Baboons are an intregal part of the dish-cleaning process. We have a group of 10 or so that hover around our campsite just outside the clearing where our hut sits. When dinner is finished we simply leave the plates out back, and find them in the morning strewn about the clearing completely clean.
We have taken to asking each other prior to using any utensils ‘is this the baboon knife, or the clean one?” All baboon knives means it’s time to do the camp dishes.
The Ugandans liken them to dogs, and they bark in a very similar way, but are much more mischievous. We sat Wednesday afternoon at the edge of our clearing listening to the baboon chat in the waist-high grasses just 20 yards away. The dads keep the kids on their backs, and sometimes, we are told--will put them through the bars in your windows to steal your bananas. We keep our shutters closed when we are out, with the bolt turned!!
This morning however, we had a shock. Our hut is a small concrete building in the shape of a square with a cement floor. If you can picture the square, then divide it in half. One half is bedrooms, the other half is a thick hallway, where we keep our supplies stacked on tables. This side has a door opening on each end--one toward the kitchen and one toward the forest.
A quick brown flash this morning as we were standing in the bedroom area made us all run out into the hall yelling. Tail waving left to right and looking at us over his shoulder, a baboon had run into one of the doors, picked up a packet of Emergen-C Bone Health (vitamins) from one of the tables, and dashed out the opposite door. I swear he was laughing. We all realized that we had been yelling after him and then stopped and laughed too. A baboon was in living room. Now that's just wierd.
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