A day in the life of a village baboon

6.00am: Some of my brothers were imprisoned away in the zoos of this country such that some human beings who travel long distances from far off countries can come and watch them. That really pisses me off. Can you imagine they have reduced such powerful animals like us to mere tourist attractions? That is why I always wake up very early to plan on how I can eat the hell out their crops in this village. 

6.15 am. To really achieve my end I need to call all my brothers that are still leaving in the forest such that we can properly plan out our day. We need to descend on the crops of those farmers that are cultivating in this forest like a Tsunami and thus the need for a meeting.

7:30am But then our meeting is temporarily interrupted by a farmer who is crossing through the forest to go and tend his garden on the other end of this narrow strip of a forest. We quickly sum up the meeting with resolutions now that farmers have started coming for the days work.

7:00am  We move in our group and then go and pitch camp at a place near some of the gardens in the forest. One farmer is there before us and he is listening to the early morning bulletin while digging. I, also decide to listen ko to the bulletin and guess what? The National Forestry Authority is cautioning human beings against cutting down trees. I am so excited. I share the good news with my brothers and sisters.

7:30am:  Instead one of us gets more agitated and begins ranting about how disobedient human beings are. He points to the fact that despite the stern warnings of the NFA some human beings have still insisted on making life for us hard by cutting down the trees in the name of creating more land for farming. But I console him when I remind him that we can avenge for such crude behavior of some human beings by seriously “showing their crops touch”

8:00am:  We are reminded that there is a farmer who always delays to come to his farm. So we go to that farm to help him attend to the farm such that by the time he turns up at the farm he will have a reason to come early next time. That is where we have our breakfast

9:00 am: The lazy farmer finally comes and we are forced to leave

12:00noon: Most farmers are leaving their farms. We have to send snoops around to check on which farmers have left some children behind to keep the farms. One of the farmers thinks we are fools and so he leaves behind a scarecrow instead of a human being to guard his garden. Mind you we know the difference between a human being that puffs and huffs and a scarecrow. So we go for that one’s garden just to prove to him that we are smarter.

1:00pm: The children that most of them left in the garden are preparing lunch and which we believe shall be ready by 2:00pm or shortly after. The children around here can cook very fast. No wonder that some men come all the way from the towns to fetch daughters of men from this forest of a village.

3:00pm: The digestion of what the Basoga call emboli (Sweet Potatoes) begins having its effect on some of these children and helps us do the needful. Most of these human beings begin dozing. That is when our day seriously kicks off. We go into the gardens and have our lunch two hours after the normal lunch time for human beings. Anti human beings in this country, I am told always have lunch at 1:00pm.

3:30pm: The Children awake from their temporal slumber and that is when they realize that we have also

been having lunch at their expense. They shout at us and chase after us. They hurl all kinds of insults

at us while calling out our names. Enkobeee! (Baboons!) But who cares? After all we have just had a

satisfying meal at their expense. 

5:00pm: Evaluation time. Every one of us is talking about the Lazy farmer and cursing that other farmer that

spends the whole day in the garden with his children. That farmer always denies us the opportunity

to have a taste of his gorgeous maize. Oba is he a pagan? Even on Sundays he is there in his garden. Kyoka

even on public holidays he is in the garden. We observe a moment of silence and say “May his soul rest in

eternal pieces” in advance because we long for his death.

7:00pm: We have to sign out and go to sleep. We ought to sleep early because our day always starts early.

The rate at which we eat when we get into some of those gardens gives us a reason to skip supper before

we sleep.