Other West African Reptiles

Geckos are just one of the many desert crawlers in Senegal. Lizards are common, often sunning themselves on the sides of buildings, or scampering out of your way on the sidewalk. Most are non-descript grays and browns, but at least one species is striking in it’s coloration: it has a school bus yellow head, steel blue body, and a gray and yellow tail. To see a good photo, copy this link into your browser:

http://www.pbase.com/rvbulck/image/34224169

Once while birdwatching, I came across what appeared to me to be a salamander, small and quick with soft-scaled green skin on the back, with a white underside. There were two: one had nearly fluorescent orange sides. The other—its mate?—had white sides.

Our students’ favorite species (probably because they can catch them), is chameleons. These are quite different from the lizard-like color-changers that frequented my grandmother’s yard in Alabama during our summer visits decades ago. I would be hard pressed to accurately describe the Senegalese versions, except to mention that their tails can curl tightly up over their backs, or around a small tree branch for stability, that they have three-toes on their feet, and that they change colors from green to brown.

Finally, there are a few snakes, but they are not common. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a wild snake here. The school has a 6-foot boa named Spot, but he’s an émigré. He was donated to the school by his former owner, a woman who brought him to Senegal when she was evacuated to Dakar during the Ivory Coast’s civil war a few years ago. She snuck him in by hiding him under her sweater and pretending she was pregnant! Yes, really!

Oops. Almost left out crocodiles and monitor lizards, both of which I've seen in zoo-like parks and in the wild.

This ends part two of your ____________* lesson for today.

*Does anyone know the scientific Latin term goes in that blank?

Gary the Gecko

No, I’m not selling car insurance. I have an actual pet gecko. Well, saying it that way implies a closer relationship than we really have. Gary hides under a shelf or behind the microwave whenever I enter the same room.

Geckos here are translucent brown or tan when they are very young, and have non-descript, rather light camouflage pigmentation when grown. The first time I saw Gary he was a juvenile--starting to turn opaque, but still a pasty monochrome that housepaint marketers would no doubt call something like “Mexican Adobe” or “Cream of Wheat,” though I think “Gary Gecko Tan” would be a more interesting name to see on a paint can).

I’m happy to have this little house guest, as he eats . . . well, I don’t know what he eats—flies? mosquitoes? ants?--but he’s welcome to them all, and so are his future progeny.

Speaking of progeny… fast forward two months.

I first drafted this post back in September. Recently, I realized that I have not only one pet Gecko, but three. My newest friend is Sparky, a cute little fellow about 2 inches long, counting his tail. And, of course, if there’s a papa gecko, and a baby gecko, there must be a momma gecko. So, some of those sightings of Gary may actually have been sightings of Gilda. (In case you wonder how to tell the difference between a Gary and a Gilda, I don’t know. For that matter, Sparky might actually be Suzy.)

What's Nike Missing?

A. Brains
B. Honesty
C. Common sense
D. All of the above

Answer: D. All of the above.

Some of you are old enough to remember the old ABC sports programs, whose opening shots always included Jim McKay's famous voice-over, "The thrill of victory . . . the agony of defeat." According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Arien O'Connell of New York City experienced both the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat last Sunday . . . in the same event!

Arien was the fastest runner in Sunday's Nike Women's Marathon in San Francisco, but wasn't awarded the first place trophy. Nor second place. Nor even third. Why? Because she hadn't registered as an "elite" runner to get a 20-minute early starting time in a less crowded field.

So Arien, a fifth-grade teacher by day, watched as the trophies were handed out to three women who ran 11 minutes slower than she did.

When the judges and sponsors recognized the inconsistency, they . . . did nothing.

Reports the Chronicle:

"At this point," Nike media relations manager Tanya Lopez said Monday, "we've declared our winner."

Maybe the next time Tanya buys something, the clerk should give her the wrong change. When she asks about it, the clerk can just say, "At this point, we've given our change."

By the way, just a week before the San Francisco debacle, the fourth-place runner in the Chicago Marathon didn't get the fourth place prize either. Wesley Korir didn't run with the "elite group" in that race, so he too was ineligible for a prize, even though he outran the fourth-place "winner."
It's a strange sport that requires you to announce in advance that you might win in order for you to be acknowledged as the winner when you do, in fact, win.

Nike, hang your head in shame.

And change your name.

You don't deserve to call yourself by the Greek word for "victory" when you don't acknowledge the true victors in your own sporting events.

To read the San Francisco Chronicle article, click the following link.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/21/BAUC13L3GQ.DTL&nopu=1

What's China Got that We Ain't Got?

I know, the Beijing Olympics were impressive. But the bar has been raised. Take a look at these shots from DA's own Olympics. (I tried to post this much closer to the so-called "real" Olympics, but had trouble with photos.)

We have real bird's nests in our trees!

And form not to be matched anywhere...
Geometry in motion!

We even have cool Red Team outfits.

So, don't wait around for 2012. Visit Dakar--we have Olympics every year! (Full disclosure: the above photos are actually from DA's 2007 Olympics. This year's sports extravaganza is still to come.)

On the Rocks

Today I'll treat you to several shots from my (long-ago) visit to Isle des Madeleine, commonly known as Snake Island (though there are no snakes—this name is probably a distortion of a mistranslation of an African word). Madeleine is a tiny island about 20 minutes by motorized pirogue off the western shore of the southern tip of the peninsula that is Dakar.

The next photo is a view of the Pancake Islands. At least, that’s what I call them. They’re actually flat rocks, perhaps 10 yards in diameter, in a small bay next to one of Snake Island’s beaches. (If I’d moved my camera even a smidgen to the left, you would have seen the beginning of the narrow shore whose cliffs lead up to where I was standing.)

I’ve been to Snake Island only once. The real treat for me was seeing and photographing Red-Billed Tropic Birds--beautiful white birds with two, very long tail feathers--in their rock nests. The island is said to be one of the only two places in the world that they breed.

In the air...

...and "on the rocks"

For some additional, nice views of the island, check out the following blog that I discovered recently, put together by a couple (who I do not know) upon visiting Senegal a few years back.

www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Laura%20JohnInAfrica/page-2.html

Up a creek without a net...

Portions of Dakar have been without Internet access for the past one to two weeks. What a disruption! Between that and power outages, September was a hard month! Our campus connection is back up, so I finally get to post the blog entries I was working on before it went bad. Hope you enjoy them.