What is a Bobbejaan [BO-bba-yaan]?

Growing up, I would hear the following phrases from family and friends:

"You ask so many questions!"

"Do you have to know everything?"

"Mind your own business."

"This isn't for little girls to know."

"Did you go through my room!?"

Often, I find my curiosity takes precedence over judgment. I recently learned that I am not alone in this: I learned that one of my favorite animals -- the baboon -- shares these same qualities.

“Baboon social learning is aided by an itchy creator of behavioral twists – curiosity,” says Howard Bloom who studied "paleopsychology," which is known to be the study of the social implications in animals. He goes on… Baboons will “find new ways to get the most from almost any environment.”

On a recent trip to Namibia, I learned this first-hand. I fell in love with this animal. I also prefer the locally-spoken Afrikaans word for my primate-partner “bobbejaan.”

A bobbejaan will take risks in his or her attempt to learn, entertain, engage a primate of the opposite sex and to survive. We can be curious to a fault, but if we’re smart enough, we’ll learn from our mistakes and have better judgment the next time. After all, if we always go with good judgment and never give in to our curiosity, we would never discover anything new. Life would be pretty monotonous for us bobbejaan and everyone around us.

As I embark on my 3 month adventure in San Francisco, I will fully embrace my "Bobbejaan-ness" and hopefully find some fun stuff to share along the way.