If you happened to read my A-Team post, you might remember I briefly mentioned the crazy noises we awake to each morning. Nyagatare’s close proximity to Akagera National Park in rural northeast Rwanda means we enjoy a wealth of birds, bugs, and animals – some welcome, some not.
The birds are probably the most remarkable (although the safari ants are mighty impressive, too). Tiny, agile song birds in literally dozens of different get-ups and sizes that dart from tree to bush to porch railing. Sometimes, these zippy little birds will perch themselves on a ledge or open window in our courtyard, although the funniest is when they attempt to balance on our loose elastic clothesline. They bob uncontrollably up and down, twitter manically, and furiously flap their wings trying to maintain equilibrium. Eventually they yield and move to more stable ground. Some are a distinct nerf-ball yellow-green with gray highlights that zoom past as neon blurs. Some resemble dusty miniature cardinals with bright carrot orange beaks. Others are vibrant, iridescent persimmon orange with black bodies and flashes of yellow. Some are a bit larger with alternating, broken trapezoidal white and black feathering and beady blood red eyes. Still others have dark cocoa caps atop deep marine blue wings and white underbellies flecked black. It seems every other day I see a new and wonderful specie, I just wish I carried a professional photographer around in my back pocket.
We also have large, gray pigeon-like birds (this is all very scientific, mind you) sporting creamy white crowns that squawk loudly like monkeys in the weeping cassia tree directly behind our house. We call them the monkey birds for obvious reasons. They always sucker me into thinking there’s a baboon phonetics convention on our back porch. Then there’s the midnight blue ravenesque birds with inky eyes that stare inquisitively at us from the sagging chain-link fence surrounding school as we walk to and from the front gate.
Our most useful avian acquaintances are the bats. The bats prey on all manner of unwanted insects (more on them later), in particular mosquitoes and those pesky wasps colonizing our courtyard and back porch. Once the sun begins to set, they swoop into our courtyard under the cover of darkness. Sometimes they flap right past our faces as we exit our horribly squeaky kitchen door into the courtyard. It’s one of those fish-in-a-barrel scenarios since our large fluorescent stick light outside attracts flying insects like Rwandese teenagers to Chris Brown and Rihanna music videos (bizarre). The bats were steadily making a dent in our resident wasp population, but maybe the wasps got wise or something. Whatever it is, the bats have not been as active lately. Unfortunately for us, that means unrestrained wasp nest construction. More on the wasps to come.
On the animal front there is actually a relative dearth of truly interesting specimens. We’ve got mysterious wild dogs that I alone have glimpsed only once on an early morning trip to the garbage pit. It startled me in the pale, misty dawn light, but it scampered away into the tall, dewy maize fields as soon as I approached, apparently even more frightened of me. Technically we also have monkeys at the river, but they are just as elusive. We have also only seen a monkey twice now, but they are supposed to lounge frequently in the dense tree banks along the Akagera in the dusky late afternoon hours, just before the sun begins to creep down behind the hills.
Cows are king in Nyagatare, so you see them everywhere. Although some foreign breeds have been introduced into herds, the vast majority of the cattle remain the indigenous and perpetually bored-looking Ankore (the imports have not done well health-wise; the school lost three to disease before school started). The Ankore are instantly recognizable from their impressively long, upwardly curving horns, similar to a longhorn but with more arc. An Ankore could quite literally put a gaping hole straight through your midsection were it to choose to do so, but they are so unbelievably docile. Goring is pretty low on the fear list. Even when you do have a go at approaching their mottled flanks they collectively peel away in a sort of disorderly frightened shuffle. They also have a truly distinct low bellow which most nearly resembles the vibration of a cellphone on silent. The incredible pulsating cows of Nyagatare. However, I will go on the record here and state unequivocally that Ankore milk is the smoothest, sweetest, richest milk I have ever tasted, and I am fully converted to whole fat milk now (cholesterol be damned).
Geckos of all stripes and shades also frequent our house and surrounds. Some are teeny little things, barely longer than an inch, while others probably approach five or six inches. I don’t believe I have seen a gecko with the same coloration or pattern in the four months we have been here, but they are usually some combination of dusty grays and browns, sometimes striped, sometimes spotted (camouflage, you see). They creep along walls searching for tasty insect meals in their distinctive reptilian gait using their sticky bulbous toes. Occasionally we catch a glimpse of one missing some appendage, usually a tail – a lucky survivor alive for another day.
Geckos bring me to insects. Jeepers creepers do we have a lot of insects. I have already mentioned the wasps, so I’ll start there. They hang together in ominous clusters, working industriously on their papery hives suspended from our outdoor ceilings. Their bodies are cartoonishly hyperbolic: deep, dark bluish black wings and thorax with an exaggerated and particularly threatening-looking stinger. We steer clear, especially since they can fly so damn fast.
Out on the road, in our garden, and around the outside of our house we also see ants. Shiny jet-black ants nearly an inch long (Evan is quite certain they are a close relative of the dangerous bullet ants he saw in Costa Rica) that scurry aimlessly through our overcrowded, overgrown formerly garden-cum-cucumber patch (back to garden now, with okra, Japanese eggplant, rocket, and basil). Orderly hordes of deep, deep red safari ants that would put you in a terrible world of hurt were you to accidentally trespass through their ant highways on the road to school. Disgusting ant larvae that resemble giant flying maggots which inevitably commit suicide on the fluorescent light outside; apparently they are a Rwandan delicacy, but we have yet to venture there.
We also have the usual coterie of flies, pesky gnats, spiders, and other random bugs which I won’t bother to identify. The spiders are the most troublesome at the moment because we keep finding large streams of baby spiders or fresh webs filled with baby spiders around the house. We cannot figure out where they are coming from. Instead we just hope there is not some massive gathering underneath of our house or in our walls accumulating enough spiders to overwhelm us and take control of the house (think Harry Potter forest colony— yikes!). The adults are incredibly quick buggers, and they seem to hop or jump very adeptly as soon as you try to smack them with a shoe or book. I tend to purposefully ignore what might happen if one in fact bites me.
I’ll close this overly long post (sorry!) with a brief note about mosquitoes. Malaria is a very real concern in Nyagatare. Numerous students contract it (either for the first time, or a repeat), and our headmaster was stricken with an acutely bad bout of the parasitic disease the week prior to school. With that said, we rarely see mosquitoes, and always at night or the very early morning if we do. Nyagatare is quite dry and we assiduously avoid leaving standing water near the house, although the slow-moving river nearby and lower altitude don’t help. We also use nets to sleep under, where sometimes we hear the distinctive high-pitched whine of a mosquito buzzing around the room. I imagined that mosquitoes and malaria would be a much greater concern in Rwanda, but we honestly have a lot more trouble with the flying maggot ants and wasps than anything else. Taking some basic precautions (which actually does not include wearing bug spray) like bed netting, clearing standing water, and popping a basic anti-malarial keep the risk minimal. Knock on wood.
Okay, signing off. Lemme know if you’ve got questions. Another post to be up soon on Kampala and Jinja (I’ve not felt the creative juices thus far, sorry). Mwaramutse!
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