Page 10 - Wild Hope - Vol 9

The Days of Sunshine

Raising an Orphaned Baboon in Africa

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS
BY ROBIN HUFFMAN

Sunshine came into my life one January spiky, umber-colored hair is velvety soft transport cage next to my bed. At first
day in 2013. I was volunteering for the as I pick him up. I name him Sunshine. light, like all the sanctuary primates,
fifth time at Ape Action Africa, which My job as caregiver is to raise him to be Sunshine is awake and ready to play.
is nestled in the secondary-growth forest healthy, happy, strong, confident and I open his cage and he leaps into my
of the Mefou Wildlife Sanctuary, an hour independent, so he can live and thrive arms or wraps himself around my leg
from Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon. with his own kind. like Velcro. I manage to dress, peeling
This primate sanctuary looks after He will spend three months with me him off one leg and attaching him to the
orphans of the bushmeat and illegal in quarantine, after which he’ll join other other while I slip my pants and socks on.
pet trades. sanctuary primates. I settle him into After a bottle of human baby formula,
The sanctuary veterinarian sets a his daytime home for now, which will it’s time for breakfast—assorted fruit and
long, wooden crate in front of me—my make him feel safe and secure—a large eggs. It’s fascinating watching Sunshine
next caregiving assignment. I’m eager cage outfitted with hammocks, fragrant eat—he’s so uncoordinated! He looks
but also heartbroken—another primate leaves, a mirror, ropes to grip, swing competent until he misses his mouth,
orphaned, confiscated from wildlife from and perch on. It’ll take Sunshine a drops the bit of food I’ve given him and
traffickers by the courageous Last Great while to master them, and it’s endlessly can’t manage to grasp it again.
Ape Organization, the first wildlife law amusing to watch his progress. He is And in an occasional tantrum, he
enforcement NGO in Africa. smart and determined. Observing him flings himself into his hammock, just
I open the box. Staring up at me with trying to climb the shelf unit in my room, his head peeking out, staring at me
shiny, coal-black eyes is an infant baboon, each attempt is better than the last, until indignantly. At other times, in a call he
not yet three months old. His face is he conquers it and looks at me with an would make to summon his mother,
creamy pink and wrinkled, with perfect expression I interpret as victorious. he tilts his head up, lifts his eyebrows,
heart-shaped nostrils and four teeth. His Sunshine spends nights in a large his ears and hair flattening against

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