The Monkeys (1)

When we first started telling people that we were going to be coming to India, we made a couple of connections with people. These were people from our church and other places who knew people that had worked at Woodstock. One common thread through all of their stories was the monkeys. We've been seeing monkeys here since our first taxi ride up to Mussoorie from Dehradun. Today, though, there seemed to be an extraordinary number out and about on campus, so we thought we'd share a little of our experience.

There are two types of monkey that we have on Woodstock's campus. The first is the gray langur (Semnopithecus entellus for those that care about such things):

First of all, you should note that we did not take these pictures. We never seem to have our camera around when there is a nice monkey sighting, so these images come from Wikipedia for the time being. The langur is a pretty big monkey that looks really majestic as it climbs through the trees and, often, runs along the ground. They are not particularly friendly, but they leave well enough alone and will not get in your way if they see you walking toward them down the path. The other monkey that we have at Woodstock is the rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta), which most people around here just call a rhesus monkey:

These fellows are a little bit smaller than the langurs, and based on the photo, you're probably thinking to yourself that these are cute and cuddly little animals. You are very WRONG! These are nasty little creatures that are very aggressive. When we were first taking the train in from Delhi, our more experienced colleagues warned us never to make eye contact with these guys. The interpret that as a show of dominance and they respond with aggression. This morning, we awoke to some footsteps on our roof which we correctly assumed were rhesus monkeys. Beth made it to school safely for an art meeting shortly after. By the time Dave made it out the door an hour later, there was a full meeting of the rhesus monkeys from our area. They happily blocked the path to anyone that did not want to contract rabies. Dave was forced to walk back up to the house and take the other path down. Even then, a smaller group sat on the path and he waited patiently until they decided to move elsewhere. All the while, Dave was trying his best to watch out for monkeys without looking them in the eye. When both of us were at school, we listened to a turf-war going on above us as monkeys fought on the roof. Periodically, we would see a monkey fly in front of our window as he presumably lost that war. Thankfully, not all of our days have been this monkey filled, but let that be a lesson to those that might otherwise think these are cute little critters. STAY AWAY!

Dave and Beth