Today, however, we went to pick up a baby baboon from a friend of CARE's in Johannesburg. I'm not sure what his complete backstory is, but he is 10 weeks old and his name is Thor. Right now he is sitting on my chest eating grapes. This will be my first night sleeping with a baby baboon, and I'm a little nervous about it. But he seems well behaved for now, but not quite sleepy since he took a long nap in the car. It's been a long two days of getting up early and tonight is going to long as well. But hey, this is life in the bush with baboons. Thor is insanely cute, and looks like he'll grow up to be a big boy. He'll only sleep with me for the few nights we are at Bombelela, and will likely go to Elin (another long term volunteer here who is here for another 6 months and who has already raised two babies) when we return to CARE. He'll be in good hands. I'm not staying long enough from now to become his full-time surrogate mom unfortunately, and I'm sure much to my mother's disappointment. He's still eating the grapes, well the stem now, on my stomach (making this hard to type around him) and I should probably try to get some sleep, although Thor seems wide awake. Wish me luck!
In other news, another young baboon came into the clinic last week with tetanus. He didn't have a name and I just happened to be there when he came in, so I named him Aeneas! Highlight of my week. Then I recounted the whole story of the Aeneid to everyone at dinner. (Wikipedia Aeneas if you don't know who he is). I've had a long Latin/Classics relationship with Aeneas and now I think it makes an awesome baboon name. A strong name like Aeneas will help him pull through the tetanus.
So now I've got Toughie, Aeneas, and Thor to think about. I must end this here so Thor doesn't keep pressing random keys with his sticky grape fingers.
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