Barbary Apes in Maitama

Above the pool where we cooled ourselves from the late afternoon sun, a tribe of barbary apes made their way home. First, we saw branches shaking in a way the wind could not shake. Then, one small ape appeared, his face black, his body white. He looked down at us animals in the blue water, then circumspected the landscape. Then he gingerly made his way across the earthern scree, to disappear into the shrubbery. A swallow circled about, upset that its young had been disturbed by the shaking branches. Then another ape appeared, dropping down off a branch, with a tiny baby ape in tow. Slowly, with long pauses, studying the surrounds for predators, mother and child followed the first ape on the evening journey home. Then the father of the pack appeared, much bigger than all the others, his tail curled proudly against the deep red of the earth. He trekked boldly across the scree without pause, his body (about the size of a labrador) lithe and supple in forward movement. One by one, more members of the pack made their way from left to right.

A few minutes later, we saw them high in the trees to our right. One had secured the best spot in a fork of the branches. His body held fast by the cleft, he could afford to look lazily about, his safe night's rest assured. One of the baby apes ran along a small branch, its squirrel-sized body in silhouette against the dusking sky. Another practised jumping from branch to branch, according to a different relation to gravity. Slowly, the apes settled as night quickly drew in.