Bigger Creatures

Sometimes creepy crawlies aren’t so little.  And sometimes they aren’t creepy!  Here’s the rundown of the “bigger” creatures I’ve encountered in the last few months…

We’ll start with the least favorable:

Roosters

I hate them most of all, more than cockroaches.  You know how when you’re little, the Farmer in the Dell and Old MacDonald teach you that roosters crow at the crack of dawn every morning to wake up the world, and then their job is done? FALSE. Well, true, but they also crow every other damn moment of the day, often starting at 3am.  And when one rooster starts…they all start.  It’s like that scene in the animated 101 Dalmatians when the dogs pass along messages by howling to one another all night.  That’s what Malian roosters do. All night. All day. For no apparent reason. It doesn’t matter if no pretty hens are around to impress; if no other macho roosters are around to intimidate…roosters just like to hear the sound of their own awful, screeching, hair-raising, I-can’t-wait-to-kill-it-and-fry-it voice. I can often be found flapping my wings and running after roosters, chasing them away. They can often be found ignoring me.

Mice and Rats

Story #1: 

I was in my ɲεgεn one night, doing my thing, when a mouse suddenly scurried in through the drainage hole, immediately in front of me.  I’m not sure who was more scared, me or the mouse!  We both got out of there as quickly as humanly and mousely possible.

Story #2:

I’ve been suspecting for awhile that there’s a mouse living in my roof.  My house, including the roof, is made of mud brick.  Under the mud are rows of branches, and under the branches – what I see from inside the house – is black plastic nailed to the ceiling.  The plastic helps prevent both rain leakage as well as random things falling down from the sticks in the ceiling onto my floor/possessions/me.  While the plastic serves a great purpose, it does encourage creatures to live in my roof.  (Hence where the original cockroaches and spiders came from).  The nights I’ve had to sleep inside because of rain I’ve heard scurrying above the plastic.  There was always the chance it was a lizard (which I also occasionally see inside) but I was pretty convinced it was a mouse.

Last week I got my proof.

I wasn’t feeling well and wanted to take a nap.  My little mattress and bug hut were still set up outside but I wanted to nap inside where I wouldn’t hear the roosters and kids.  I have a big mattress set up on my bed frame inside and my mosquito net was hanging over it.  I had just laid down to sleep when I noticed a dark spot on the bed next to me.  I turned on my flashlight to check it out – it was a headless cockroach, surrounded by mouse droppings.  OMG.

That night, I wanted to sleep in my bug hut outside but around 12:30am it started to storm, and I had to pack up and move inside.  It’s terribly hot sleeping inside at night, so I put my mattress and bug hut on the floor in my front room, hoping to catch a breeze from my screen door.  And for the next 2 hours, I lay awake listening to the mice scurry around a foot from my head as they explored my trash can and dirty dishes: the things I couldn’t put outside that night because of the rain!  I even saw one…I could’ve touched it.  Oh my.

Mice poop in my almost-cleaned-out cubby. 

Story #3:

I go to the San Peace Corps house every 2 weeks or so, to replenish my food stocks and update myself on the rest of the world.  I usually spend a night or 2 at the house before returning to village.  Malian mice/rats appear to have found a Home Sweet Home in our house. My friends say Malian mice develop superpowers because they have to work so much harder than other mice to survive. For instance, we each have a cubby where we can keep things. I used to keep care package food from Ameriki in there, because I could only take a little back to site at a time. I quickly discovered the mice had discovered my stash even quicker. They were eating right through the plastic bags. So I foiled them by putting everything in a giant Tupperware container. Next time I came to San I found the mice had opened the Tupperware lid and eaten my Ameriki granola. Curse you, mice!  (Now I keep the food in a newly purchased metal trunk with lid and lock).

The mice aren’t so bad, really. Unless you’re up late at night you barely even know they’re there. Except, of course, for the little presents they leave in your cubby. Note the Tootsie Roll wrapper pieces in the photo...and then note that I do not keep Tootsie Rolls in my cubby. Hrmph.…  Oh, and a mouse chewed through one of my cell phone cords once. Luckily I had another one.

At night though, you can hear them scuttling around the kitchen, the library, and the living room. Sometimes you can see them. The tiny ones scamper about in the kitchen; scaling the counters, scouting around the trash can, and scooting under the stove to one of their many hideouts. The big ones run back and forth between the living room and the library. I once saw one walking on the Internet/stereo cords like tightropes. I also once saw one…or many…scamper from the living room to the library 4 times…but never back the other way! Which means I either kept missing its return journey, or there was more than one mouse…  But like I said, not so bad. Unless you’re trying to sleep in the living room. That’s just not a good idea.

Manantali

Notice the rooster staring at me.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, I spent a few days in a place called Manantali for the 4^th of July.  ‘Tali is a beautiful, lush, remote spot right on the river – worlds away from the dusty plains of San. The Peace Corps house in 'Tali is actually two thatched-roof huts right on the riverbank. I spent a lovely 3 days there. ‘Tali, as it turned out, had some interesting creatures. (Other than just giant, squishy millipedes).

While we’re still on the talk of mice and rats, I have to mention the Manantali bush rat. Now, I’ve seen small bush rats dead in my village. But this was the granddaddy of all bush rats. It was the size of a possum (I think; the only possum I’ve ever actually seen scared the living bejeebies out of me one night while I was driving). Imagine a small dog. That was the size of this beast. I thank my lucky stars I saw it from a distance that night, while I was safe among lots of other people under the elevated, open-air thatch-roof…

Spot the monkey!

