Animals are always nearby

I was woken up in the middle of the night by a hippo outside our house. At first I thought it was Rachel kicking her legs back and forth under the sheets while she slept, because that’s exactly what it sounded like. She had been woken up too and whispered to me, “Colleen, do you hear the hippo?” It is incredible how many sounds here are so foreign to me. Luckily, working at the zoo has introduced me to the lion’s roar. The zebras sound like “ra-roxy, ra-raoxy,” the hyena sound like a manual egg beater, and the wildebeest sound like they are saying “Gnu!” to one another, hence them sometimes being called gnus. I’m glad Rachel is here to help me out with the sound IDs.

Tuesday night the Schelten’s from Frankfurt Zoological Society invited us and a few others to a barbecue. The smell of meat cooking attracted hyena, which circled the porch. At their closest they were roughly only 10 feet away! They were so incredibly gorgeous, but it was very dark out, so pictures were impossible to take.




There are also resident animals that live near the houses. Rock hyrax can be found all over the Frankfurt premises; I frequently hear the pitter patter of their feet as they walk across our tin roof. Field mice and numerous birds have also taken up residence near the houses. My favorite resident animals actually live in a rock pile in front of Disease House. These are dwarf mongoose. We gave them an egg yesterday and watched to see how they would go after it. Here's a picure of the dominant one with eggs all over his snout and head.