Sunday, November 26, 2006

Bustani ya Wanyama (the Zoo)



Our house often feels a bit like a zoo...we're not the best at cleaning up after ourselves, and the noise level can get pretty high. But I'm starting to feel like an actual zoo...

Introducing the new puppies. Not technically ours, but I see the writing on the wall already. They are boxer/lab mixes and will be guard dogs for the school site eventually. Right now they are just completely cute and teeny eating machines. Moshi (Swahili for "smoke") and Rugby hopefully don't actually need to be vicious--people just need to think they are. Black dogs bother Tanzanians and the owners of the parent dogs have some very funny stories about reactions their boxer, ranging from fear of his size to believing he's part human because of his pushed-in face. Both parents were very good-tempered, but territorial, which is great. You can see the puppies both have more of a lab look to their faces right now. Within 2 hours they've completely taken over Sydney's food bowl and sleeping basket. Syd loves to play but is obviously put out at losing her basket. They'll live in a large kennel area during the day both here and at the site (sure they will, Carla. No really, they will. I'm serious about this) and will walk with the guards and be off-leash at night.

I tried several times today to get a pic of Kobe (Swahili for "turtle" and it's pronounced Ko-bay) but he's too shy and pulls his head in. Yes, he's a real tortoise I found walking down the road. They're pretty common out on the drier flats, but this guy was near our house, so we added him in. He doesn't require any attention, other than turning him back over if Sydney gets too excited. The kids love having him poke around the yard. Later in the afternoon we were able to catch him just a bit. It's funny, when we approach him, he hisses and hides, but when Syd comes up and tries to chew on his leg or head, he just keeps walking.
For the record, I don't really know if it's a him or a her.

2 comments:

Karen said...

Very, very cute!

andalucy said...

Great photos, Carla!