RICK'S BIG TRIP page 5
This page is dedicated to Jamyelese, who saw a documentary on TV with some monkeys in Holland. “Oh, you’ve got to see the monkeys!” she’d say to me in a sort of cute whiny little-girl-enthusiasm kind of voice, the monkeys that run around free, among the people. Well, Jamy didn’t know where the monkeys were, but I happened to come across an advertisement for the monkey show – it was in Apeldoorn. So I got on a train one morning and I went to Apeldoorn. Then I asked my way around a little bit and found the bus to the monkey place…
The place is called Apenheul, which means something like “the monkey league.” See how it’s underlined in a funny color (maybe blue)? That means that if you press on it, you’ll get the Apenheul webpage. Try it. These little critters are called Squirrel Monkeys. The Dutch name for them, however translates as Death Mask Monkeys. I guess it depends on how you look at them. As you see here, they find it swell to climb all over the tourists and see if there’s anything they can pull out of our pockets and bags. They’re terribly cute. In the picture above, you see the little ones clustered all over their moms, sometimes so tightly that they look like a single monkey with an extra head sticking out of the neck.
That little guy on the wire above amused me by climbing right up onto my lap – but he wasn’t into being cuddly – he wanted to know what I had in my shirt pocket. Before I knew what was happening he had snatched my pen and was running away, finding places to sit and gnaw on it…When I approached him, he mischievously ran off a little further, and eventually up on the roof. You see there, he still has my pen in his little monkey hands. A zoo worker climbed up on the roof and got my pen back, calling the monkey back like a naughty dog. The Death Mask monkeys obviously found me a good victim because I soon lost my tissues and zoo map in the same manner. I think the workers got tired of chasing after my stuff, so I put everything from my pockets into the secure zipper bag they gave me. No more monkey fun.
For those of you unfamiliar with monkeys and apes I found this handy illustration from an old text. You see, the apes are basically like humans but very hairy and rough-looking. Whereas the females (fig. 1) have cute faces with nice curly hair and the traditional broad poofy 17^th century collar, the males (fig. 2)have long grinchy looking fingers and deeply in-set eyes. Both sexes modestly obscure their genitalia at all times.
Here is a typical illustration of interspecies coexistence. You see that, although the little hairy ape prefers to walk on all-fours, the hairless humans find two-footed locomotion preferable, when necessary. Of course, we ideally get around with no feet at all – as long as we can find someone to push.
They say you’re not supposed to pet them, but everyone does. This creature belonged to a group they called halfapen, “half-monkeys.” I don’t know what that’s called in English. You know, like Lemurs and stuff. While this little darling was being petted another halfaap over his head suddenly let out forest-echoin,g blood-curdling shrieks, and our little teddy-bear here responded in kind, as if a duel to the death were about to begin. No blood was shed, but hey – these little fuzzballs are ferocious!
Here you see the two species facing each other off, over a body of water. It looks to me like we outnumber them, but I don’t think we’re that tough. Let those guys over the water and I’m sure they’ll kick our ass and take our peanuts. Lucky for us, not all the apes are allowed to interact with the humans. The gorillas come to the water’s edge and the guide tells stories about them and throws them bananas. Everything’s under control.
Ah yes, man the magnificent monkey, apostle of the apes, glory of the gorillas (to paraphrase Hamlet). That’s me doing the “look Ma I’m half gorilla” thing.
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