October 31 – November 5
Halloween
was a treat. Over the past month I’d had
various visitors gift me large bags of candy, mostly chocolate. I’d saved them up for this very occasion. Putting on a black, spider-webbed shirt and
drawing a black spider on my face with marker, I played games with the orphans
until dinner. Afterwards, we sat down to
watch “The Secret of NIMH” while I passed out the candy (saving the best for
myself, of course). It was a soothing
Friday evening, which I followed up with a lazy Saturday.
As the
workweek started anew, I began by pursuing a new strategy to feed the
fish. There is a retention pond below
the chicken house, which the farm staff flush the poultry manure into. This has resulted in a large bloom of aquatic
plants. Of interest is duckweed, a
microplant that floats on the surface of stagnant water bodies and forms a
continuous “mat.” Perfect though the
pond is for duckweed production, it’s not easily accessible. I spent a couple days trudging down to the
chickenshit pond with a net to haul back buckets of duckweed. The fish took to it readily and follow-up
research informed me that duckweed is an ideal aquaculture feed. Getting the duckweed was somewhat of a
hassle, so I decided to use one of our empty concrete ponds to grow some that would
be easily within reach. We filled up the
pond with water, dumped in a couple buckets of said plant, added a wheelbarrow
or two of poultry manure, and… Presto! Our very own lagoon.
In addition
to dragging buckets of weeds around, I’ve also been delegated the task of
taking oxygen readings from the pond. This
is a slow and menial process, entailing dropping a probe into a pond and
waiting some minutes before it decides on a reading. Repeat multiple times per pond, for all of
the ponds. Twice each day. That means for nearly 3 hours a day I am
standing by the ponds, waiting.
Actually, it is kind of nice to have a bit of alone time, which can be
scarce in Christianville. I have spent
some of this time gazing over my piscine dominion in search of tranquility,
which, also, can be quite scarce here.
During one
of these meditative spells, I found my reverie accosted by a sharp
yipping. I took this to be one of the
stray dogs barking just beyond the compound’s fence. As I plodded along taking measurements, I
suddenly saw a dark shape peaking above the lip of a pond. I dropped my probe and rushed to the scene,
thinking that one of the goats had fallen into the water. In actuality, it was a stray dog that had
fallen into one of our empty ponds. His
shrill cries stopped when he saw me, his breast heaving with the exertion of
trying to jump out of the concrete prison.
He was a handsome, if skinny, mutt with a hint of German Shepard in his
mix. Seeing that he was in no immediate
danger, I walked to the far of the pond, wondering how I might get him out. Perhaps I could lift him out if he was
friendly. I chose to enter the pond 30
yards away, on the opposite side of where the dog was located, so as not to
frighten him. I eased myself downwards,
thinking that I would probably be able to jump high enough to grab the lip of
the pond and get out again. I wasn’t
thinking entirely through my plan, I was simply focused on helping the
stray. Once in the pond, I crouched low
in an unassuming position and began to call softly to the dog to show that I was
no threat. Having watched me the whole
time, he began to trot over with ears erect and tail wagging. When he came within 10 yards, he suddenly
bared his fangs with a vicious snarl and hurled towards me. Without hesitation, I sprang backwards and
yanked myself out of the pond, never taking my eyes off of the feral
hound. In that moment I felt very much
like a gladiator thrown into the pit.
Looking down at my would-be attacker, he resumed his tail wagging. Cursing the animal for eschewing the only
help he would have in this world, I shakily lowed an upside-down bucket into
the pond in the chance that he could use it to jump out.
Several
hours later, I was collecting duckweed when the two oldest orphans, CJ and
Peter, found me and inquired all about what I was up to. These two brothers often run away from their
studies at the orphanage and are usually momentarily entertained by my
activities. They were in fact interested
by my new fish-feeding tactic and endeavored to help me. As we ascended from the chickenshit pond, we
passed by the empty concrete pond to see the dog still there, crouching in the
shade. The boys began to throw handfuls
of duckweed at the animal, yelling at it in Creole. The dog made a most hideous yell: half of
it that vicious snarl, half a whimpering howl.
With a bounding leap, it vaulted off the upturned bucket and caught its paws on
the lip of the pond. Kicking its legs up,
it finally crested the wall and quickly ran off with the boys in pursuit.
The next
evening I was out at the pond again, taking my second set of readings for the
day. Off in the distance I could hear
the echoes of a man I think of as ‘Sound Check.’ I call him this because I often hear him in
the evenings repeatedly exclaiming “Hallelujah!” into an amplified sound system
– I will usually listen for a while in dumbfounded astonishment at his
relentlessness before turning back to the task at hand. Since I had nowhere to go to escape Sound
Check’s incessant exaltations, I could only try to focus on taking the oxygen
readings.
“Hallelujah!”
“Hallelujah!”
“HalleLUjah!”
“HalleLUUUUUUUUjah!”
Suddenly, I
noticed vigorous ripples in one of the ponds I’d yet to check. I ran over, and this time it was one of the goats that had fallen
in. Goats are terrible swimmers and this
one was floating sideways with his head underwater, twitching terribly. I stripped off my clothes and dived in. Having reached him, I pull his head above the
surface; he gurgled and spat out some water as I paddled back to the edge of
the pond. Heaving him upwards, I shoved
him onto land. I pulled myself up and
considered a moment whether I would have to perform CPR. His chest no longer moving, I put my finger
to his mouth and felt no breath. I cupped
my hands around his lips and blew two long breathes into his lungs, then knelt
over him and began rhythmically pounding his chest, one hand atop the other
just as I’d been taught. Again, another
two breathes in, more pounding. His
insides gurgled as air and water moved around.
I stopped for a second to observe whether he had resumed breathing. His eyes had a milky, glazed look. I went back at it, pushing harder than before
as his chest began to crack beneath my fingers.
I remembered hearing that proper CPR often results in broken ribs, so on
and on I went, thumping and cracking.
After some time I stopped. There
was no movement. Gasping from the exertion, I
knelt in my wet boxers over a dead goat.
“Hallelujah!”
 |
| Gettin real tired of your shit, Sound Check |
Needless to
say, I wasn’t anxious this morning to go out and take more oxygen readings. The usually smothering climate, however, was
in favor of a cool, refreshing breeze. I
actually began to enjoy the method of my activity. Taking a deep breath, I looked out over the
ponds to see the light wind playing over the grasses of a nearby field. It was a peaceful scene and brought a feeling
of serenity. Thankfully, there were no extraneous
creatures in the ponds today. The
duckweed seems to be dying off, unfortunately, which makes me wonder if only
tilapia can live in these ponds. I’ll
have to remain diligent and vigilant.
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