East Grove Blues

After In Service Training a few friends came to visit my post and to see the river up close. As we approached the river my villagers started yelling at me, look look there is a bunga, a bunga. I had to idea what a bunga was until I turned and looked fifty yards into the water and saw a Hippo. There are still wild Hippos in Niger and it was really cool to see one where I live. They aren’t very exciting to watch, unless you piss them off, and then they can be really mean. They can be really territorial and so we kept our distance, and didn’t go in the water. The hippo mostly stuck its head out, whooshed its ears around, and then submerged back into the water. We all took pictures and joked with the kids about the hippo eating them, and then went on our way.

When we first arrived they took us to see the only wild Giraffe herd in West Africa. If you want to see an animal that should not be on this earth, go look at a Giraffe. It is the most ungainly thing I have seen. Watching them walk is like a tall man on stilts. A few weeks ago a man got caught after killing a Giraffe. He killed it for food, and promptly went to jail. I don’t know if the meat would be any good, and killing a creature like that would almost be as weird as the animal itself.

I joked with my villagers about killing the Hippo for food, which none of them would ever do, but it was one of the more disturbing conversations I have had with them. For now I will stick with fish and the occasional red meat (its hard to tell what you buy at market).