Coconut Pickers

Out of the blue, a couple of mornings ago, the coconut pickers came! I knew it was them as soon as they arrived. I had heard vague mention of monkeys trained to climb coconut trees to harvest the coconuts, and suddenly, there they were: about half a dozen large monkeys tied atop a slat-sided lorry already half-full with coconuts . The monkeys (I think they are some type of Macaque) know how to climb the tall coconut trees, select the older coconuts, pull them off the tree, and drop them to the ground below. A man sits several meters away from the base of each tree holding the leash of the monkey as it works, and looking for all the world like someone fishing in the trees, or flying a very stationary kite. Most of the family and next door neighbors soon assembled on the wakaf * to watch the process. We were all much amused by coconuts that landed with a tinkling smash on discarded glass bottles around the yard, and the grandmother was kept busy trying to entice oblivious goats out from under the trees where the monkeys were working, lest they meet an untimely death by falling coconut.

The handlers give the monkeys directions with what appears to be a mixture of words, shaking of the leash (which rings a bell on the monkey’s collar), and funny chirping sounds. For a good hour these sounds and the steady "Whump!... Whump!... Whump!" of coconuts hitting the ground added to the usual background noise of the kampung—goats, chickens, birds and wind in the trees overhead, and revving motorbike engines. I asked one of the handlers about how they train the monkeys, and what I gathered from his answer was that it is like a school for the monkeys, and it only takes a few weeks to train a monkey to gather coconuts. I was impressed that no humans or goats were damaged by the rain of coconuts, and joined the kids in thoroughly spoiling my dinner with a feast of young coconut flesh once the coconut pickers (and their human handlers) had moved on to the next kampung.

*A wakaf is Malaysia's answer to the American front porch at its best (that is, when the front porch actually functions as a social space). The wakaf is a simple platform about 9 meters square situated a couple of feet off the ground under trees and away from the house so as to remain in the shade and catch any available breezes. (Our wakaf is made of wood, but the government also erects tile ones in public places the way we have picnic tables and benches in parks in the U.S.) Members of the family and various neighbors that happen by seat themselves here in the afternoon to escape the heat indoors and have a chat. In my experience, it attracts a comfy intergenerational mix of anybody looking for company, a change of scenery from the porch or the kitchen, or a good spot do messy projects like opening coconuts, making kites, or splitting palm leaves to make cigarette papers. Kids play on it, chickens and goats run around on it, and because it is simultaneously such a public and familial place, men and women sit on it together with a degree of informality that I have not often experienced in other contexts. I like to join in, reading or knitting (or, today, whittling), and try to decipher as much of the conversation as I can.