By Maryam Shikh NasirÂ
As we all know the surrounding of IIUM and the nature that we have here is very cool. But this was once a jungle of the animals such as monkeys which I am going to talk about my own encounters.
One day after I finished my classes I was really so tired, I went back to my room in Mahallah Nusaibah, the one up the hill. After I reached my room I was planning to have a nap and the weather was hot so the fan was not enough, unfortunately, I opened the window slightly, and there was some lemons on my table.
I went in a deep sleep and suddenly heard noises and I saw a monkey inside my room sitting on the window eating the lemons, smiling to me and throwing the seeds on the floor. I was confused what to do. The only thing I had nearby me was my blanket. I took it and tried to scare the monkey with it.
Alhamdulillah, it went away and I closed the window but I still saw it outside staring at me which made me feeling guilty of my doing. But I did not know what to do and I was scared as I heard from friends that monkeys are dangerous.
Second experience, when I was cleaning my clothes inside the wash room I saw a monkey coming to the shower place and played with the shower gel. Really it was taking a bath exactly like human beings but the only thing was missing the water it could not open the tap. Then I remembered that there was a psychologist saying that monkeys are similar to human beings in their structure.
Thirdly, when I was planning to climb up the stairs which is around 135 steps which is really so tiring. After finishing a long day of classes and running about in campus, the day ended with having to go back to the room but we who live in Mahallah Nusaibah, Sumaya and Salah Addin were using the stairs to go to classes and going back by the stairs. Really, it was horrible, it’s called the ‘Batu Caves’ stairs as it’s so long. I was going up the stairs slowly and suddenly I heard the girls shouting and running down the stairs.
I was surprised as they were almost reaching the top but even though they were tired, they were forced to go down and I also walked together with them from the long road to reach the Mahallah’s main gate.
This made us think a lot how to manage ourselves with the monkeys in campus, to keep our journey from Mahallah to the classes and back to Mahallah really safe, free from being ‘harrassed’ by these animals.
Perhaps this is the result of men destroying the animals’ home and habitat and this is the price we have to pay. What say the environmentalists? ***
Photo of JoshJosh