Me and My Monkey

I can't remember the little lady's name precisely - let's call her Dotty - but the chimpanzee pictured in my arms in my photo was about the cutest damn thing I've ever held. She had a smell all her own. Though, to be truthful, she did smell a hell of a lot like an unkempt human. Had we been born covered with hair that is.

They say we're less than 4% different, us and chimps. This story is about that distinction: the less than 4% that separates us from another animal. Its easy to get lost in your own species I find. Even when I think about the environment, its about how humans participate in the environment. Not about all life together.

My ass was sore from riding for three days straight in the vehicle. We had made a Nelson Mandela shotgun start at the crack of 2 am from Johannesburg and had proceeded into Botswana for two days driving. We were now at the Zambezi River which was the border from Botswana to Zambia. It was dusty chaos down to the landing. Huge dirty trucks filled with what-not, buses painted in neon and pastel colors, and beat up cars. We parked and went to navigate the offices: insurance, customs, police, and ferry toll.

Gus was an English South African and carried all the baggage one had from that. He cheerfully went office to office with an air of confidence. IN a manner that said, "If you inconvenience me, it is another mark against the New Africa. Another travesty of mismanagement." I tailed him, bridled in this adventure with my white skin and his. I noticed that even from the beginning I napped with fervor, often, and with increasingly less remorse each time I heard him start to tell a story.

We waited for the ferry to glide across the smooth glassy surface of the river. There is nothing more pointless than looking across a body of water into another country I've learned. Its just land over there. Like land over here. Its just people and their distinctions that make it seem more important or to die for. Bananas, empire, or some concoction of them both.

Everywhere we stopped was a white man's version of Africa. Manipulate the grounds and rooms to be according to these specifications and it will be successful.