Monkey Season

While they are very hard to discern, there are seasons here in Barbados.  This, December, is winter time and it has been a bit cooler.  It rains less and is generally less humid than during rainy season.  As it is a bit dryer and will only get more so, food, fruit trees and I suppose some other sources, deplete, leaving the monkeys a bit desperate for food.  I do feel for the little buggers, but am still not particularly thrilled to find them trolling the garden looking for mangoes, fig bananas, or hand outs.  The hand outs, I thought, we had cleared up.  Whatever the former tenants and the ones before them had done, ie fed the monkeys, we have not been doing and will continue not to.  It has been a year and a half.  There will still be no more food coming from my hand to the mouths of wild animals in my yard and I have driven that fact home to all members of the household.

This week alone we have seen the roving band of monkeys, watched the mongoose flit from one wooded section to the next, and had two birds fly in and get stranded in the house.  Poor Didier, assigned as the "get animals, whatever they may be out of the house"  man, had to pick them up and carry them out, releasing them to the skies, after, of course, a little poo in the hand.  A few days ago, while chatting with my landlady in the yard, we both keep turning our heads in response to a tinkling noise that was distracting and curious at the same time, only to discover a group of young monkey kids had taken down a wind chime from one of the patios and were racing back and forth on the rooftop dragging it.  Complete silliness.  She tried in vain to get them to return it to us.  I think I would have just freaked if she'd been able to get them to understand her.  Like all little kids, her pleas caused them to run faster and wilder, climbing higher into the trees.  Small wonder Lily and Virginie love the monkeys so.

I was certainly not as cavalier about les singes when we first moved in.  My first week here I discovered that the sound of the crying baby had them racing to the burglar bars around the house straining for a closer look.  I could walk into the living room from the bedroom and there would be heads poking in, eyes darting around the room.  Cowering in terror and shrieking at the top of my lungs were pretty much the order of the day, every day, every time I saw those golden tails pass the window.  I didn't even like to be outside for too long because I needed to maintain the perimeter and truthfully, it was exhausting.

We have spent more time in the garden walking, playing, sitting on a blanket or lounging on lawn chairs, as we expect that our time here is soon over and we want to enjoy as much of the lushness before we head off to parts unknown.  Never did I say that the landscape of Barbados is not beautiful, or that I didn't appreciate, while not-so-quietly fearing the wildlife and its close proximity.  There is beauty here.  There are moments that are surely mapped in my psyche, maybe even my heart, that I will draw on later in my life. 

But the monkeys, the monkeys, the monkeys.  Try as I might, I cannot stop watching them and bugging out every time they come close, which is nearly every day.  With them, I am like one of those people who are told to act naturally in front of the camera, but as soon as they see the camera they are as stiff and unnatural as can be.  I see the monkeys and I am called to attention and watch them until they hop over the wall, climb over the fence, or swing from one tree to another off property.

More than likely, when we leave Barbados, we will leave the girls' swing set behind as it is expensive to ship back and not really fabulous enough not to be replaceable.  I think the monkeys will appreciate my parting gift.  It will be theirs to use freely and frequently until the next tenants come along and decide how they would like to proceed with monkeys in the garden.  I wonder if they will miss me as much as I will (probably) miss them.

(c) Copyright 2010.  City Mom in the Jungle.

(Last two photos were taken at my friend Wendy's house.   She gets lots of monkeys as the cabdrivers hoping to impress tourists with the sight of the monkeys, feed them rather close to her home.)