A Rubis in the Smog

There are a lot of animals around here. Most of them are goats or sheep, which are sometimes hard to tell apart because the sheep are always shorn. There is a sheep tethered to a tree by my house, whom I hear bleat at odd hours, including late at night. Often when I am walking down the street I hear sheep or goats behind the outer walls of people's houses.

There are also a large number of chickens. As I am writing this I just heard a rooster crow. There are signs in various neighborhoods advertising "vente de poulet," or chicken meat for sale, and I pass a stall on the way to ACI where a man chops up chicken meat. The other day I saw a smart kitty waiting for scraps during a sale. I also pass another similar stall where a man chops up what looks like mutton. I often see him sawing through bones with a hacksaw. One also occasionally sees ducks, like the ones that I saw on our first full day here that were being carried by the bases of their wings by a man who walked down the street.

I have also seen one or two men on the street carrying small cages made of wood and wire full of sparrows and other small birds for sale. They generally do not seem at all pleased by their arrangement. There are a variety of little birds. This morning as we were eating breakfast I saw a sparrow looking at his reflection in the window. Thankfully he didn't try to attack it. The other day I saw what I think was a female goldfinch, although it could have been any kind of mostly yellow bird. There are also the tiny red breasted birds, and I once saw a teeny tiny bird with a hooked beak that looked like it fulfilled a similar niche to a hummingbird. There was a large number of pigeons or doves on Ile de Gorée, which I occasionally see here. They sound very similar to mourning (or is it morning?) doves.

I think my favorite wild birds are the hawks and crows. The hawks on Ile de Gorée flew low over the water and occasionally swooped down to get a fish. Their voice was an odd combination of a red tailed hawk and a gull. On the ferry I also saw a number of what looked like turns flying around in the harbor. The crows here are about the same size as ours, but they look like they are wearing white bibs, complete with the tie around their neck. The other day I saw a pigeon chasing one across the road. I notice more birds all the time. I need a bird book.

I have mentioned the horses before. They are all fairly small, particularly compared to the horses that one usually sees being used to pull carts. They are also usually skinny enough to see their ribs. I wonder what they eat? There might be enough dry grass around for the sheep and goats to scrounge on, but it doesn't seem like that would be enough for the horses, skinny or otherwise.

Then, of course, there are the dogs and cats. I have yet to see an individual of either species that is fat. Most range from lean to downright skinny, and are wary of humans. The dogs and cats on Ile de Gorée were unusually healthy looking, with reason. The island might be renamed "Toubab Central" for the number of tourists that were there. In fact, most of the people that we saw on the island were either tourists or were there to sell to tourists. The vendeurs there were particularly aggressive on the top of the hill, where they descended on us like vulchers. They somehow got Alexis to not only buy stuff, but to give them some of her earrings.

The reason why the animals were so healthy became clear when we were at lunch. Shortly after our food arrived a small brown and gray tabby walked under the table. For the rest of the meal he sat at Jessl's feet while she fed him about half of her fish, and part of mine. She named him Sebastian and fed him bits of skin and eyeballs that she didn't want to eat herself. I am sure that there are regular territorial disputes between cats for the right to sit under those tables.

When the part of the group that I was with and I were near the top of the hill talking to one of many artists who sold paintings to tourists, a dog wandered up to us. He was quite handsome, with blond fur and gorgeous almond-shaped amber eyes. He seemed quite appreciative of being pet, too. When he wandered away from us I saw evidence of why most dogs shy from humans: two boys threw small rocks at him when he tried to jump on them in greeting.

On the beach I was looking for bits of smoothed glass in the sand when another boy-dog came up to me. He looked a little less healthy than the dog on the top of the hill, but he was still quite friendly. He was the same blond color as his co-habitent, and was very good at leaning. He followed me back to the rest of the LC people who were hanging out on the beach, and Kelly joined me in enthusiastically petting him. She named him Bruce. Katherine doesn't like dogs and so didn't know what to do when he said hello to her, walking on top of her legs and sticking his nose in her face. Kelly and I had to explain that dog manners aren't the same as human ones, and they aren't offended if you shove them aside. Katie was also rather startled to wake up from her nap to find a dog standing next to her. When the group got too big as other LC people joined us on the beach he ran off. I was sad that the battery in my camera had died before I could take a picture of him.

I was worried that I would have to come to the island every time I needed a dog fix, but I visited Katie's house the next day, and her family has two dogs, smallish girl-dogs. Katie says that they don't really serve any function for the household, which is very unusual for Senegal. The humans sometimes play with them, and they bark at random things a lot, but otherwise they just hang out in the courtyard and sleep all day. They too were appreciative of pets, although they didn't bother to get up from their warm place in the sun. The black girl-dog used to be owned by an English speaker, so her name is Lucky (which is probably not an unusual name for a dog in this city). I forget the other dog's name, but it meas snake. She was reddish brown.

Most of the dogs here seem to be variations of red to blond. I wonder if they are self-selected to blend in with the sand and dirt so people don't notice them as much. There is a little red dog who hangs out on one of the streets that I pass every day. She sometimes runs away from me as I approach, but a couple of times she waged her tail and actually walked towards me when I said hello to her. I think I'll call her Rubis (Ruby). It's not terribly original, but she is a little red dog.

Other dogs that I see on the street are being walked by humans with leashes. Often the humans look like white ex-pats, so I wonder about the ones being walked by locals. Their humans might pay other people to walk the dogs. This seems particularly likely in the richer parts of town.

I'll probably talk more about the non-human people here, particularly if I progress to the point where I can pet Rubis without the danger of her biting me or running away.