My House the Menagerie

Now that rainy season (ndungu) is coming to close and we are eagerly anticipating the cool dry season of Nov, Dec, and Jan everything seems to be making nests and having babies.

When I returned from travelling in Morocco my backyard took a full afternoon to weed. After that I swept away the spider webs and ant hills that had accumulated in my hut. I opened one window and startled roughly 30 crickets. Next I moved outside to remove a hornet’s nest from the other window box.

As the week progressed I enjoyed watching a pair of what looks like house sparrows, but I haven’t found them in the bird book yet, build a nest under the overhang of my grass roof. One morning when I slept in a little later I was awoken by a rooster crowing from the peak of my roof. It only stopped when I dragged myself out of bed and shot it an evil glare from my backyard.

Two days ago I heard mewing. Cats are a common pet of PCVs and a few Gambians, but quickly become a pest as they continue to reproduce. Getting them fixed is expensive and dangerous away from Kombo. The mewing was clearly close to my hut, but I decided not to investigate, because surely the mother cat would move them soon.

The next morning, yesterday, the mewing was clearly very close to my hut. I went outside to brush my teeth and get ready for the day. I looked back at my house. A kitten head poked out of the straw roof and mewed down at me.

From inside I could see it clearly had a nice little hole for itself between the thatch and the sticks. As my family came in to investigate we determined there was not one but two kittens in my roof. I decided to deal with them later and headed into town.

When I got back around 5:30p my host brother Samba was returning from the neighbors with a ladder in tow. As he leaned it against my house he informed me he’s going to get it down. He grabs a long stick and heads up the ladder.

Now, you have to understand cats eat chickens (at least the small ones) and do not have the same household pet quality they have in the States (or Morocco, Morocco has some well fed street cats!). Also, most cats are kind of scrawny and slink around at night, so Gambians are pretty wary of them.

Samba climbed the ladder with the stick and when the curious kitten poked its head out again he swung. He missed the first time but the second swing Mariama yelled “He got one”
“What?”
“It fell in the yard.”
“What?!” I rushed to the backyard to check the kitten’s vitals and see how it handled the fall.

It was a little shaken up, but fine. The other cat ducked for cover in my roofing grass and at this point we realized there were still 2 cats in my roof. So now 2 kittens are hiding in my roof, Samba is precariously walking around on my roof, I’m holding one kitten in my backyard deciding that hitting kittens down with sticks is too much for my American, pet loving conscience; when the new education PCV Sonja arrives to cook dinner.

Sonja is my new site mate. Before my closest site mate was 15km away, now Sonja is in Fatoto with me, 5 houses away. Her first time coming over to cook dinner and here I am trying to convince my host brother to come down and maybe the mom cat will come take the other ones away. After a few more minutes with no success, Samba comes down. Sonja decides she will care for the one kitten that we’ve retrieved and I’ve decided to deal with the other kittens tomorrow.

All in all 4 kittens were in my roof. They made a lovely little hole there for themselves that I can now see the moon through at night and is a wonderful skylight during the day. I don’t think I’ll be so happy come next rainy season, but it’s still several months away.