Someone from the countryside was selling a young bushbaby in a corner of Dar-es-Salaam market. Mom was smitten and bought it. We were surprised: "Let's see this creature, sweet enough to melt Mom's resolve."
"Look." she said, and in her palm sat a grey furry ball with a delicate nose, pointed ears and a long tail.
Mom held her arm out and the bundle sat up and, rocking slightly, walked up to her shoulders. The bushbaby clutched at Mom's hair with tapering fingers, swung around and planted its feet in the nape of her neck, riding her like a jockey - tail in the air.
"It's been doing this all the way home," said Mom smiling. Now the bushbaby climbed up onto Mom's head, leaned over, grabbed the thick frame of her glasses and swung down to stand on her nose. It looked around at all of us for a moment. Mom laughed, we joined in and the bushbaby lost its footing, dangled and fell to the ground.
The bushbaby rode each of us. When it stood on my shoulders though, I felt the warm trickle of pee down my back. Bushy needed toilet training, but he learned fast. Within a week he was disappearing outside to relieve himself and then coming back in again.
To hold bushy in your hands was fun, especially when he was young. In fact he held you; his damp hands clasping your fingers very firmly.
When Bushy was small we fed him mashed bananas and milk, but when we heard that bushbabies liked grasshoppers, the three of us, and the neighbours' children, went looking for them, catching the insects by their hind legs. When Bushy ate a grasshopper he had good manners. He held the insect in one hand like a stick of celery and took crisp little bites out of it. Occasionally a grasshopper leg protruded from his miniature fox-like mouth, but it was quickly eaten and he would lick his lips and fur clean when he had finished.
In a month or so Bushy was bigger, and weighed a little over a pound. He was very lively and he learned that the three of us were far more likely playmates than either parent. Dad would laugh but he would have none of it, though Mom still took an occasional moment to pet him. He was nocturnal so we only saw him at dawn or dusk. We would look for him in the afternoon after school and find him sleeping in a nest of borrowed socks and underwear. When you woke him too early he was gormless, but at night he wanted company and play, and while we were sleeping he would leap onto our faces and nip at our noses to wake us up.
"Bushy, go away."
Bushy chitters. Lands on another face. This time the nip is a little harder and an arm sweeps the animal away.
Once, I shut a door just as bushy timed a leap onto the door frame and he broke his little finger. In pain and fury he leaped onto my face and gave me a hard bite, though it didn't draw blood. I was very apologetic:
"I am sorry Bushy. Sorry about your finger, I didn't see you."
Bushy was OK, but from then on he ate his grasshoppers with little finger stretched out - very refined.
As he grew bigger he needed to get out more and so would hop up into the Kungu tree right outside the front door. He was in search of a partner and we felt sorry for him. How many female bushbabies could there be in our suburb? We didn't know. Then Bushy came home less frequently. He found his own insects outside.
The cats were out to get him. Jumping into the tree he would outpace them leaping three yards at a time. One day he didn't come home and we had nightmares about cats. Perhaps a cat got him. Or perhaps he was captured. But perhaps there was a happy ending after all and he found a mate. Perhaps.
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