An Afternoon Diversion

“Is he dead?”

“He dead. He dead dead dead.”

“Look, he not breathe.”

It was Tuesday morning and I was getting fed up with kids not returning after recess and choosing instead to continue their cricket games or playing at the creek. “Why are there only 8 of you here when there are 12 of you at school today?” I demanded to know.

“Asheana, Jeffron, and Deborah are at the mango tree watching the ‘slooth,’ ” I was informed.

“Slooth? Whats a slooth? I asked.

“An animal,” was their reply. After being puzzled for about three seconds I realized they were talking about a sloth, one of the animals I’d wanted to see while in Guyana.

“Lets go!” They needed no second invitation and within a minutes time we’d made it across the cricket field and under the giant mango tree where a small group of children had already gathered.

Swaying at the top of the tree the “slooth” eyed us from his perch. “Lets catch him,” was my suggestion. Eagerly several of the 3rd and 4th grade boys scaled the trunk and worked their way out to branches that were so slender they seemed incapable of supporting the boys weight.

By now the rest of the school had joined us underneath the mango tree. Students and teachers alike took turns shouting out advice as to how to capture the sloth without meeting his three inch claws, while I maintained a running commentary on not injuring the poor creature. The sloth moved with surprising speed from one branch to the next in attempts to evade the boys.

Suddenly there was the sound of breaking branches as the sloth plummeted to the ground and bounced off of a pile of stacked boards under the tree. Almost instantaneously a giant circle of children and teachers formed around the still form laying on its side in the grass. Stunned to silence we all looked at the little sloth. Finally someone ventured to state, “He dead.’’ The rest of the children nodded in agreement.

Going over to the sloth I began to run my fingers over his body checking to see if his bones were broken. I was relieved to see he was still breathing. Part way through my examination his head slowly began to rise from the grass and his eyes blinked open. Reaching his long front arms out he began to pull at the grass in attempts to move. His back legs were motionless. All I could think was “we’ve made a sloth paraplegic.” Picking him up, I carried him on my hip like a small child.

His fur was softer than I would have imagined and his long claws were containable if I held him correctly. I was thankful to see that after a few minutes his back legs began to move and he was able to hold on to me while I carried him.
Knowing that my sister Elizabeth would want to see him I called her. By the time she had walked the five miles from Bethany he was so active you would never guess that he had dropped more than 20 feet just hours before.

We spent the afternoon carting him around like a baby and playing with him. Or in the words of one of my students, “hugging up on he.” He was patient with all of our touching and photographing until we got him near the trees. Then his little arms went into overdrive and he flailed about trying to make it back to his leafy home.

After several children made comments about taking him to the city to sell Elizabeth and I figured it was time for him to go. So sneaking down to the creek we released him on the most inconspicuous tree we could find. Glad to be rid of us he scurried up the trunk as only a sloth can and lost himself in the leaves.