Since I’ve nearly reached the halfway mark of my time here, I figured it’d be good to actually update this blog. It’s kind of challenging to briefly summarize what I’ve been up to, because in some sense, our lives are very routine. We follow Monday-Friday for ten hours each day, have a braai on Saturday, and go into town for groceries and lunch every other weekend. When I first arrived I was a bit worried that it would start to feel really monotonous, but following has actually gotten more interesting the longer I’ve been here. I can now recognize all of the monkeys, which means I have a much better understanding of their interactions and personalities. I know that Obi will often just flop down on the ground for a casual nap, that Vector’s constantly stuffing his cheek pouches as if he will never have another opportunity to eat, and that Ubuntu seems to be spending a lot of her time with Zanzibar, a recently-immigrated male.

I’ve also gotten to see a lot of other cool wildlife, including all sorts of antelope, zebra, buffalo, rhino, elephants, cheetah, bat-eared foxes, jackals, giraffe, ardvark, lots of birds I can’t identify, monitor lizards, puff adders, and tortoises. Some of these animals cause the monkeys to alarm call (they’ve alerted us to the presence of many snakes, which is appreciated. Also, the other day I heard an alarm call, went to check it out, and a jackal ran right past me). Other species they tend to more or less ignore, but the infants seem to also have an intense curiosity about the world around them. I think this is best described in the following picture of an infant riding a very irritated tortoise:

Beyond monkey following, we occasionally do interact with humans or get to see a bit of local happenings. Yesterday, eight of us piled into a land-rover and went into town for a festival called Karoo-lus. There was live music, food (I had some kudu curry, which was delicious), dancing, and also a competition for who could make the best outfit out of only dog food bags. Because, you know, reasons. There was also apparently a Mr. Karoo competition, but sadly we had to leave before that took place.

Anyway, I’ll try to write a more detailed update soon. Basically, this is just to let everyone know that I’m still alive and having a pretty good time. For those of you in Michigan/other cold climates, enjoy the onset of winter. We had snow here about a month ago, but it’s finally warming up enough to feel like Africa…