I found university boring. So I signed up as a volunteer helping re a scientific study in Nepal.
Apparently the Rhesus monkeys the US were using in studies were dying at an alarming rate at infancy. The study intended to find out why. Nepal had stopped shipping monkeys to the US because of this infancy mortality rate. I also heard that the monkeys were not well-treated on the trip over either.
I flew for hours and hours, stopping in all sorts of places to get to Nepal. It was not my first trip away from home, but it was the farthest and the first to a non-European or European derivative or American culture.
When I arrived, another participant was there and we hired a bicycle rickshaw to take us from the airport to the guesthouse. My goodness that was quite a long ride. Outstandingly beautiful.
While we were there during the monsoon season, this day was a brilliant sunshine as we passed terraces and hillsides of rice and rice planters.
Green upon green with great interruptions of brilliant color – the women’s clothing.
We were told to NEVER drink the water. Even use bottled water for brushing one’s teeth. I had had every vaccine they had thought of before this trip but best immunity is to not be exposed.
The food was too spicy for me so I lived on yak shakes. I think they were yak yogurt shakes. Very good.
We were briefed that evening. Remember. Don’t look at the monkeys. Don’t smile – they see it as a grimace and a challenge.
It might provoke them to attack. If bitten by a monkey, you will have to get anti-rabies shots from needles a half mile long. The flights are too long so you can’t get anywhere else in time for the next shot. You would have to stay in Nepal an extra 30 days to get these daily shots for 30 days.
Shiver. NeedleS got my attention.
We were split up – half would study the monkeys at one temple. The other would study the monkeys at the other direction – in a garden.
Monkeys in Nepal are considered sacred. Define sacred though – the kids threw rocks at them.
I was assigned the other palace garden much farther away. Only way to get there was to bicycle. I certainly got fit. There would be four of us at a time. We had to pick a baby and record everything it ate in a four hour period. Be very careful, the mothers would know we were watching. Be careful re food. Do NOT feed them.
After a few days, a week at the most, if we behave unthreateningly, the monkeys would eventually see us as part of the herd and ignore us.
It was fascinating for the first week or so. Our group was there for three.
About 9 days into this, i was quietly out of the corner of my eye watching one baby from about 80 yards. The mama started yelling at me in Rhesus. I turned even further away but I was assigned to that baby – something had interested the scientist and she thought I was the most thorough and observant.
Near this mama to my right – about 30 yards from her and 60 from me, was the leader of the herd and a couple of his lieutenants.
He told her to be quiet.
She stopped for a while. I was now about 120 yards away, facing 90 degrees away watching from my peripheral vision.
She started yelling at me again. Always present in my mind were those rabies shots. I started to mosey diagonally farther away.
This wasn’t enough. She must not have liked my shirt that day or something. She continued yelling, then jumped down from the tree and came racing over to me.
I stood stock still, looking down, not smiling, definitely not looking her in the eye. I was praying and wondering what a bite would feel like and if she would stop and who would come to help. I doubted any of the other volunteers would.
She stopped about 10 yards away trying to challenge me, then trying to decide what she would do.
I noticed the leader was racing toward me now.
Oh man – this isn’t good….when it became clear he was running to stop the mama. He told her to go away.
She ran off, turning now and again to get a last word in.
The leader came over to me.
Uh oh.
A bite from him is going to hurt even more…if I survive at all.
I tried to become invisible as I resisted any urge to do anything else like run, and stood stock still.
The leader put his paw on my leg kindly and then sauntered back to where he had been sitting eating.
I didn’t know how to say Thank you in Rhesus. I know smiling wouldn’t cut it.
But boy was I grateful.
I was now an accepted member of the herd and had all the protections, too.
Wild. Literally.
From that study, we learned that 95% of the monkey infants’ food was fiber. And in captivity in the US, they were fed about 5% fiber.
c. GCYI