bush meat

A few weeks ago I noticed our promising tomato plants were being eaten by something. I talked to our gardener and he said "Gafiya!  The gafiyoyi did it!"  Then he showed me where the gafiyoyi came from (two holes in the shed nearby).

What is a gafiya? It is a large possum-like rat that lives in the desert here and is considered to be good for eating. Gafiyoyi is the plural noun.

Later that night I heard some rustling near our compost pit and I thought it was a family of hedgehogs. I grabbed my camera and went to get some pictures of them for our family back home. Instead, I discovered two large gafiyoyi eating my compost. I took some pictures and called my wife out to see them.

Gafiya are grey and kinda cute in a large hamster sort of way. The second one is out of focus in the back.

The next day I told my friend the guard, S,  that we had a gafiyoyi problem. I showed him my tomatoes and I could see the wheels turning in his head. He noticed that they were living in a nearby shed so he blocked the holes that animals were coming and going from in an effort to trap them inside. The next night when he was on guard duty I noticed him outside my house looking for something. He had spotted one of the gafiyoyi (they are nocturnal so night time is the time to hunt for them). He had found a new hole they had been using to get in and out of the shed.

We talked about catching them. He told me he had an idea that he would bring tomorrow night. The next night, right as it was getting dark, I saw him walking towards my garden with  a large metal trap in his hand. He set it up in front of the shed and he removed some stones so that the gafiyoyi would have to get in and out through that one hole. About an hour later I was sitting in my house when I heard clanging and rattling. I went out to the garden and there was a gafiya stuck in the trap! I notified S and he freed it from the trap and carried it to the guard station where he used a knife to finish it off.

Here is the trap, you can barely see it. but the rocks form a tunnel so that the gafiya would have to walk over the trap to get out of the shed.

That wasn't the end of the evening! When we got to the guard station I was startled by a massive flapping and scraping sound. To my surprise it was a tattabara (pigeon) in the windows. Yes, he had caught a pigeon and as an impromptu cage he put it in the window between the glass and the screen. I was surprised and a little startled. So, S was doing pretty good that night. He had already caught two protein sources in one evening.

But we weren't done! While he was hanging one gafiya in a tree to keep the dogs from getting it, he spotted a second one off in the distance. This time he ran towards it chasing it towards a building. I followed and so did a second guard H that was sitting near the guard station. When the gafiya reached the wall it had no where to go but left and right along the wall. The three of us chased it back and forth along the wall. The two guards had their sticks. I just had my intimidating demeanor. After about ten seconds of it running back and forth along the wall trying to hit it, it disappeared. At first we thought it had run around the corner and we just didn't see it. So, we all walked that way to the side of the building. While we were rounding the building a pigeon randomly flew right at S. He batted it out of the air and to the ground like a tennis player at the net. He went over and picked it up and carried it off to his makeshift cage. 

Pigeon Prison?

Here you can see the wall that we chased the gafiya towards, the potted plants make for increased level of difficulty. It was like whack-a-mole but with potted plants in the way.

H and I continued to look for the missing gafiya. I became convinced that the gafiya had hidden in the plants out front of the building. Sure enough, upon further inspection a few of the pots had holes in the back sides of them. When S returned, I told them I would lift up the pot and they could smack anything that runs out.

I lifted the first pot, nothing. The second pot, nothing. The third and final pot. Gafiya! They swung their staffs, and missed and missed and missed. The gafiya ran back and forth, then tried to escape away from the wall but it soon discovered that was a terrible option because there were no pots to hide behind.  It wised up and went back to the wall. After about a minute it started to get tired. Finally it tried to hide in the pot again. But This time, they got him. Triumphantly they carried it back to the guard station.

The two guards are neighbors and between them they have ten kids and two wives. So, they split the bonanza of meat about 14 ways. They are also friends of mine and I've been to their home a few times. I can imagine their wives were excited to get such fine ingredients for their breakfast. Protein is something that lacks greatly in most people diets here. Considering that a kilogram of meat costs about a day's wages, you can see why meat is such a treat. I suspect they got about a kilogram of meat from two gafiyoyi and two pigeons

My friend with his gafiyoyi. He was the master of killing snakes, Now he is the master of killing gafiyoyi. We had so much fun.

There are plenty more gafiyoyi where those came from. That night we saw several more that we were not able to catch. And the pigeons are a plentiful too. One night I counted 60 on my roof. There were at least 30 more on my neighbor's roof. And if you did a census on the whole compound, I bet you would count several hundred. They are one of the more annoying birds I have ever encountered, always cooing and scratching on the roof and dive-bombing you without warning. Anyway, we had some of the most fun I've had since moving to Africa. We'll do it again some night. Only next time I am going to get some breakfast.

how does your garden grow...

Things are growing around here!

The corn after 3 days

Just 9 days later...about a foot tall!

The beans are thriving, too!

...and so is Luke's hair

can't blame the rain for this awesome 'do

its growing!

Our gardener wanted more work to prepare for his upcoming marriage. We had a garden plot out back and some seeds. Now we are the proud owners of a small vegetable farm!

Two days ago all this was just dirt...now the plants are 3 inches tall. I've never seen plants grow so fast!