When I first got here I thought everything would try to kill me. I no longer think that. But I know some things wouldn't mind trying.
I shall start with the small beasts: ants. We have lots and lots of teeny, tiny little ants that want to be in our food and everywhere else. They don't bite. They are so weeny you can hardly see them but you feel them running over your arms and hands and it feels like a little tickle. Then you look: no, it's ants. So you squash them. We do have house flies but not that many really, well not considering the general lack of hygiene. There are some particularly nasty bee-type things which have such a narrow waist as to look almost in two separate halves and some have been making a nest out on my back porch ever since I have been here. But they are Sierra Leonean and are working slowly. I asked our cleaner Mohammed how I could get rid of them. He said to go out to the porch at midnight with a can of insecticide, leave the back door open, spray the nest and run like hell back into the house. I haven't done it yet; I think they fit into the group of animals that may try to kill me.
Have I told you about our cat Ginger? He keeps the rats down and he does sometimes catch them. I opened the back door a couple of weeks ago to find a fresh kill right where I was about to put my foot. Nice. Most mornings I go on rat patrol to scoop up any bodies and I put them in an empty milk tin, pour petrol over them and set it alight. But I have never managed to burn the whole body and rat tails seem particularly resistant... Ginger likes to play with lizards and I found a dead one yesterday which he then proceeded to eat. And five minutes later sicked up. I think they taste bad as he always drinks water after playing with them. He caught a bat and eviscerated it a couple of weeks back, quite neatly, I must say. Later I saw him being a bit odd so kept my eye on him for a while in case he had rabies but he seems ok.
Oooh! Snakes! I have seen 3 so far I think and 2 were dead. 2 of them were black mambas which had been found in the fields near the house and had been decapitated by some brave soul. The other one was a really bright green one crossing the road one Saturday morning (probably out shopping or something) and we drove right over it. Someone said you should never drive over a snake as it can get up into the engine and into the vehicle, but I really don't think this one could have survived a 4 wheel drive truck going over it at right angles. Besides, should you brake for a snake?
What else to tell you about? Chickens are absolutely everywhere. Sometimes young ones come under our garage gate and Ginger 'plays' with them; I haven't seen him hurt one yet but they sqwak a lot and then I have to chase them around the perimeter of the house with a towel to throw over them and put them back outside. Chickens strut around all over the hospital and no taxi ride is complete without one in a plastic bag. Talking of the hospital, I have seen in the grounds (beside the chickens, of course) a goat tethered to a post, a cow tethered to the same post after the goat had gone, lots of dogs just lying around and the odd cat. And spiders. My sometime housemate Kiki works part-time in a hospital about a half hour drive from Makeni. One day she and the hospital administrator came to Makeni to do some shopping in the ambulance (yes, that is what they are for) and, while up near our lorry park, he saw his goat that had been stolen the previous night so he put it in the ambulance and took it home. Would that ever happen in England? We do have lots of mosquitos, but it is not their breeding season at the moment so they are not causing too much trouble to me now.
DOGS. I do not trust the dogs here at all; they are generally very lazy and in bad condition but I don't like being barked at by them as I think they will attack me and give me rabies. You will see I am very concerned about rabies. When I was out in a car late one night just after I got here there were great packs of dogs just roaming the streets; I would shoot them all. Someone told me they are guard dogs but they don't seem to do much guarding to me.
You will note that I am generally very unsentimental about animals and am even more so here.
I am told they eat cats, but I draw the line at that.
