REVELATIONS AND REVELRY

A conversation with my sister last Saturday morning:

K: haha thats awesome. nothing new really! just trying to sort out my life after here! nothing exciting though. except i saw a baboon outside my front door, that was pretty funny

S:Yes I saw that about the baboon!! Why didn’t you let it come inside?

K: because they are very aggressive, eat all your food, poo in your bed. then wipe the poo on your walls, destroy everything. and then come back every day to do it again with their friends!!!!!!!!!!

S:Oh my God!!!! LOL

K: yep yep i know. hence my speed at shutting my door!!

S:How did you know they do all that? I wouldn’t have had a clue!!

K: because people have told me! they are very clever things, and a big issue here. they even employ people called baboon monitors to chase round after them with paintball guns and flares to keep them up in the mountains away from houses!

S:Why would they poo in your bed??

K: im not sure, i think they poo as they eat, and the bed looks comfy for them so they sit there??

S:I’m really laughing!!! I wish you’d let it in!

K: no!!! i would not want to clean that up! and can you imagine the next day when they come knocking at my door?!

S:Do they really come back?!?

K: yes! with all their friends!!

These messages are the the prelude to my sister’s blog and made me cry with laughter. It’s certainly not my idea of a party lifestyle. She lives and works in South Africa and swims with Great White sharks daily. Not content with that danger, she also has baboons apparently popping round to her house for a cup of tea  and a quick poo…….

BY KIMBERLEY:

August 1st

I just saw my first baboon!!! Since I arrived here in South Africa I have been convinced they were just a legend. Everyone talks about them, but I had never seen one. Guests and co-workers would laugh at my ineffectual sightings so much so that I just decided baboons must be more like the Loch Ness monster – everyone talks about them, but no one sees. Even when my friend Tamsyn took pity on me and drove me to places where they ‘always were’ there was never one. Or any sign of them! I had heard the stories about them breaking into peoples’ houses and offices, smearing their faeces all over the walls, eating everyone’s’ food, but there was no real proof! I also live in the mountains exactly where they are meant to live – on the boat to a customer the other day Gary described it as ‘the bat cave behind the waterfall’. Its actually a beautiful little one room place, top right hand corner of Simonstown with a complete glass frontage overlooking False Bay and my next-door neighbour being a waterfall. It is my second favourite place in the world. My first, obviously, is Seal Island at sunrise. But back to my baboon! So for 4 months now I’ve been searching, going around Cape Point, looking and not finding. Today, my landlady and I had a long discussion about the baboons as apparently the monitors – men that walk around with paintball guns and flares shooting at them to keep them away from residential areas, had been in our area for 10 days and I hadn’t noticed a thing! Obviously I knew my baboon sighting just wasn’t meant to be. Later that day, sitting at home with my landladies little dog Zuzu on my lap I happen to glance up and see some huge brown ‘thing’ walking along the top of my railing on my balcony. It then turns and looks right at me – in through my OPEN front door-. I’m not sure I’ve ever moved so fast in my life as the realisation set in; leaping across my whole house (its actually not very far, maybe 5 metres…), slamming my front door shut and locking it in one fast move. The stories of baboons taking over whole houses with their troops, poo’ing over the walls, being completely unafraid of females (humans!), and basically leaving total destruction in their wake helped me move that little bit faster. I really wanted to see one, I’m not so sure I wanted it to be in my home. Poor Zuzu stared at the baboon and then hid behind me for safety, everywhere I went she followed like a little shadow. Pretty sure she didn’t want to be mistaken for food, such a tiny little dog! The baboon could have held her in one hand, and whisked her away for a baboon barbeque or to join the troop! Neither of us were going to let that happen, and happily (didn’t think id say that…) the baboon went away. I picked Zuzu up, ran up the flight of stairs to her official house and jumped in the door to find the landladies daughter shouting ‘careful, baboons!’. She had also been watching the one eat an onion in her garden, and thought Zuzu had gone forever. Within seconds she was on the phone to her mother telling her the emergency was over, the baboons had not stolen the dog and her mother could return to the party. Thankfully I had returned the teeny dog to its rightful home, me back into mine and all was well. But I do feel like I’ve reached a milestone today, I can properly say that South Africa is my home, and I, Kimberley Bushe, have seen a baboon. I’m also pretty proud as looking back over it I would have thought my first reaction would be to grab my camera for proof, but thankfully it was the safety of myself and my home! Well done me . No poo-stained walls today.