Do You See What I See??!?

I headed out of town a few weekends ago ... and thought of this title, given Christmas' approach, I thought I'd give a nod to a Christmas carol with a twist!

Do you see what I see?

Can you see it??  Need a hint??!?
Think speckled!

Got it??!?

Okay - here is a bigger hint:

I love going searching for the giraffes - like a safari ... but only with one wild animal to see!  When I first arrived in the Niger ... the desert ... I was looking forward to seeing all sorts of wildlife, including the zebra.  Until my friend informed me that the zebra is a grazing animal ...'nuff said, guess I'll have to go to Kenya to see a zebra.  In another national park we do get to see elephants and baboons which are also cool.  But back to the giraffes ....

The giraffe reserve is located close to where I live - and is the last existing herd of wild giraffes in West Africa!!  I love that I can just drive out from the city and see such beautiful creatures!  They live in a national preservation park dedicated to the herd survival: they've grown from near extinction of around 50 giraffes to well over 600!!

This herd of five we saw had five adults: one male and three females, all over 12 years of age; and a teenage giraffe of about four years.

The information at the ranger's station, where we payfor a guide to help us find the giraffes, indicated that the males can stand up to 5.8 metres tall ... and they can reach tree leaves over six metres with their tongue ... WOW - long tongue!  The giraffe on the right (above) - the one which is taller and has darker spots, is the male. 

This specifies of West African Giraffe is called: Giraffa camelopardalis peralta.  Which I found neat to see the word "camel" in the title ... for the Fulani people, with whom I work, call the giraffe: Golloba Ladde ... "Bush Camel"!!!   Who knew the Fulani spoke Latin??!?

Sometimes we drive around for hours looking for the giraffes and sometimes we find a herd in close to the ranger's station.  I always love watching the giraffes - They are so majestically beautiful ... awkwardly graceful when they walk! 


And a new experience for me ... I've never climbed a termite mound before, so this was exciting!  As well as slightly challenging, partly because of the skirt and mostly because, for those who know me well, you know that I am scared of heights!  Hence, my not being at the top of the mound!

Happy World Toilet Day!

Last week, when I could not get on the internet, I missed an auspicious day for a post: World Toilet Day!!!  In an email I received from CAWST - an organization that works in the domain of water and sanitation - I read this following information:

Now, let's get down to business. We're making a stink about #FecalMatters 

because 6 in 10 people do not have safely-managed sanitation. 

That means that poo isn't making it into toilets, pipes, pits, but into our drinking water instead. 

Poop just isn't funny when this is the case.

Now, this information above would hold true for Niger ... but, though I don't work in terms of sanitation and latrines, the celebration of this day gave me a platform to share a story and photos of some work at my village home ... of which I came home feeling accomplished and proud!

My village home has an open-air outhouse ... "squatty-potty" as I like to call it ... in the backyard.  There is a little solar powered light installed which helps at nighttime.  And I've learned to not use it at certain times when I know that planes are taking off from the airport as I feel these guys fly low enough ... What if they can see me??!?  I am sure they are higher than it looks, but I play it safe!  

It takes some practice to "shower" ... for the first few weeks I stayed overnights, I dropped my soap and bath spongys down the hole - yes, for those who know that I spoil myself with a supply of bath spongys for the living of life in Niger - I lost one!!  It kind of was sitting on the lip of the descending tube, but I wasn't fishing it out!

Anyways ... I digress!  

My first night out in the village this year - as I went to the bathroom in the evening, I picked up the nice wooden cover ... and at least 20 cockroaches underneath in scattered in erratic flight to find cover!!!  EWWWWWW!!!  Thankfully, none ran over my feet!  Were they attracted to the pine-scented toilet soap I had used to clean the latrine??!?  What had attracted them to my outhouse?

It took until the next day to realize that the rubber tire border on my wooden cover had worn off!  The cover on the outhouse hole was an evolving wonder:  at first, it was built to cover the hole so that the septic hole did not become filled with the blowing sand of the desert!  But then, my teammate who built the cover also devised the rubber tire border - to allay my concerns that the dark covered hole could hide scorpions and snakes!   Neither are entities that I want to encounter at 2am if I go out to the bathroom!  The cockroaches, though disgusting, are the least of my worries!!

So - I set off to hammer a new rubbertire ring border onto my wooden cover!

The husband of the village family who lives "with" me right next door helped with the task.  The first thing that we discovered was that we couldn't stretch the old bicycle tires around the cover - they needed to be cut!  

"No worries," he said, "I have a knife!!"

And back he trots into the yard with his machete!!  .... It did the job!

As I pulled out my hammer and nails, Midou declared me a "good mechanic"!!  Woohoo! Something new for my resume!!  ha.  He either had great trust in my hammering skills; or, having never used a hammer before, does not know the pain of hammering one's finger: for he held the rubber down with his hands awfully close to where I was hammering!!

Disclaimer: as I have since hammered my thumb a few times this past week hanging pictures ... he had no real reason to trust my hammering skills!  

In the end - the job was finished and my outhouse cover is ready for use again!

Since installed, the route underneath is covered almost completely - I've opened up the toilet of an evening to discover the odd cockroach and baby gecko dancing around in the porcelain hole ... but; no spiders, nor scorpions, no snakes, nor no more cockroach parties of the entire neighbourhood of cockroaches in attendance!!

Morning Visitors

So, I'm back in Niger and have been here almost two months already!!  Time flys!  

One thing that I've noticed is that every neighbourhood I've lived in comes with its own unique bugs and creepy-crawlies!  In my new home, I'm getting used to a few varieties that I've not seen before.  A few that have dropped from the ceiling on my head as I sit in my bed (ew!) and some disgusting things crawling on my floor.

However, as my house was getting ready .... carpenters, plumbers, electricians, painters - three weeks of non-stop tradesmen! ... I was living on a guest house compound down by the river.  

This location offers many unique birds and lifeforms that I don't normally see.  Thankfully - I didn't see any snakes, though I know that they are there a plenty!  Some I don't appreciate as much ... like this nasty huge spider I found on my truck one morning.

Others like this snail are a bit more fascinating.  

One morning I discovered that the snails LOVE LOVE LOVE this plant outside my door!!  There were so many all over the plant ....

 .... big ones ...

... small ones ....

.... itsy tiny ones ... 

All nestled in the nooks and crannies of the plant!

And I discovered that around 8am is their active time!!  They are clearly the "morning birds" that I am not!  Albeit, they do move much more slowly than I do even when I am awake at this time of the day!

It was fascinating to watch them move around from leaf to leaf:

waving it's head around try to feel its next location with the antenna on the top of its head ...

 ... making connection - SUCCESS!! - whilst stretched from one leaf to the other and its shell danging between ...

... and then watching how the shell portion of its body slid from one end of its body at the starting point over to the next part.  Once the shell made it over, the snail released its tail end and bounced into place on the new leaf!

I could have sat there all day watching these creatures move from plant to plant. 

A whole new perspective on patience and endurance!