THE CHIMP HOUSE

I leave the ceremony room and I'm lead by my arm upstairs by someone from the room. I stumble up the steps. The wooden frame mosquito mesh door stubbornly pushes open. I feel it catch on the wooden floor. It's not easy to get in. I enter a very humid room. I have no shirt on and I feel a heavy sticky, sickly hot heat on my chest, shoulders and back. A strong smell hits my nostrils like a brick to the head. It's like heavy musky animal shit. I feel uneasy. Adrenaline kicks in. I can hear and feel things panting and moving around me. I survey my surroundings. I see big brown shapes moving to the side and above me. I'm in a f***ing chimp house, I can feel the f**ckers around me. I don't like this.

Mosquito, clouds of flying biting shit are all around me. They don’t land on me and they don't bite. 

The room has mesh internal blinds coming down from the roof. I look around and smell damp hessian sacks and raw primate scents. I push the nets apart and even more mosquitoes are disturbed and fly around me. I feel them in my hair, brushing past my eyelids. The heat and insects make my eyes water. There are swarms of them.

I feel like I’m being watched from the outside, observed from a viewing gallery. I feel primal. Am I am in a zoo? I move with haste to the door. I can’t breathe in here anymore. I push and force my way outside.

It was heavy shit in the chimp house and I was glad to get out. Even the agony downstairs is better than this so I head back. The jungle air felt breezy and refreshing. The guy who helped me up the stairs was waiting outside. He asked me if I was ok. I verbalised a response and went back into the main ceremony room for the second round.