Sunday roost

We've got chickens at the compound now, Benneth told me, excitedly. Great, I thought, that'll cut down on the cost of eggs, soaring at the market.

I hadn't factored in a rooster screeching a few metres from my head every five minutes all Sunday. Why is it that a) roosters make some of the worst noises that could befall a human ear and b) some roosters cannot get their brains around the appropriate time of day to be howling. The only way to drown out the roosters was by cranking up one of the two radio stations that can reach me here: flitting between 90s power ballads or Arabic pop.

I had an unexpected last-minute meeting with the state governor today. It went better than expected and I felt motivated when it ended after he expressed his full support for our project and because his presence helped temper some of the fanciful ideas that less urbane members of the Wildlife Service cook up. For example, to deal with the hippos that are still marauding around the county town of Nzara, the Wildlife Service wants to send some of its rangers to Kenya or Uganda to learn how to anaesthetise and translocate large mammals to safe areas. This is the sort of thing that is only appropriately done by trained veterinarians working in well resourced parks like Kruger in South Africa. I managed to suggest in the governor's presence, and get his backing, to investigate the hippo issue further and think about fencing to protect people's crops and eliminate any immediate danger from disgruntled hippos.

This is Rosetta's washing up zone. I like how bucolic it is, surrounded by tropical foliage.