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Kim and I played flute and violin for the Orangutans at the Woodland Park Zoo this Saturday thanks to our friend Michael, one of the caretakers. He wanted to see how they’d react to music. We started playing for Towan and Bela outside. When I brought out my guitar they ran away and Towan did his mating call to show that he wasn’t really afraid. After a while of Michael calling to them Towan came back and listened. I played Low by Cracker and some classical stuff like Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. I know Kim played the Entertainer. He seemed more interested in Kim’s flute playing, but that could be partly because he has a thing for pretty girls.

We went inside to play for Melati, Chinta and Heran. We decided to have Kim play first since the flute was less intimidating. Michael warned us that they might spit on us for attention here and to just ignore them if they did. Sure enough, Kim got a little spit shower mostly from Chinta while she played. Heran went outside and Melati watched from above. I played and got spit on less. Kim said that Chinta was pretty fascinated watching my hands. In here I played Hotel California and Kim sang with me.

It was a blast getting to go behind the scenes and have a personal guide like Michael to answer questions and tell us all kinds of interesting stuff. He and his new wife are going to Africa soon to do a research project on educating locals and teaching them to grow trees instead of just harvesting wood from the national parks. I think he has a website that I’ll link to if I get it.