Bats, Geckos, and Chickens, Oh My!

- There was a bat in my house.

As I am walking into my house one night, my brother Dean asks me, “Nancy, you’re not afraid of bats, are you?” I immediately ducked down and ran outside. Dean followed, laughing, and begged me to come back inside. When I refused, he pulled out the time-old, “Come on, be a strong Acholi woman.” My “fuck you” in response was perhaps strong, but warranted. He tried to comfort me by saying the bat was just trying to escape the rain. It rains everyday. I was not comforted. Then he tried to convince me that I would be safe underneath the mosquito net. Because I could see no other option, other than sleeping under the rain outside or on the floor in the bug-infested hut, I told my brother to unlock my door and I would race to my bed. Thankfully, before this desperate action could be carried out, the bat flew out the open door into the night, leaving behind a relieved, but still shaky 20 year-old American girl.

- There are geckos in my pit latrine.

My pit latrine is roach infested by night and gecko infested by day. While I don’t even bother befriending the roaches, I have no choice during the day. I can’t go outside because people can see. These geckos are big, annoying, and gross. Fortunately, I think they’re scared of me. When I open the door and make noise, they crawl away. Then I quickly go in, do my business, and get out, all the while ignoring the sounds of crawling geckos plotting to ambush me. If you don’t think about it and you keep your eyes down, then geckos don’t exist. That is, until they crawl out of the hole, around your feet, and up the wall right in front of your face.

- My family tried to get me to slaughter a chicken.

I laughed in their faces.

- I was attacked by a goat.

Well, really it popped out of the grass at my feet and I thought it was a rampaging cow so I jumped two feet back. But it sounds cooler to say the goat attacked me.

These are just a few of my many interactions with the animals I come into contact with everyday. I’ve grown to have a fondness for the neighbor’s roosters bobbing around in my living room while also imagining slaughtering them every morning when they crow right outside my window. African animals and I have a dynamic love-hate relationship.