Going Native or Just Going Whacko?

My work has consumed my life and I am seriously addicted! Ok, this is a bit weird but since my work is all about watching monkeys, I often feel like I am becoming more and more like a colobine as each day in the field passes. Perhaps this is what cultural anthropologists describe as “going native”… except in my case I am turning into a colobus monkey rather than into an indigenous person. Due to the fact that I can recognize individual monkeys in each of the study groups I observe and since I have the privilege of watching each of these individuals live out their daily lives (interacting with other group members, infant handling, being social or anti-social, eating, sleeping, defecating, urinating, copulating, etc.), I sometimes feel like I should stop being a stalker and introduce myself to them. Maybe I would somehow be accepted into their group or I could be their human friend or something … Hehehe Sometimes I wish that I could just climb up into the tree, extend my hand out in greeting to one of the colobus monkeys in a group I am observing, and say:

“Hello, my name is Julia. It is very nice to meet you… officially that is. I’m one of the pale primates living outside your forest, which walks bipedally and makes excessive noise. You’ve probably noticed me staring at you daily for 8 hours every day with my giant bug-eyed lenses (binoculars), as I shout out gibberish codes to the other bipedal primate standing next to me (Katie) who seems to be obsessed with frantically poking the side of a log (Psion) with her fingers. I just wanted to come up here to introduce myself. May I offer you a delicious cabbage, spinach, kale maybe, as a sign of peace and friendship? (colobus monkeys are notoriously folivorous and have trouble digesting anything but green leaves).”

I don’t think such a scenario would end well. Also, who am I kidding? I could never get my ass up into one of their trees, let alone be coordinated enough to extend an arm out while I’m up there and say all that! Oh well… guess I’ll just continue stalking my colobus friends until my field season is over. Did I mention that I dream about colobus monkeys and about collecting behavioral data almost every night?