Living in a farming village will sure teach a city girl like me a whole lot about animals!
Here are a few interesting observations I’ve noticed:
- Cows are way more flexible than you think. All the jokes about cow-tipping has made me think cows are stiff and just stand there eating grass all day. Yesterday, I saw a cow lift up its hind-leg and sniff itself in the behind just like a dog would do. Also, they actually know their way home on their own sometimes. I saw a cow straight walk into my teacher’s drive way only to find it was the family’s cow.
- Spiders love to stay in one place for an extended period of time. That spider in the outhouse I mentioned a while back…still in the same spot. Which brings me to the next point, their lifespan is longer than I expected. Also, I don’t think Georgians are scared of spiders like some Americans are (cough…cough, me)! I’ve lost count on how many daddy-long-legs I’ve seen that are in people’s homes.
- Donkeys can rape one another- or at least attempt. I was walking with a bunch of friends last weekend in a different village and we suddenly heard a donkey howling. We saw that a male donkey just jumped on the female’s behind and started humping while biting her neck. The female donkey was able to escape after a few minutes. It looked like how dogs hump each other uninvited, but much more aggressively.
- Rosters do not just crow when the sun comes up like the movies portray. Those birds go at it all the time! But especially in the morning- like 4:30 a.m.! We hear the rosters wide and clear each morning and I’m not a fan when the sun is not yet shinning.
- Dogs are not a man’s best friend! Well, at least in Georgia. They are in fact very vicious here and I’ve grown to be afraid. As you are walking down the street, it is a legitimate fear that they will come at you and bite you. In fact, many Peace Corps Volunteers have had to fight them off. Which is why all volunteers in Georgia get Rabies shots, in fact, we just completed our third round a couple of days ago.
- Mice can eat through walls. For some reason, I assumed they go through already-made cracks in the walls, but no, their teeth never stop growing. How do I know this? Let’s just say I have an unwanted pet in my room that goes by the shape of a mouse. Current fear, stepping on it in the middle of the night. Justin has placed rat poison and the mouse has feasted on all of it. Is it still alive? To be determined….