Playing Vervets

I'm reading Martha Becks's Finding Your Way in a Wild New World which just arrived in the post (it's not being sold at any of our bookshops yet) and just had to share the following story with you. Go Martha!

I'm on my way from my cottage at Londolozi to the central camp when I catch sight of several vervet monkeys bouncing around in the grass. Closer inspection reveals that the monkeys are juveniles, ranging in age from babies to the size of kittens to half-grown adolescents the size of...bigger kittens.

As I tiptoe nearer to the vervets, I can see they're playing an almost organized game, which might be called something like DUDE, I TOUCHED THE BIG ANIMAL! Proportionally this activity is to them what running up and touching an elephant would be to a human. Some of the little ones are just watching, but the bravest monkeys move hesitantly toward the nyala, dance backward when their courage fails, then nerve themselves to try again, until they can reach out one hand and poke the antelope's leg. At that point, they dash around in exultation for a few minutes, accepting the admiration and envy of their peers. The nyala just keeps munching leaves, sighing occasionally.

The first time I ever heard a rustle in the underbrush and glanced over to see a monkey's face was both joyful and unnerving. I'm used to seeing birds and squirrels and chipmunk, which are delightful but (no offense) not exactly rocket scientists. By contrast, when you meet a monkey's eyes, you can immediately tell it's thinking. You can almost see the mental gears clicking away behind that little humanoid face. Monkeys are so very much like us, sharing about 93 percent of our DNA, that watching the game of DUDE, I TOUCHED THE BIG ANIMAL! I feel as if I've stumbled into a community of Lilliputians.

As I move forward to get a better view, stepping slowly and stopping often so as not to scare them, the little monkeys finally notice me. The bravest, biggest juvenile looks at me for a long moment. Then he looks at the nyala. Then he looks back at me.

Suddenly I sense that DUDE, I TOUCHED THE BIG ANIMAL! is about to be kicked up a level.

Sure enough, the troop leader stops edging up to the antelope and begins moving closer to me. Within seconds the other kids - I mean vervets - realize what's up. They all abandon the nyala, like five-year-olds suddenly riveted on a new screen for a video game. Five or six of the most adventurous begin to approach me, looking scared but determined.

For a minute or two, I'm thrilled. To have wild things walk right up to me is like stepping into a Disney cartoon - and, just like my rhinoceros, it;s real! But when the monkeys get within about three feet of me, it starts to feel a little too real. Sure, they only come up to my knees, but they can jump really high, and they outnumber me. Plus, that almost-human vibe is getting slightly alarming. I suddenly remember a story about an old woman who was attacked and eaten by her own ten miniature poodles. I recall that movie with Dustin Hoffman where one monkey bite kills a human, via an infection that threatens to wipe out humanity. "Whoa!" I say, and do a little jazz-hands thing in the air.

The baby monkeys bounce backward as if yanked by unseen bungee cords. For a moment, they comfort each other, chirping and squealing as they get their heart rates down and their feart under control. But then, goading one another on, they advance again.

"Hah-hah!" I say, trying to sound confident and light-hearted. The monkeys are getting downright brazen. The look in their eyes reminded me of women waiting for the doors to open on Super Sale Saturday day at Walmart. They creep forward slowly but steadily.

"Aaagh!" I blurt, rather too loudly. Bigger jazz-hands this time.

They jump back, but only a foot or so. Almost immediately they resume forward progress. I can feel my heart rate speed up.

"Boo!" I shout, waving my jazz-hands high in the air.

This time the little monkeys don't jump back. Nor do they attack. Instead, as if by arrangement, they stand up, raise their arms, and wave their hands above their heads.

Tiny jazz-hands!

I burst out laughing, my nervousness suddenly drowned out by astonished delight. Something has changed for the monkeys. They've registered the fact that I'm not just a big animal they can use as a dare, like the nyala. Just as I've been keenly aware that they're nearly human, they seemed to have realized I'm nearly simian. I've graduated from being the object of the game to being a full-fledged participant.

For the next ten minutes or so, I mimic the monkeys' moves while they mimic mine, until it's hard to remember who is leading whom. "Humans love playing with other animals," says Diana Ackerman in her wonderful book Deep Play, "and sometimes this leads to a purity of exchange almost magical in its intensity." I can only hope that my playtime with the vervets is as magical for them as it is for me. We have more and more fun until eventually we all get up the nerve to let them them touch the hem of my pants, an event so exciting that I think we all pee a little.

To the people who must maintain Londolozi's elegant ambiance and top-rated cuisine, monkeys are an annoyance - they'd as soon steal your toast as look at you, and their droppings are both copious and malodorous. But I've always loved the vervets: the babies with their tiny faces, the adult males with their impressively bright turquoise testicles (yes, literally blue balls). Playing with the monkey nursery plunges me as deep into Wordlessness as I've ever been; their minds are so very like human children's, but without one syllable of language. By the time we hear an adult vervet piping an alarm and the babies head for the treetops, I've almost forgotten the tense and ordered way I usually think.