A Day at the Zoo
According to Tamara Vodovoz, a trained veterinarian I know here who volunteers at a local zoo, most African zoos offer animals the worst imaginable conditions. Though the management willingly takes your money, there is hardly any subsequent investment in the zoo; there are neither clear objectives nor a plan to improve the park in order to reach international captive wildlife wellbeing standards.
There are few tools available to conduct any meaningful work. Though
there is a veterinary technician on staff, he has spent far too much
of his time reading the newspaper because there are neither medicines
nor resources for him to carry out de-worming or vaccination for the
animals. Any zoo should have basic equipment such as a blow dart and
anesthesia and a staff that knows how to use them, yet here they do
not. In one disheartening example, five little jackals that were kept
in far too small a cage escaped, but not for long: one of them ended
up with neurological damage because a keeper hit him on the head with
a shovel in order to return him to his cage.
Hail to Obama 009
The way things work here always astonishes me slightly, but I guess this is all part of the charm of being in Senegal. I have been to a lovely fishing village called Toubab Dialaw about three times now (http://www.traveling-stories-
Marieme is a necklace seller stationed just outside one of the more upscale hotels in the area. Her ‘shop’ consists of about a yard or so of fabric spread on the ground. She removes the necklaces from her enormous woven basket, (which is generally perched atop her head on her way to work), arranges them carefully on the cloth, and voila – she is ready for business.
I think it was her baby Babacar that caused us to enter into our first conversation, as he is utterly adorable. Three unneeded necklaces later, we were all fast friends. When I returned to the area last weekend for a visit, bringing copies of the photos I had taken last time for Marieme and her family to keep, I asked where I could eat a really good thiebou dieune, the national rice dish with fish and vegetables (http://www.traveling-stories-
It never occurred to me that I might be invited home, but that was exactly what happened as a result, and around two that afternoon she left her colleagues to attend to her wares while she walked me through her village to her home. Like the majority of local homes, there was a stereo and electricity, but neither a stove nor a fridge. Since the locals often have neither the luxury of gas supplied through a mains pipe, nor the certainty of being able to pay a regular monthly bill, gas must be bought in containable units stored in canisters, and continually replaced when the canister runs out.
