the animal life

Today, I thought I would talk about the animal life around here. Forget the lions and elephants. this is West Africa and I'm in a city at the moment.

First there are the dogs. There do seem to be quite a lot of them and they lie around the streets looking rather scabby. At night, its more like a scene from a disney film, 'the bark' One starts and in a second there are loads of them barking, howling, yelping. Then it goes quieter until another one starts them all off.

The first night I was kept awake by a nearby goat, making goat noises half the night. I haven't heard it again so maybe it was someone's lunch.

The most irritating have to be the cockerals. They start their shift about 5.30 in the morning and carry on most ofthe day.

It's the little creatures that take more getting used to. I keep finding dead or dying cockroaches, so I dread to think how many living ones there are scurrying about. There is also an army of tiny ants that appear if you leave a crumb of food around. I haven't been bitten much at all as yet so I'm thankful for that.

I found a lizard tail outside my bedroom this morning, but no lizard, probably eaten by the cat, he wasn't hungry this morning.

Bye for now from me and my new 4 and 6 legged friends,

Pat