Hey...hey, I'm a monkey!

Recently a monkey’s been monkeying around the campus. Coincidentally, I had one of the first run-ins with it. I was visiting with the principal in her office after school. As we were leaving the office I was startled to see a strange face quickly coming towards me. It was at eye level and it really took me a few seconds to realize that a monkey, not a human, was standing less than 5 feet away from me. I didn’t scream because I think I was shocked. It was the last thing I expected to see! Rita and I turned right around and locked ourselves in the office. This monkey was huge! The kind you’d see in a zoo. We opened the windows and started making noises at it, trying to make it go away. It bore its ugly teeth at us and I thanked God that it hadn’t bitten me right through with those ugly fangs. Rita tried calling the office downstairs to alert them of our situation while I stared on in curiosity at this Darwinian creature. It really did have human-like features. It just sat there yawning, seemingly undisturbed by the whole situation, while I sat there behind the bars. We tried calling several people to no avail, so we decided to try shouting. Then we heard the car come for Rita and the driver was honking for her to come down. Rita called his cell phone but couldn’t reach him.

Finally Ramaka came to our rescue. As she came near we warned her about the impending danger. She spoke something in Tamil and then came back with a huge stick. When the monkey saw the stick he (it was definitely a he) dashed up the tree. As we were ‘pent up’ for some time I couldn’t help but think, how ironic it was that this monkey kept us trapped inside the bars while he enjoyed his freedom. Since this encounter, there have been several incidences of this illustrious monkey jumping from tree to tree on the school grounds and reaching in the window to steal food from the hospital patients. All this monkey-biz has got the kids riled up. One of my students even reported to me that the monkey scratched him as he was chasing it! Hopefully the monkey won’t put us behind the bars of the hospital as well.