through his window "Hey, there's a baboon in here." So I said "Tell it to leave," then went in the house to find it going through a box of my stuff. I yelled at it and it grabbed a gallon Ziploc full of powdered Gatoraide and ran out the back door. Fortunately it was too heavy for him to carry and run away quickly so he dropped it. On Wednesday, I was sitting in our house working when suddenly the back door burst open, and there was that baboon again. I yelled at it to get out and it just looked at me until I started to get out of my chair, then it walk off with its compatriots, including a mom with a very young baby baboon clinging to her chest.

Finally, on Wednesday, I was again sitting on the front porch when our baboon friend returned with the idea of entering the house from the front this time. He came right up on the porch, not more than 3 feet from me and this time when I told him to shoo, he barred his teeth at me and didn't back up a bit. I finally had to pick up a chair and brandish it at him before he took the hint and slowly began walking away, with frequent backward glances and dirty looks.

Finally, on Thursday afternoon we were treated to a mass exodus of red colobus monkeys through the yard in front of our bungalow. It seemed like a never ending stream of monkeys. I was told later that the camp group, which this was, has grown to 115 individuals. These monkeys haven't moved very far and we treated to good views of their antics in the mornings and afternoons in the tress near our house.