The road less traveled in rural Kenya

 

“I picked a bad way,” Kate muses as she leads us through what could only be described as an impassable wall of thorns. I laugh, more at the irony than the truth of it. In a terrain of steep hills decorated with enormous boulders and slippery gravel, poisonous thorns and tiny stickers, vertical gullies and crumbling dirt, there simply is no good way. I am four months into my yearlong stint in Kenya investigating baboon social behavior or, more appropriately, chasing monkeys around, and I am learning a lot. I have learned to shower with a bucket, to survive without constant access to wifi, and to navigate a manual, right-seating truck around potholes, boulders, and herds of unruly livestock. Most importantly, both because it is my job and because it brings me great joy, I’ve learned to identify nearly a hundred baboons by name. When looking for the right word to describe the baboons, I searched “tough” in my thesaurus and found following: durable, resilient, rugged, heavy-duty, and, my personal favorite, industrial-strength. As much as I laughed at the idea of an “industrial strength” baboon, it is somehow fitting. Baboons are unfazed by mountains and leap across treacherous crevices like they are skipping over lily pads.

I gasp as an infant plummets from a cliff to certain death below and shake my head in disbelief as, upon impact, she brushes off some dirt and bounds back up again. While I stop to examine a scratch from a thorn, six-month-old baboons casually navigate rows of spikes lining an acacia branch in pursuit of buds dangling precariously above. Baboons are athletic, agile, tough and completely indifferent to our humanly struggles. They watch with haughty disdain as I trip over my own feet and flail my arms desperately like a cartoon. Their comparative strength of body and mind is a testament to the adversity they endure on a daily basis. Without the luxuries we enjoy, baboons must roam far to find food and navigate the threats of other animals, humans in particular. Spending hours every day ranging with these animals is a rather unconventional look into what constitutes “hardship.” While I leave each afternoon and sigh a breath of relief to be able to simply sit still and munch on an apple from our trusty produce stand, I wonder at their ability to keep going, always running towards or away from something. Recently one of our favorite baboons, Tess, suffered a severe slash on her arm that left a few inches of skin hanging off, exposing the delicate flesh beneath.

She limped, tucking her injured arm tightly to her body, poking at it occasionally, while I mourned the infection that would inevitably cause her arm to fall clean off. Within a day she was using it for regular grooming and foraging activities, and less than a week later she was back to her happy, four-legged self. I stared at her in disbelief, and she returned a look of complete nonchalance as if to say, “Tis but a flesh wound.” Following baboons around all day has made me uncomfortably aware of how much time I spend thinking, no, worrying about myself. I watch Kate, a fellow intern, tromp through dense bushes and skirt up vertical rocks, not letting an avalanche of gravel or, I don’t know, a cliff stand between her and her baboon. I watch her in admiration and envy as I stumble across gentle slopes, more concerned about falling than about my animal, and nevertheless more prone to accidents. I wonder if with a little less vanity I might be able to move with her ease and, well, complete lack of self-preservation that somehow creates a more harmonious relationship with the environment. Like a baboon, perhaps. I have never before been complimented on my durability, ruggedness or strength in the face of physical hardship. Yet here I am, chasing baboons day after day, always looking for the easier path that I know I will never find, learning to accept and surrender to my surroundings. On Tuesday I knelt onto an acacia thorn. Today I fell in a ditch.

Every step I take is a gamble, with the outcome seemingly random. There is no such thing as the path of least resistance, and so the road not taken is the one we take. Such is the life of a baboon, of most of the world outside of my comfortable bubble, and as I have come to see, there is much to learn from their fortitude. And at the end of each day I feel as if I have really been through something. I have literally fallen and pulled myself up again, probably more than once. It is a strange and simple notion of accomplishment, and in my distress and exhaustion I am grateful.

About the author: Leah is a recent biology graduate currently pursuing behavioral research with baboons in rural Kenya. She enjoys the hobbies of an elderly grandmother such as reading, baking, knitting and shopping for new cozy socks.

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