Spending the last couple of weeks in Pakistan, most of it staying with a colleague and family. I’ve worked here before but a while ago and more at arms-length. This visit has been a real soak-and-poke time, including neighborhood walks, family weddings (which last a month) and birthdays, intense prep and training for a research project, health facility site visits, and generally roaming here and there.
We went up a mountain for tea and snacks in the location pictured above. Along the road on the way up there, quite a few monkeys were loitering around roadside vendors of bananas and roasted corn. The kids were excited and pointing them out, and when we got to the small shop and open seating area, we could hear them and see a few on the edges and in the trees.
First we sat on an edge but, observing other customers, we realized the edge monkeys were tuned into potential treasures on these tables, occasionally dashing over them for abandoned leftovers and diving back into the brush. We relocated to a central spot but, by the time our order arrived, most patrons on the outer ring had finished & left. We were alone, exposed, as monkeys prowled. Increasing nerves among the rest of my party had me just slightly alert, when suddenly they came at us from two sides, the sneaky devils. Everyone scrambled (and screamed). One monkey snatched the sugar right off our table; I looked the other way to see another grabbing at our paper tray of fried nibbles. Purely on instinct I lunged toward it, to keep it from intruding further, while my friends were grabbing up their kids. No real harm done.1
The staff then started using slingshots (very ineffectively I must say), keeping the little monsters a little farther away. The monkeys have learned very well that goodies are on offer and poorly defended, and it seemed to me that like the velociraptors they’ve also learned to coordinate attacking in groups. As we continued chatting, I learned state authorities have been reducing the human footprint in this very large park area (under pressure from international organizations) and dozens of small cafés have been cut to two or three. Animals are getting bolder — both the welfare monkeys and threats like tigers and wild pigs — and more serious incidents more frequent.
My whole time in this profession, I’ve found people are the same all over. 42 countries and counting, all creeds and colors. People fight over stuff. Some are wonderful; some are inveterate crooks and manipulators. Nowadays we know that insane death-seeking cults can happen in America, not just exotic cultures or deprived places.
Incentives matter but people in groups and as individuals will perceive and respond to different motivators and deterrents than those projected from the desks & discussions of technocrats or politicians. In French West Africa they take for granted that locals will se débrouiller, inevitably enacting the art and heart of human life, noble, comic, and tragic. We want to be left alone, we want to make a go of it, we have a few nutty ideas, we figure it out, we untangle this and piece together that, we create or patch or embroider a unique yet familiar landscape as we go along.
The State exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life. A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging in his own garden—that is what the State is there for. And unless they are helping to increase and prolong and protect such moments, all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police, economics, etc., are simply a waste of time. CS Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book 3, chapter 9)
You might be surprised to learn how many people (a LOT) have mentioned to me they are glad or relieved that Trump is our next President. Perhaps a more indicative point is that not a single person has demurred in the slightest from American voters having our say and rejecting the progs, libs, and demoralization agenda. Colleagues, family members, men and women, old and young.2 Shyly, boldly, matter-of-factly.
Fear not. Our simplest instincts beat monkey shenanigans every time, keep the faith.
1
I’ve never felt more American. Maybe a dumb move, but don’t retreat from a monkey. Not even a small horde of monkeys.
2
There’s a great deal of confusion and lack of clarity over exactly how it all works. When I was in the Foreign Service we had libraries of books and all sorts of outreach to explain US history, institutions, documents, and why it is the way it is. I guess considering what we do and don’t teach in our own schools I shouldn’t be surprised that I’ve been put to the test of explaining the Bill of Rights in some detail, for instance, off the top of my head.
