Wednesday, July 1, 2009

sokope

Sokope was a resident at Aba House. Everyone loved him more than I did.

He was dirty, flea ridden and a major thief. I was playing scrabble in the yard and he ate my E. He also ate the usual like bananas. One day I gave him some brown bread. He looked at it and then threw it away. Guess it was too healthy for him.

Tourists would hold him and he'd play cute and then pounce...trying to rip their jewelry off.

He was usually tied to a tree in the yard and would wrap himself around and around until he had no space to move or he would jump into the branches and end up hanging himself. I felt sorry for him and was not unhappy when he escaped once in awhile. But he was always captured and brought back.

Eventually he wasn't living with us any more and when I asked, I was told that "he went back to his village". That could mean what it says or it could mean that he died. Ghanaians have a way with words.

And that's the story of our monkey, Sokope.