Meet Charlie

I know you have been waiting for months to meet Charlie.  Well, here he is:

Charlie is a long time resident of Nigeria Bethel and has literally been there since the beginning of the branch in Igieduma.  Over 20 years.  He is a red-capped mangabey monkey.  He is much bigger than Darragh whom you met in the last post.  He stands maybe 2 or 2 and a half feet high at the shoulder when he stands on all fours.    Like any other monkey I've met, he loves bananas.  For awhile on Saturdays and Sundays you could see him every week in the mango grove across from our room.  He barks like a dog to let all the residents know that he is outside and would appreciate bananas.  Charlie is a banana connoisseur.  He prefers his bananas to be perfect.  Too ripe and he throws it away.  Too green and he throws it away.  Prior to eating he will smell it to make sure you aren't pawning off your bad bananas:

All the bananas we gave him were up to par.  Phew!  I totally get where he is coming from, I am super picky about my bananas too.   Probably even more so! He is relatively tame, but not like a pet.  Charlie still has some respect for the distance that should be there between people and animals.  He will take a banana out of your hand but will not touch you.  My kind of monkey.

 Charlie is very dignified.  I googled pictures of other red-capped mangabey monkeys but he is the best groomed and cleanest monkey I have seen, on the internet or in life.  His coat is so glossy and full.  He is not a common monkey and because of the bush-meat trade there are no monkeys like him around that area any more.  If you ever come to Nigeria Bethel we hope he will still be around for you to see.

 

As a side point, we are back home now. We had a wonderful trip in the U.K. on our way and got to see our family before we came back to our home.  It's nice to be in our cute apartment once more and settle back into life!  I'm planning a couple more posts on Nigeria, now that I've got my computer with me again.  Thanks for keeping up with our adventures!

In the Jungle......

Many people think that when you  come to Africa you must be going on Safari.  I think our experiences in Nigeria could rival a Safari, after all, living in a place and interacting with the culture and nature for longer than a short trip around a park must leave a deeper impression.  That being said, I would really enjoy going on a Safari. A safe one.  Maybe someday I will get to go on one, but in the meantime we got to interact and see animals daily! In fact, people that come to tour are amazed at the animals that we live with there.  Some even come just to see the animals we have within the walls.  We hope that they leave with an appreciation for the work we do, but they sure are impressed with the animals!

One of the first critters to greet us in Nigeria Bethel were the Duiker Antelope.  There are perhaps dozens within the Bethel walls but a few in particular were hand reared and are not scared to be around people.  They are pretty little antelope as you can see:

One of the more wild ones had a baby while we were there, I didn't see it at it's very smallest but I think I took this picture within the first week of it's being born:

 The adult Duikers are not very tall, perhaps they come to knee height on an average size guy.  So their babies are tiny!  So cute.  Matt said it's about the size of a Chihuahua.

Much more rare to see around are the bushbucks.  I had seen one a couple times but Matt had not so one evening we went to take a walk to an area they are most likely to hang out in: 

They are very shy, but so beautiful!

There are many other animals that have been observed or rescued by the international team over the years.  They had a pet civet for awhile, also they rescued a potto.  A potto looks a bit like a tailless lemur but it is a whole different species we were told.  It lives in the trees and somehow found itself on the roof of one of the residences.  He was rescued and returned to the trees.  It happened while we were there but I didn't get to see it except in a picture.  Which I do not have, so you can google the potto. :)  

There is also a hand reared monkey named Darragh.

He is a year old and quite mischievous.   A sister that used to be in Nigeria on construction saved him when he was a baby and bottle fed him.  He will let you hold him and play with him, but I didn't.  I don't love monkeys as a general rule. He might be my favorite yet. Top two including the one that's in the next post.  I did love watching him play, he was really funny.  However, I was more than content to simply watch.  I didn't think I could emotionally handle it if I got a scratch or bite.  :D Even though it's fine, my  mind was more at ease simply to just enjoy him from a reasonable distance.

There is another resident monkey, I will save him for the next post.  

Thanks for reading!