Hi! My name is Tazi and I was raised by apes.

When I was 8 years old I have vague memories of being brought to this island by my human parents. I don’t know why they were here, but all I know is that they never survived. One night, a jaguar came into our shelter and killed them. I would’ve been jaguar food next, if it weren’t for the apes.

One ape, I call her Ma, suddenly appeared and defeated the jaguar before it could eat me. Ma then found me, just a little girl, all alone, and decided to take me in.

I’ve been living with the apes ever since. We don’t have a language like humans do, but we communicate through body movement. And since I was 8 years old when I was taken in by the apes, I could still speak some English, though not very well.

It was tough adapting into this new life. I remember one time they were teaching me how to swing from tree to tree, and as I let go of the branch it snapped and I nearly fell to my death, but Ma quickly jumped forward and rescued me. It’s taken a lot of getting used to, but now, at 16 years of age, the apes have become my family and I have become less of a human and more of an ape.

Once my family started to trust me, they revealed to me something very special about them. Their hair is as strong as steel. For real. You could shoot an arrow at their back and it would not break through their hair armour. Because of this I’d always felt self-conscious since I didn’t have the same impenetrable hair as them on my body, but Ma always made sure I felt included.

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