Learning to Speak Baboon

Mornings at C.A.R.E. begin at about 6 a.m. with a crescendo akin to the falling of immense hailstones onto my room's corrugated aluminum roof -- the sound of adult baboons descending from their sleeping perches in a sycamore fig -- coupled with a fervent chorus of wa-hoos and copulation cries. The day, with its mixed cacophony of dangers, hungers and lusts, is about to begin.

I've already been given my assignments for my first day, as posted on the bulletin board in the lodge just up the hill. Mine is a typical volunteer's schedule: bottles from 11 to 12; being in the cage to supervise the mediums (between 8 months and 1 year old) from 1 to 2; the same with the smalls (between 4 and 8 months) from 2 to 3; and, finally, in the nursery, home to the youngest infants, from 4 to 5. At around 5:30, all three groups of babies will be brought into the two rooms adjoining Rita's kitchen to spend the night.

As I learned from the moment Lee and I first drove onto the property, there are actually two troops of baboons in residence: the "wild" troop, numbering somewhere around 120 and affectionately named "Longtits" by Rita for reasons that take little time to become apparent, and the caged troop, whose cages are dispersed all over the property, and who usually number between 300 and 500. The wild baboons moved in shortly after the mid-1980s, when Rita, five ridgebacks and a baboon named Bobby first arrived on the property.

"Word had gone around in the animal world that there was this small piece of wilderness where they were welcome, where nobody shot at them or looked at them as the next piece of biltong [South African jerky]," Rita wrote in a private journal she later showed me. Unable to turn them away, she soon made the center the wild troop's home as well, and from that decision emerged the rather unusual "cohabitation" of the wild and the tame that is one of C.A.R.E.'s trademarks.

The main function of the "surrogate mothers" -- female volunteers who stay with the infants 24/7 for at least a month -- is to provide the kind of good-enough mothering that will help the baboons overcome early traumas, which often include witnessing the brutal killings of their mothers and troop mates. The young baboons' emotional wounds aren't hard to observe: Many of the infants seem fearful, skittish and very needy.

On my first full day, as I watch one of the mediums, Jager, cowering by himself in a corner, I also realize that these baboons and I have something in common beyond the 95 percent of our shared genetic makeup: We were both taken, at a very young age, from our biological mothers: I at 8 days, when I was adopted by my aunt and uncle; many of these baboons even earlier.

This may even explain why, in some dark Freudian corner of my psyche, I have come here to begin with -- and why there is something that touches me so deeply about these small, needy, frightened and helpless baboons. Perhaps, it occurs to me, I have something not merely physical, but psychological, to offer them -- and, even at this advanced stage of my life, myself.

One of the first things I need to do is to speak baboon. I've got to learn to differentiate between lip-smacking (a gesture of friendship), grunting (contentment and communication), warning calls, laughing sounds, mating cries, and all the rest -- the emotional range is rather astonishing. At night, alone before the bathroom mirror in my room, I practice lip-smacking, but it often seems to me that my attempts more closely resemble those of a forlorn lover blowing kisses than a baboon trying to be friends.

As for the wild troop, there are lessons to be learned from them, as well. For one, it isn't wise, especially for a man, to make direct eye contact with one of the large males, which, as I realized from my early experience with Dennis, can be perceived as a challenge. I also observe that when males are copulating or grooming a prospective mate, it's best to keep a certain distance. Simply picking up a rock is sure to intimidate even the large males, as I quickly discover when a female volunteer stoops to pick one up in front of a copulating couple and is rewarded with a powerful shove.

By the end of my first week, the baboons are beginning to take a liking to me -- though how that "liking" manifests itself isn't always what I hope for. One of the mediums, Komoti, for example, begins maniacally grooming my chest -- a "grooming" that includes, rather painfully, pulling on my chest hairs. Dennis, who initially led the "mob" against me, and his faithful sister, Maggie, are beginning to treat me like two fawning hairdressers, one on each side. Among the smalls, Zeffirelli chooses the approach/avoidance method: He gets up on my knee, sits down, opens his arms wide, lip-smacks me, and then takes off in the other direction, sometimes pausing just long enough to pee on my leg. Flirtation? Game? Whatever it is he wants from me, his behavior now recalls something I've read in Shirley Strum's book:

"I have observed baboons when meeting for the first time, advancing and retreating, a slow respectful means of getting to know each other. Sometimes their language is so indirect that it is difficult to detect at all, and in human terms it appears as if they were ignoring each other when in fact they are merely acknowledging the other's personal boundaries."

So that, I suppose, is precisely what Zeffirelli is doing: just getting to know me.