Yola licked me for the third time today.  I spent an hour and forty minutes watching Yamba lick stones yesterday.  This afternoon, I watched Ubergiji and a whole slew of compadres lick a dirty wall for almost an hour.  Something is wrong with these baboons.

Okay, the stones make sense.  With a diet that consists almost entirely of bitter fruits, a variety of nutty-like berries, and grass, the salt of a good potato chip is far, far away.  In fact, the only real source of dietary salt (a necessary mineral, though we in America tend to consume it in excess) seems to be stones.  Water from the lake splashes up, dries, and leaves behind trace deposits of salts.  Considering it’s a freshwater lake, a baboon has to lick a lot of stones to get any real payoff.  And, man, do they lick A LOT of stones.

I found the wall more puzzling.  And hilarious.  They gathered around it like the faithful, hands pressed flat or propped on stairs or ledges in odd, uncomfortable positions as they licked and licked and licked and licked.  Urusi, whom I’ve come to think of as a bit of a bitch, spent much of her licking time supplanting her older sister, insisting on licking the exact spot Ubergiji was just licking, as if that particular patch of mold was especially tasty.  Later, I discovered the dilapidated building they had encircled in their bizarre baboon ritual used to be a kitchen, and that they just might be cashing in on some ancient rotted food grime.  Mmmm.

I offer no explanation for the me-licking.  Three times now Yola has just sauntered up to me and delicately leaned in to lick my pants.  One lick is all I get, and then she continues on her way.  Perplexing.

In other licking news, of the more down-home and dreary kind, AC troop took quite a licking while I was away on my travels.  I came back to find that Massive Headwound Maat had succumbed to his massive head wound (I was given a few choice gory details which I will spare you here) and that the three littlest boys, Yuumbi, Ukita, and Yai, were all picked off my chimpanzees.  I suspected as much when I didn’t see them trailing after their mothers on Friday, but kind of hoped I just wasn’t looking hard enough.  Apparently, this isn’t super uncommon and AC has been hit by the chimp brigade before, but three is a particularly harsh blow.  I was sort of looking forward to seeing ballsy, freestyle-walking Ukita grow up to be a holy terror of a male, but, alas.  Hopefully, the next few to pop out (births coming soon!) will be slightly better guarded.