Just Call Me Batman

It seems there is no shortage of interesting run-ins with animals here in South Africa.  Of course, in a country inhabited by monkeys, baboons, elephants, lions, rhinoceroses, leopards, and buffalo, not to mention a wide diversity of snakes, it would be decidedly uncommon if one did NOT develop their own Jungle Book stories after a period of time.

If you have been a faithful blog reader, then you caught my last installment regarding my experience of playing soccer with goats this past weekend.  Well, the wildlife of this country must have gotten together and decided that they enjoyed the publicity they were getting through the blog because no sooner had I finished yesterday’s blog post and lied down to sleep, than I was woken up by a movement in my bedroom.  The telltale sound of flapping wings accompanied by a small shadowy figure zooming in circles through the darkness meant there was no surprise when a flip of the switch revealed a bat to be making use of my real estate.  

This is not the first time I have encountered a bat here, which is why I immediately knew what was causing the nighttime disturbance.  Apparently,our flying mammal friends have a habit of getting in through ventilation shafts.  Whatever the case, I always imagined that bats would be swooping through the blackness outside, engaging in a lightless feast of the various and sundry bugs always present.  This one must have already supped for the night, though, and figured he would burn off the calories by conducting his own airshow in my sleeping chamber.

As you can imagine, it’s not exactly a pleasant experience to be jolted from your dreams to find Dracula’s kin dive-bombing all over the place.  Me, being the resourceful Texan I am, however, immediately snatched up my mosquito net as a catching device and began a gladiatorial feud with King Chiroptera worthy of anything ever seen in the Coliseum.

And don’t let anyone fool you.  Bats are a quick and crafty bunch with a flying ability that makes Maverick in “Top Gun” look like a mere dilettante.  Nevertheless, Texans are also a shrewd species, and after 10 minutes of sustained battle, I managed to capture my opponent beneath the aforementioned net.  Now, in the slim chance that there are some PETA folks reading this (which if there are I have REALLY expanded my reader base), I will merely say that I consider myself to be a quite compassionate and loving soul.  Even so, I do not appreciate having my slumber disrupted, and especially not by an animal associated with disease, death and evil.  Also, my current bedroom is on the second floor, and there was no window or door through which I could easily shoo the creature outside.  Provided that background, let’s just use the terminology my older brother used to use when recounting our almost daily fights, and say that I “took care of it”.

Cosmopolitan Texan 1 Bat 0.

South African English Word of the Day

kraal – an enclosure for cattle or sheep

We’ll have dinner just as soon as I put the cows in the kraal for the night.

“Kraal” offers an interesting lesson in linguistic history.  My American colleagues will probably notice the similarity of this word to our “corral”, which also denotes a pen for livestock.  Not surprisingly, the two share a common origin.  “Kraal” is an Afrikaans word, and, like many Afrikaans words, is derived from Dutch with the Dutch word coming from the Portuguese “curral”.  I would imagine that the Dutch settlers of South Africa, who would eventually become the Afrikaners, must have had contact with the Portuguese colonials in neighboring Mozambique, which led to the adoption of the usage.  Equivalently, the word “corral” comes from Spanish, which, as far as I know, is a result of contact between United States settlers of the American West and Mexicans.  Spanish and Portuguese both stem from Latin, and for this reason, it is supposed that both “kraal” and “corral” find a common origin in the Latin “currere”, meaning “to run”.