π Sabi Sands, South Africa Baboon troops are busy, loud, constantly negotiating. There is always something happening at the edges, some argument to adjudicate, some hierarchy to maintain. And then there is this. Two of them on a rock, apart from all of it, the mother's hands moving through the baby's fur with the focused patience that says nothing else exists right now. Grooming in baboon society is not incidental. It is the fabric of the thing, the way bonds are built and maintained, the language of who belongs to whom. The mother's eyes are intent. The baby sits amid all this attention, its orange eyes wide open, watching the world. Those eyes are the color of something lit from within.
