lions, tigers, and bears - oh my!

As I mentioned before, we're living on a compound. There are, of course, lots of plants that we don't have at home. We have mango, coconut, and pomagranate trees; aloe plants (of which josey used a leaf to soothe her arm after a french press accident); and a bunch of other stuff that I've never heard of.

There is a lawn, despite the fact that our hostess had never even seen a lawn until she went to England as a grown up. Now we have a lawn that is cut by machete by the men or with garden shears by the women. The machete is sharp enough to cut down trees that are 10" in diameter. I don't even know if there is an axe - why would you get one when these are so versatile?

There are also animals. Brownie, the dog, we never see. He stays in his run during the day back where the men sleep (there are three guys that have quarters in the back - one of the tasks that they share is opening and closing the gate. They do this whenever you come home -- if you're coming home late they like you to give them a heads up). At night, once the last vagabond has made it home he is given free reign of the compound. It is not unheardof that a meat bone, after getting finished at a barbecue, gets tossed into the garden where Brownie walks at night. A little treat for him. It's kind of fun to listen to the tick tick tick of his toenails on the patio in the late evening. He is pretty timid and never barks. He looks like a sweetheart but a flea-bitten sweetheart. So we don't hang on the couch or anything.

There is a parrot. He can mimic:

• skype messages coming in
• the car alarm
• our host calling his wife
• the wife calling the help
• <latest> josey calling the help (this hasn't happened, I swear, but it's great because josey sat in front of that bird saying things like "josey is pretty" because she wanted the parrot to talk about her. yeah karma)

Our host took the parrot because it belonged to people close to her previously and she wanted to hear their voices again. For real.

There are two tortoises that live right beside the parrot. The first time I rolled up to say hello those little heads retracted right into those cute little shells (shells aren't that little - they are about a foot long). J told us a funny story about another tortoise that took advantage of a security breach and ran like a son of a gun for an hour and made it 20 yards before someone came along and put him back in his cage. These guys eat food waste that would otherwise head to the compost.

Living with the parrot is a pigeon. I was having trouble understanding but I gather that our one footed pigeon had its foot taken by a witch doctor and was going to be killed. Our host took the pigeon. I don't know if it was compassion, fear of bad luck, or both. He is a cute bird but a little more shy than our parrot friend. I don't blame him. "I got close to people once, it didn't work out."

There is a mongoose. I saw this one for the first time yesterday. I didn't have any idea what it was. It was far away against the wall. I was not alarmed until I found out that they are like gigantic rats. It will be a while before these guys take care of him.


These guys have been growing like weeds since we got here. They are pretty keen on people. One was just playing with Mzee while he watered the garden (with the biogas water - "it smells like farts"). One is more shy than the other. The shy one thinks his gregarious sister has lost her mind. They sleep like cats. Unlike Canadian cats, they look for shade.