Saturday, July 30, 2005

Monkey!


More Caco
Originally uploaded by russandval.
We spent yesterday afternoon painting the little church in Itinga. (More about that later, I'm just eager to share the monkey experience!) Some members of the church live right behind it and afterwards, we got to play with their pet monkey! Alicia and I have had a bit of an obsession with monkeys since we first came to Brazil. Any time we get to see a monkey is a big deal. So imagine our delight when we not only got to see a monkey, but we got to stick our fingers into the cage as well. Caco (the monkey) held our fingers and we were pretty content and went back to the church building. But then Russ came in and told us they had the monkey out of the cage so we went running back up to the house.

Caco was pretty shy and reluctant to go to anyone but when I held out my hands he came to me. I snuggled him up to me like I would any small animal. It was awesome. Awesome until he decided he was done. He started squirming and I started panicking, because at the back of my mind, I was thinking, "This monkey will bite me and give me some mysterious monkey virus." When he decided to jump, I gave him a little help, ultimately making him land on the head of a nearby baby. He bounced off the shocked baby's head and landed on the sofa, where he sat perched for the rest of the time. He would let us sit and hold his hand, but wouldn't let anyone hold him again. But I didn't care- I got to hold him! (Okay, I felt a little bad that no one else got to, especially Alicia. And I do feel bad that I scared the baby, who was really closer to a toddler. But the kid's okay, I promise- he was just a little startled!)

And that's just a fraction of what we did yesterday. More to come.

9 comments:

Karen said...

Cool experience! The monkeys are my favorite stop at the zoo. But I would like to get closer myself.

Anonymous said...

You threw a monkey at a baby??
Mean lady! :P

Anonymous said...

(also, nice pictures, cute monkey)

Anonymous said...

Cute Monkey. Just went through all the pics and I'm sure that Stacey will be glad to know that Alexis is still showing great interest in her boys. I guess this arranged marriage thing might work out after all. Love ya, Jenny

Karen said...

Awesome new template! Chunks my new header in the water. I just love the computerized portrait. It looks so close to the real thing. Go Susan! You are the new Juanita. (you have to read my blog to get it.)

Anonymous said...

thanks karen! I had noticed your comments but didn't recognize you from the tiny photo till I visited your blog. I like your header! Hm.. am I going to get in trouble for commenting about your blog on val's?

Jennifer Schroeder said...

sounds like you guys are experiencing some very new things. my question is...how much therapy will the baby have to endure when he/she is an adult to remove this traumatic episode from his/her psyche?

Anonymous said...

hehehe... so many wrong comments come to mind.

anyway -- i too like the new header. very chic. also, tell russ to update something here and there!

Valerie said...

Let's be a little less judgemental, friends- you all would have thrown the monkey too! (Especially if you had watched Outbreak recently, as I had!)

The new header is courtesy of my dear sister, Susan. She's quite talented and deserves to make gobs of money for her good work. Until I have gobs of money to give her, she receives ten sister points for her labour.