THE ADVENT OF THE CAMEL IN AFRICAN SUBURBIA
Ever since we’ve moved into this house; which is apparently in a residential area even though its half jungle, we’ve been surrounded by all sorts of animals, mostly of the normal domestic variety such as the goats that wander around eating off most of the lawn outside the walled garden, to the cats that try to get into the kitchen from atop the walls thereby getting themselves electrocuted, to the strange mongrel breeds of dogs that sometimes see fit to keep our security man on the alert. To a family that has never seen the use of pets of the animal sort in the house, apart from a rat-catcher in the early nineties, which was thrown out for having kittens and eating them; the concept of being an animal magnet is a strange one. When one observes the types of fauna to be found in the vicinity of man, one is almost certain to discount the presence of camels and monkeys. And yet, these are the very animals that seem to have found a home in us. When we first moved to the new house, it...