Nevis is full of jungle fauna and seems to have quite a diverse ecosystem for such a small island. Of course, one thing that makes the ecosystem very nice to appreciate is a golf course that rips through the center of the pristine environment. It actually makes it very nice and scenic, in a way, I suppose. I’ve been jogging on it every day and today I ran through a troop of monkeys. Troop, that’s the word, right? Anyway, they were all playing in the middle of the par 5 15th fairway. There seemed to be several families of monkey there. I saw two mother monkeys with baby monkeys underneath them holding onto their bellies. They let me get incredibly close to take pictures.

These are Vervet Green Monkeys originally from sub-Saharan Africa that came over here to St. Kitts and Nevis with enslaved Africans. The adults get to about 10 to 15 pounds and they are omnivores. That about completes everything I know about the vervet monkeys.

After I spent about half an hour silently tracking and sitting with the monkeys, something RATHER annoying happened. Some golfers teed up and started playing that hole. Naturally, that would not bother me in the slightest since that is the purpose of the golf course, but these were some of those very annoying people that give America a bad name overseas. These two were the quintessential rankling ugly Americans. They were this loud New York Jewish couple that had the stereotypical grating, loud, irritating voice that you could hear from half a mile away.

“Loook,” the lady yelled in a nasally voice, “I think I see a monkeeeeey!”

At that point, the husband and wife came ripping through the underbrush with a gasoline-powered golf cart with all the gentility of a Panzer tank rolling over de Gaulle. 95% of the monkeys went running and screaming for cover before they both jumped out of the cart and came running over to the trees with the gait of alpha gorillas.

“Loooyoook!” the husband said with a Shylock drawl, “I think they are eating mangoes or something! Hey guys!” His voice was at a decibel level between leaf blower and shuttle disaster.

And no, they were assuredly not eating mangoes, because mangoes are not tiny green seeds smaller than a peanut.

So I got away from those idiots and absconded with their golf balls.