Baba And The Monstrous Monkeys! (Cave Ashram, Part III)

March 08, 2023

When I first spotted the monkeys appearing up over the cliff near the ashram my first morning there, I was utterly charmed. There was a HUGE band of them... families, youngsters of every size...they were SO cute! So inquisitive, playful, interesting, delightful!!!

That was all well and good, until Swamiji got the brilliant idea to feed them (this, after confessing to me that the villagers--sensible people that THEY are--threw sticks and rocks at the monkeys to chase them off, and for good reason, as you will soon learn!) Now, clearly he either wasn't aware of-- or else completely ignored-- the common wisdom about NOT feeding wild animals. They may be cute, and humanoid-like beings, but wild animals they still are...

First, he decided to give them orange peels from an orange I had eaten. Then, some pieces of coconut.... I delighted in taking photos, amazed by how close they came (though never eating directly out of his hands...) and it was quite a scene.

HOWEVER!!!!! What happens when you encourage a gang of monkeys by feeding them?! They become emboldened. They figure there is more of that good stuff where the humans are living... and then they can become a royal nuisance, at the very least, if not dangerous and destructive...

I caught one such monkey, as you will see in a photo below, climbing into the window of our room, before I yelled at it and chased it off.

But then I made the mistake of going into the bathroom while the door and window were still open (Swamiji was outside, so I figured he was keeping an eye on them... I was wrong!!!)

The next thing I knew, he was yelling for me: "Sheri, a monkey seems to have something of yours...it is something yellow, something plastic!!"

Well, much to my horror, I quickly realized that the "something" the monkey had was my night guard in its yellow plastic case (clearly the color must have appealed, looking like a very ripe banana to that dastardly monkey?!?!) That night guard--custom made-- which cost me $200 in Mexico, would have cost double that in the U.S....

I freaked out and ran toward it, hollering...

It was a juvenile that had it, holding it in his mouth with his horrible little paws, as he sat in a small tree that hung over the cliff. There was a very precarious, 100 foot drop to the ground below. I shrieked at this little monster, who was frightened enough to drop the case... down the side of the cliff, where it disappeared into the thicket of scrub brush below....

"FUUUUUCKKKKKK!!!" I screamed at the top of my lungs...

"THIS DID NOT JUST HAPPEN!!!!"

Swamiji tried to calm me down... I would not be consoled.

"We HAVE to find it!!!" I growled at him...

So proceeded a search party: He, I and one other village fellow (who volunteered to help in the search), I didn't hold out much hope... seemed to me it would be like finding the proverbial "needle in a haystack." A fourth fellow stood on the spot at the cliff's edge where the case had fallen, so we could at least get a sense of the general area to look for it.

We went around to where stone stairs led down to the caves below, and a pathway alongside them...over to where the monkey had been when he dropped the case.

We proceeded to scramble through those thick bushes, getting poked and scratched as we went...

And then...

Miracle of all miracles! I FOUND THE CASE! Even MORE miraculous: the night guard itself-- a clear plastic piece--had come out of the case and landed a few mere inches from the case. Thus it was that I was able to recover both--unharmed, unchewed, totally usable! MOST incredible!

But WHAT a valuable lesson:

Follow the villagers' wisdom and chase those damn, monstrous monkeys AWAY, and never, EVER feed them!!!!!

Yes, cute...but....!!!

Against all common village wisdom, Swami offers coconut to the wild monkeys...

Their first appearance, on the edge of the cliff near the ashram...

Families with babies, adolescents... aunts, uncles... !

But then, after African Baba fed them, they grew bolder, came closer, and began to explore everything outside of the ashram building...buckets, hoses... all manner of stuff...