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.
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| 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
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| Notice the rooster staring at me. |
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…
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| Spot the monkey! |
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.
