‘I consider him my first son’: how living with a baby monkey taught me I’m ready to be a dad

‘He was a handful and required constant care.’ Elio and Yannis Baladi at the Chimpanzee Conservation Centre in Guinea. Photograph: Roberto Garcia Roa

In 2022, I had a job at an estate agents in Paris selling ridiculously expensive flats, and decided I needed to do something more meaningful with my life. I resigned, and six months later arrived in Guinea.

In hindsight I was a young kid, full of anger, not happy with his life. That 26-year-old is definitely not me now – and it was living with primates that changed my life.