Smut discuss her journey with baboons and the different phases she goes through as she familiarizes herself with them and they to her. At first she tries to blend into the surroundings in an attempt to affect their environment as little as possible. She describes them to be creatures whose actions and decisions appear foreign to civilized humans but soon finds overlapping features between the baboons and humans. Smut describes the relationships between the baboons, their different personalities, takes on situations, and preferences to be each unique as the last. She touches on their respect of personal boundaries, not very different from people, “ … in general, each baboon has a small invisible circle around him or her... “. The more comfortable the baboon, the more they allowed particular individuals to invade said space. Not very far off from the social behaviors or humans. Smut also mentions that while she actively tried to not forge bonds with the baboons or interrupt their lifestyle, it was she who was affected by them, “… with my immersion in their daily lives, deeply [it] affected by identity”. She goes on to describe how when faced with certain challenges such as the rain in the beginning of her journey, she would have frantically faced the situation, but as she grew accustomed with how the baboons seemed to instinctually handle things she learned from them and adapted. Smut concludes that while she has learned a great deal from the baboons on a scientific level, she had also learned a great deal about them on a more personal level that she would apply to all creatures. In the end baboons and humans are a lot alike; she noticed that every baboon- like people- have different personalities and traits that make them unique.
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