Thursday, October 30, 2003
The Animals of Keren
People share the town with a variety of animals. Some of them are utilitarian, others wild, none of them is treated with any compassion or interest. The long-legged camels lope along the river bed, strung together or lead by a turbanned trader. They groan with a profound melancholy as they roll along: a cavernous, resonating sound that seems to call up from the depths of the earth to vibrate along its surface in waves of mournful reproach. The goats and sheep are hard to distinguish from one another. Both are lean and tatty, the sheep in particular struggling to retain the scraps of wool that hang from their flanks. Many of the goats and sheep are pregnant. The goats often have cloth gloves to cover their udders, perhaps to stop the kids from feeding before they can be milked. The sheep and goats are about the same size, so the sheep are small compared to their farm-mutated European cousins. Goats and sheep roam almost freely around the entire town, but are usually followed eventually by a herder who slaps the stragglers with a stick regularly. Men lead their camels along the main streets, stopping to buy things from shops while the animal waits outside. It's a strange sight: a camel standing across the path whose reins lead into a grocery shop.
There are cows too. They are less common in the town itself, but often do the passagiata around Shifshevit after dark. As I walk back from town after sunset, I often come close to walking into a slumbering cow. They are small too, but stocky and healthy-looking. The local ones come from a compound / farm about 50 yards from my door whose wall was recently rebuilt. Before that, the cows would wander in and out as they pleased, treading over the crumbled stone.
Most compounds have a clutch of chickens, and a cockerel to service them. Before dawn -- at about 5 in the morning -- the cockerel chorus begins. It's fine until the lord of my compound begins his crowing and then it is impossible to sleep. I wonder if cockerel tastes as good as chicken ... The chickens themselves are insane. They are cooped by night then let loose in the morning, when they run around the compound clucking incessently. They go berserk at the sight of a human, running frantically for shelter, often threatening to run inside my house. Their chicks are kept in a box in the corner of the yard. Among the chickens, somewhere amidst the flurry of feathers, is a pair of ducks. Their wings appear atrophied -- I think they have been clipped to prevent them from flying. I chuck my vegetable peelings into the coop to delighted chatter. The chickens drive the chained dog crazy. He -- I think it is a he -- barks at them as he barks at the little children who come into the compound from time to time, and who throw stones at the dog when I'm not watching them. His fellow dogs patrol the town at night, shifting menacingly through the shadows. They are silent, in contrast to the compound-bound, who start their barking shortly after the first cockerel crow. Dogs and chickens are ancient enemies, it seems.
Donkeys are common in certain parts of town, although they are rare in Shifshevit. They mostly look very healthy: a rich chestnut brown with a thin black wishbone straddling their shoulders, and more black picking out the nose and ears. In villages, the donkeys are used to carry water from the well. Here, they carry items to and from the market, often with a boy riding well back over the rump, slapping the donkey with a stick. Sticks or stones are used readily on the animals here.
There are several beautiful birds: the brown, long-tailed mouse bird; small robins with incandescent orange breasts; the splendid starling whose coat shimmers in oily, metallic green and blue amongst the prevailing black. Then there are the swifts. They live in the eaves of the secondary school where I work: flitting in and out of small globe nests built from spit and feathers. They fly inches from the ground, and corkscrew past my elbow as I stand on the balcony outside the director's office. Like bats, they zoom straight up to obstacles, then veer off at the very last minute, slipping along stone walls, or buzzing past ears. At sunset is when they are most active scooping up the evening's insects. From the top of the Keren hotel they can be seen skidding around the town below, chirruping triumphantly.
The wasps use spit for their nests too. Black and gangly, two slim segments joined by an inch of wire, their long legs hang lazily as the slowly explore the inside of the school buildings, searching for food or potential nest sites. When they find a site, they flip over to land on the ceiling and begin construction of a hanging ball of spit and wood pulp. They're fairly benign, these wasps, but curious. They will hover languidly a couple of feet from your face but I have been warned not to try to bat one away -- the sting is painful. I've never seen one land on anything except ceiling, so I'm not worried by them.
Cockroaches are fewer than in Asmara, but can be much bigger. One of my residents was about three inches long but I haven't spotted any in my house for a week or so, which probably just means they've got cleverer. I've never seen one near my food, and I'm careful how I store it. I also always use the bed net, so there's no worry about them crawling over me at night.
There are huge ants, that zig-zag solo everywhere. They are harmless. I've never been stung or bitten by one, and they don't gather in troops like other species. There is another type of ant that I initially mistook for a scorpion. Its back is permanently arched in defensive strike-readiness, and it scuttles about the sand, lifted high on its long legs. There are ant-lions too, but the only evidence of them is the small pit in the sand, with a hole at its centre. In that hole is a beetle larva waiting patiently for a curious ant to investigate its lair. Ant gets too close and beetle lunges out and closes its powerful jaws around its prey.
Many beetles appear in the toilet regularly but the strangest is one that a teacher finds one day in the staff room. Its body is about two inches long, oval and seems to be two shallow disks stuck together at the rims. The top disk is olive green, the bottom one yellow. It has cellophane wings, with black veins running through them. Its abdomen is covered in a furry fuzz that flexes and contracts. Since being in Eritrea, I've quickly developed a tolerance of mudane pests and a fascination for the more exotic examples.
