How the Monkey Joined the Zoo
This tale is dedicated to Jennifer Freeman who has been predicting this day would arrive.
This is a somewhat of a sad story. Within our church fellowship, there is an elderly lady who is dying of cancer. She has lived in Nicaragua for many, many years. She loves the companionship of her animals...cats, dogs and her monkey. As she prepares to move to her eternal home with the Lord (which is the joyful part of the story), she has been making provisions for her animals, in particular, her capuchin monkey. We have been selected as the provisional home for this monkey.
While we laughingly joked in the past about getting a monkey, it isn't necessarily an animal that we wanted to add to the menagerie. However, for the love of this elderly woman, we welcomed a monkey into our midst yesterday.
As with all things here, we are trying to see the humor and irony amidst the sadness and craziness. Now our yard will presently contain: two cats, two dogs, two turtles, a few fish in a jar, and a monkey. I can only imagine what will we get next...a sloth? an ocelot?...only the Lord knows! However, I will tell you...one of the turtles (the larger, meaner one) will soon be released into the wild.
So, back to my story...the monkey arrived sleeping soundly thanks to some happy drug that Jeff injected it with to help with the transport. With the help of a friend and neighbor, we set up a rather large cage in our yard, placed the sleeping monkey inside and waited. Guessing from the dogs reaction, it was certainly awake rather early this morning. The kitten seemed a little freaked out. The monkey was quite interested and seemingly nervous about the small turtle. And Lexi, the rottie, was interested in whatever tasty morsel fell through the cage onto the grass. It really is a regular ol' zoo here at our house.
It played shy all day; however, it seems to "talk" to Andrew whenever he walks by the cage. Kinda funny. We have 'renamed' it Reina (which means queen) because we are on this kick of naming animals after Narnia characters. Its disposition is a little like the Snow Queen in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. So...Reina it is.
A few times today, we've said to each other in passing, "We have a monkey in our yard." Strange thing to say, isn't it? Yet, almost nothing seems truly strange now that we have lived here for three years.
So, back to my story...the monkey arrived sleeping soundly thanks to some happy drug that Jeff injected it with to help with the transport. With the help of a friend and neighbor, we set up a rather large cage in our yard, placed the sleeping monkey inside and waited. Guessing from the dogs reaction, it was certainly awake rather early this morning. The kitten seemed a little freaked out. The monkey was quite interested and seemingly nervous about the small turtle. And Lexi, the rottie, was interested in whatever tasty morsel fell through the cage onto the grass. It really is a regular ol' zoo here at our house.
It played shy all day; however, it seems to "talk" to Andrew whenever he walks by the cage. Kinda funny. We have 'renamed' it Reina (which means queen) because we are on this kick of naming animals after Narnia characters. Its disposition is a little like the Snow Queen in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. So...Reina it is.
A few times today, we've said to each other in passing, "We have a monkey in our yard." Strange thing to say, isn't it? Yet, almost nothing seems truly strange now that we have lived here for three years.
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| While still a work in progress...this is Noah's depiction of the monkey. |