Some less disturbing ‘Tali creatures: monkeys and hippos! That’s right, the “real” African animals you all imagine me to me living amongst. Sadly, while Mali used to have lots of wildlife, barely any of the “cool” wild animals live here these days. However, the lucky observer just might spot some monkeys or hippos along the river in Manantali! Luckily my science-teacher father taught me all about “good observations” and I did indeed get to see both of the above! The monkeys we saw several times at dusk, playing among the high branches of the trees lining the river. Mischievous little devils, they are! The hippos are harder to spot, and appear less frequently. My friend and I woke up early one morning in hopes of seeing one, and we were well rewarded. Our alert of where to look was the hippo’s call – and boy, what a call! I’ve never heard anything quite like it; it’s a bellow and a bit disturbing sounding. Looking carefully, we were able to see the hippo's ears and top of its head sticking out of the water, and we saw the bubbles as it rose up a bit and sank under the surface.

Reptiles and Amphibians

Starting with the coolest:

1. The Chameleon

During the 2 weeks I spent in Bamako for training during June, a few friends and I wandered out to the garden one day, looking for basil. We didn’t find basil but we did find a chameleon! Definitely the first chameleon I’ve seen in the wild, and an extremely cool creature.  Chameleons’ eyes move independently of one another and they can swivel all 360°.  Their feet look solid but when they walk the tips split in half almost into a straight line, forming toes that can grasp onto plants. When they walk, they mimic the motion of a blade of grass in the wind: slowly they take a step, then rock back and forth, then slowly take another step. It’s fascinating!

Chameleons can also climb straight up plant stems. And of course, as everyone knows, they can change color! We didn’t see any super-bold changes, but we did watch it go through various shades of light greenish-yellow, bright green, and dark brownish-green. I actually went back to the garden with other friends to see the chameleon again, and spent quite awhile just watching it – fascinating!

2. Toads

Toads are abundant, now that it’s rainy season. Definitely the most prolific road kill I’ve seen in Mali. Some of them are HUGE! Like I said, Malians aren’t too fond of toads, which I continue to use as ammo for freaking out Alima. You can really hear the toads singing at night, both in my village and in San. I like listening to them as I fall asleep…it’s like a Malian lullaby!

3. Lizards

Lizards are everywhere. I like them. I talked briefly about the blue and orange ones. They have a way of moving the front of their body that makes it look like they’re doing pushups. My friend told me there’s a West Africa legend that says the original Lizard was tricked by the spider Anansi to look like a criminal and made mute so as not to defend himself, and now he can only nod his head up and down as means of communication.

Lizards like my house. I haven’t seen too many inside, but I’m totally ok with them being there as long as they stay out of my food and my bed. Occasionally I've seen a tail-less lizard scurrying back up under the plastic lining my ceiling. I do have one guy that likes to hang out on my window screen. Technically he’s outside, since only the open metal shutters separate him from my courtyard; although he’s also kind of inside since my window is indented into my wall and so he’s flush with the inside of my walls. I don’t know why he likes that particular spot. I’ve never seen him in any other position. 

One of the blue and orange lizards lives somewhere in the vicinity of my roof. I always see him coming down from on top of my house. He always takes the same path down the side of my house and across the top of my wall. There’s a palm tree behind my house, so maybe he lives there? I’ve named him Macki after the head of the PC Mali Small Enterprise Development sector.

Cute and Cuddlies…sort of?

1. Goose

Goose is a chicken. Yes, I know that’s confusing. Don’t blame me; Chrissy named him. He was a silly little goose though, back in his cute days. Goose comes into my courtyard through the drainage holes in my wall and in my ɲεgεn. Back when he first started coming, he was an awkward adolescent chicken: no longer chick, not yet hen (And yes, I do realize that hens are female and I refer to Goose as a “he.” Sometimes Life doesn’t make sense).  I liked him because he was so adorably awkward – he didn’t have any tail feathers…a completely naked butt! I took a lot of photos trying to capture his cute pink bald butt.

 

But then he grew up.  And now he’s a chicken. I don’t like him much anymore. As much as I enjoy eating chicken, they are filthy, stupid creatures who are always in my way and are too close to roosters. Now when Goose comes to my house he brings a friend, a big, black chicken whom I don’t like at all. They peck at everything and try to go in my house if I leave the door open. I wish I could get rid of them but I was so excited to see Goose when he was little that now they just come and go as they please, usually many, many times  every day. Sigh.

2. Ben Sogoba

Ben Sogoba was a baby goat that turned up at the CSCOM (health center) one day. I guess the head doctor’s wife wanted a pet? All of my PCV friends tried to tell me that there was no way a goat was a pet, but they had no idea. First of all, it had a name! (Named after Yours Truly, thank you very much!) Malians rarely give animals names. Ben used to wander as he pleased around the CSCOM concession. He could often be found napping in the shade under one of our chairs. One day the doctor’s 4-year-old daughter and I dressed him in an Obama shirt and tied my Ameriki flag bandanna on his head. Gangsta Amεriki-Pride Malian Goat. Word.

Ben was fed by cutting a tiny hole in the corner of a plastic bag filled with milk. He was so cute when he was hungry! Sometimes he’d get so excited he’d headbutt the milk bag and the balance would be lost and milk would squirt out all over his head while the person feeding him readjusted. He’d get down on his front legs and stick his butt in the air and wag his tail like crazy while trying to suck the milk.

Unfortunately, Ben Sogoba is no longer with us. He’d had a few bouts of sickness and always recovered, but one day I arrived at the CSCOM and the kids told me he was sick and couldn’t eat or walk. He was lying inside the house on one of the kids’ beds (see, totally a pet!) and I knew he wasn’t going to make it. A few hours later he died. It was a sad day at the CSCOM, but we still remember Ben for his cuteness and silliness.