Sitting this afternoon under a small tree in a big school -- Megarh Junior School to the west of town -- chatting to the P.E. teacher when a small hawk lands on the roof opposite. It's slim and very beautiful: light brown flecked with white and a delicate, feminine arch to its breast and head. As it takes off for a nearby tree, there's a flash of black and white, fanning the banded tail to steer.
There are cows too. They are less common in the town itself, but often do the passagiata around Shifshevit after dark. As I walk back from town after sunset, I often come close to walking into a slumbering cow. They are small too, but stocky and healthy-looking. The local ones come from a compound / farm about 50 yards from my door whose wall was recently rebuilt. Before that, the cows would wander in and out as they pleased, treading over the crumbled stone.
Most compounds have a clutch of chickens, and a cockerel to service them. Before dawn -- at about 5 in the morning -- the cockerel chorus begins. It's fine until the lord of my compound begins his crowing and then it is impossible to sleep. I wonder if cockerel tastes as good as chicken ... The chickens themselves are insane. They are cooped by night then let loose in the morning, when they run around the compound clucking incessently. They go berserk at the sight of a human, running frantically for shelter, often threatening to run inside my house. Their chicks are kept in a box in the corner of the yard. Among the chickens, somewhere amidst the flurry of feathers, is a pair of ducks. Their wings appear atrophied -- I think they have been clipped to prevent them from flying. I chuck my vegetable peelings into the coop to delighted chatter. The chickens drive the chained dog crazy. He -- I think it is a he -- barks at them as he barks at the little children who come into the compound from time to time, and who throw stones at the dog when I'm not watching them. His fellow dogs patrol the town at night, shifting menacingly through the shadows. They are silent, in contrast to the compound-bound, who start their barking shortly after the first cockerel crow. Dogs and chickens are ancient enemies, it seems.
Donkeys are common in certain parts of town, although they are rare in Shifshevit. They mostly look very healthy: a rich chestnut brown with a thin black wishbone straddling their shoulders, and more black picking out the nose and ears. In villages, the donkeys are used to carry water from the well. Here, they carry items to and from the market, often with a boy riding well back over the rump, slapping the donkey with a stick. Sticks or stones are used readily on the animals here.
There are several beautiful birds: the brown, long-tailed mouse bird; small robins with incandescent orange breasts; the splendid starling whose coat shimmers in oily, metallic green and blue amongst the prevailing black. Then there are the swifts. They live in the eaves of the secondary school where I work: flitting in and out of small globe nests built from spit and feathers. They fly inches from the ground, and corkscrew past my elbow as I stand on the balcony outside the director's office. Like bats, they zoom straight up to obstacles, then veer off at the very last minute, slipping along stone walls, or buzzing past ears. At sunset is when they are most active scooping up the evening's insects. From the top of the Keren hotel they can be seen skidding around the town below, chirruping triumphantly.
The wasps use spit for their nests too. Black and gangly, two slim segments joined by an inch of wire, their long legs hang lazily as the slowly explore the inside of the school buildings, searching for food or potential nest sites. When they find a site, they flip over to land on the ceiling and begin construction of a hanging ball of spit and wood pulp. They're fairly benign, these wasps, but curious. They will hover languidly a couple of feet from your face but I have been warned not to try to bat one away -- the sting is painful. I've never seen one land on anything except ceiling, so I'm not worried by them.
Cockroaches are fewer than in Asmara, but can be much bigger. One of my residents was about three inches long but I haven't spotted any in my house for a week or so, which probably just means they've got cleverer. I've never seen one near my food, and I'm careful how I store it. I also always use the bed net, so there's no worry about them crawling over me at night.
There are huge ants, that zig-zag solo everywhere. They are harmless. I've never been stung or bitten by one, and they don't gather in troops like other species. There is another type of ant that I initially mistook for a scorpion. Its back is permanently arched in defensive strike-readiness, and it scuttles about the sand, lifted high on its long legs. There are ant-lions too, but the only evidence of them is the small pit in the sand, with a hole at its centre. In that hole is a beetle larva waiting patiently for a curious ant to investigate its lair. Ant gets too close and beetle lunges out and closes its powerful jaws around its prey.
Many beetles appear in the toilet regularly but the strangest is one that a teacher finds one day in the staff room. Its body is about two inches long, oval and seems to be two shallow disks stuck together at the rims. The top disk is olive green, the bottom one yellow. It has cellophane wings, with black veins running through them. Its abdomen is covered in a furry fuzz that flexes and contracts. Since being in Eritrea, I've quickly developed a tolerance of mudane pests and a fascination for the more exotic examples.
Sitting this afternoon under a small tree in a big school -- Megarh Junior School to the west of town -- chatting to the P.E. teacher when a small hawk lands on the roof opposite. It's slim and very beautiful: light brown flecked with white and a delicate, feminine arch to its breast and head. As it takes off for a nearby tree, there's a flash of black and white, fanning the banded tail to steer.
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