Do you have any pets?

     We were recently asked this question by a friend in the States.  No we do not have any pets, but we do have various other vermon with whom we share our residence.

First we have ants.  We have seen at least 5 different types.  There are red ones, black ones, big ones and small ones.  Some bite, others don’t.  Then there are some that are so tiny and move so quickley they seem to appear and disappear just like that.  If we miss a crumb on the floor, the ants quickley show us where we left it.  No matter how hard we try to keep things clean and no matter how much bug spray we use, there they are. 

Then there are the small gekos that inhabit our house.  These we see mostly at night or early in the morning.  These lizards are actually kind of cute; until I noticed they seem to leave small dropping on my kitchen counter, dishes in the drying rack, and even a book left out on the counter.  We have found out these small lizards help manage the cockroaches, which we see mostly after return home from a few nights away.  So I’m willing to put up with the lizards (and their little messes) if it helps keep the coackroaches at bay. 

lizard on our dinning room wall

    Outside there are many street cats.  I have yet to meet one person that actually owns a cat as a pet.  The boys are very interested in these cats.  Seeing where they sleep, scrounge for food, and their sickly appearance we have taught the boys to LOOK only.  I (Erin) have come see they too have a purpose: managing the rat population.  Yes, if we are out early or at night we occasionally see a small, gray creature return to the gutter. 
     Occassionally we have seen dogs as pets, but this is rare.  Dog meat on the otherhand is common about 200 miles north of us.  We have had the opportunity to try it.  Interesting, but kind of tough and wild.

In our front garden there are frogs and snails, which both seem harmless and fun to look at, so far anyways. 

snail shells from those common in our yard

one of many frogs in the front year

      In our backyard, again at night, there are bats that like to dive in and out of our yard.  They have a pretty loud squeeking that accompanies their flying.  We have gotten use to their noise and haven’t experienced any other negative effects from them. 

The most recent vermon in our lives are worms.  This is where it gets gross.  A friend suggested we take anti-worm medication every six months just because intestinal worms are easy to pick up here.  We decided to follow this advice after seeing small red worms in the boys bath water, after they finished bathing.  The medication is just a one dose administration, but after a week there were still worms in the bath water.  It turns out these worms were actually in our water tank.  Only after our water pump stopped working and we emptied our tank completely, did we notice that the worms and also mosquito larvae had been coming out of the bathroom facet.  A friend advised us this can happen if you don’t regularly empty your tank, which we hadn’t been doing.  Recently we discovered a large crack in our tank which may have allowed the initial entry of the worms. 

So, in summary, we do not have any pets, intentionally any way.