I’ve mentioned DC before.  They are the large group of urban baboons that hang out in camp, pilfering and fighting and generally causing a ruckus.  Well, recently I have started following this group and, let me tell you, theirs are a far sight from the innocent shenanigans of BA and AC.  See, life in DC is the hard-knock life.  It’s dirt and grit and here’s-a-punch-in-the-teeth-so-say-thank-you.  The kids are wilder, the adults meaner.  The whole ethos of the group is rough and tumble, living-by-your-wits, all violence and conniving.  Everyone sleeps with one eye open.

The first clue that DC was a far cry from the Kansases of my other groups was the kids.  There are countless little ones rolling around with head wounds or clumps of hair missing.  They’ve grown up on the mean streets where someone is just as likely to give you a hard smack as a gentle groom, and they have the scars to prove it.  They make me think of young gang members,

One of the head wound kids. She looks sweet but, trust me, she’s cheeky.

eyes swollen black from another fight, and all this getting knocked about turns them into bravado and swagger.  In my other groups, little kids are curious about us, but they are also timid.  In DC, you can beeline right up to some tyke and he’ll just look at you as if to say, “What?  You expect me to move?  Tough.”  As they get bigger this pissing in the face of authority turns into outright boldness.  Three year old boys taunt me as I walk past them, flashing their eyebrows at me in the typical “you want a piece of this?” baboon move.  A couple particularly tough ones openly harass me.  I don’t know all the juveniles’ names because they’re not vital for my current research, but some I’ve come to recognize and name because I run into them frequently.  Ofisi (Swahili for “office”…I call him this because he often saunters into the office as if it’s no big thing and then doesn’t leave, even if you threaten him) will often amble up to me and snatch my pants.  I always tell him to knock it off and he just looks at me like I’m some kind of nasty insect and refuses to back down.  He probably weighs 10 pounds.  Tops.  His insolence is only eclipsed by Potter (he’s missing a big chunk of hair which made me want to call him Harry, but we’ve already got a Harrison, so…).  Potter goes out of his way to walk up and slap my legs.  He usually follows up a smack with a couple firm pushes.  Other days he’ll just take a running start and actually Jackie-Chan ricochet of my shin, like I’m a tree trunk and he’s a parkour master.  It’s ridiculous.  Then, as these kids get older still, they turn into thugs on a street corner, loitering in groups and ogling me as I walk by.  I can practically hear the whistles and jeers and tend to clutch my computer tighter and avoid eye contact as I hustle by.

The adults are also brazen.  The one-eyed female I’ve already written about has broken into our house twice and barely responds to threats, even if you pelt her with rocks (she also has the delightful and perplexing name of “Salad”).  When I’m

Ubungo. Not as ugly as Amadu, but working on it.

home alone in the middle of the day I’ll hear the startling rattle of someone trying to burst through the door and my heart will climb into my throat until I remember that the door is locked.  And I’m never worried because I think it’s people.  It’s never people.  Our windows are covered in thick wire grates like we live in a bad part of New York City and it’s only because an enterprising baboon can rip through something thinner in a matter of minutes.  As it is we’ve already discovered a security breach on one of the windows, the grate peeled back by nimble fingers, and we’re desperate for a repair because only a little bug mesh lies between us and a house full of smashed bananas and monkey poop.  Beyond thievery, the adults are also more likely to threaten, with males making overt displays of their massive canines (and the scars to back up their use) and the females giving me a good eye-browing or, in the case of Honey yesterday, a firm slap on the leg (Honey, it turns out, is not really a honey).  I find myself constantly chastising these baboons, aloud, exasperated, like some worn out teacher in one of those teenage inner-city hooligan movies and, just like that teacher, I find my pleas falling on deaf ears.  I want to move back to the country.