Super-sized

There’s at least one grain of truth in the stereotype of Africa being larger than life. On a continent where safari catalogues boast the opportunity to see the “Big Five,” I think it’s interesting that even the non-safari flora and fauna confirm the stereotype. There are centipedes and millipedes here as in America, though it is more common to spot them, perhaps because of their sheer size – the same millipede that might be an inch or two long in America is 8 inches long here and its shiny black segments almost an inch in diameter. (Having heard horror stories about the bite—or is it sting?—of one or the other of them, I keep a safe distance from both just in case). Moths and butterflies I have seen can have a wingspan of up to 6 inches. During the rainy season, snails abound, but here they are not the tiny, delicate creatures in paper-thin whorled shells I find in our garden at home. The snails that come out after it rains are at least 7 inches long, and I have often confused their discarded calcified shells for seashells, even 200 miles inland. They look almost like cartoon renderings of snails writ large, and their name (Giant African Land Snail) speaks volumes. One day last week when we were interviewing, my assistant Irene noticed a brown snake ahead on the path – while I have no particular phobia of snakes, this one was as thick as a man’s calf. Our best guess is that it was a python, but who knows if it is just what happens to your average garden snake raised on a diet of super-nutrients?

Two weeks ago, I was staying in a decrepit guest house, lying under my mosquito net and talking on the phone with Matt in the dark, when I began hearing an intermittent thunking, almost as if my ceiling fan was malfunctioning. When I turned on my flashlight, the thunking immediately stopped and a large object careened directly into my net, sagging a foot from my face. The outline was most definitely a bat, with a wingspan of 12-15 inches. (Apparently bats are drawn toward light sources!) He must have been napping between the interior shutter and the screen of the window, and so when I had opened the shutters for air before retiring to bed, he must have awoken and begun flying around, having a series of unfortunate collisions with my fan overhead. Matt (my internet-connected hero!) consulted Google, and divined that the bat was probably a fruit bat, which are one of the largest kinds of bats in the world. Coincidentally, fruit bats do not use sonar to sense objects in the night, which may explain his inability to detect the whirring death trap on the ceiling. I am sad to report that the series of ensuing events (including valiant long-distance problem solving on Matt’s part and some poorly-suppressed hysterics on mine, as well as continued fan-bat attraction) led to the injured bat’s untimely demise and unceremonious disposal outside. Rest in peace, giant bat.

Not only animals but plants are super-sized here. I have seen virtually all our houseplants at home growing here, only they are not the puny kind of plants that Lowe’s sells in 6-inch pots. Here, you find crotons that are towering 12-foot shrubs, and schiffleras 6-8 feet wide. I have seen aurelias that are massive trees (our aurelia at home is impressive for a houseplant, thanks to Matt’s green thumb, and yet in 5 years has only grown to be about 4 feet tall), and bougainvillea arbors that swallow whole houses.

I have yet to go on any kind of safari (that is a treat waiting for Matt’s birthday in June), but unless the giraffes, elephants, and wildebeests are much larger than at the zoo, there’s at least a small chance I will remain more awed by the sheer size of everyday animals and plants!