Cats, dogs and guinea fowl.

The cats here roam day and night, eating insect and lizards and tiny rodents. They are skinny and swaybacked and have nothing of the complacent indifference of a domesticated cat.

They have a dim light of survival in their eyes that are too dark to reflect the beautiful stars.

At night they meet and fight among themselves, their thin bones scraping at each other with claws and ugly yells and howls and teeth.

The guinea fowl wander all day. They make a noise like a rusty jack lifting a bus, harsh and metallic. The people take their eggs and give them to the hens to hatch. They have heads like turkeys. Guinea fowl are black and white like hounds’ tooth cloth.

The dogs are black or tan, their tails curl a little over their backs. They seem all to be of the same mould apart from the colour, and are lean and fit except for the ones who have mange or distemper. Sometimes they lie in the shade while the fleas are quiet, or they flicker along the roads and paths with a sense of purpose, or prowl the market place near the meat stall looking for scraps.

On the dry sandy road with the deep puddle opposite the school, a small hen with four chicks stops at the side of the road. She waits. When the road is clear she runs, and the chicks follow, all five running across to the shelter of the fence on the other side.

A motorcycle comes by.

Three mango sellers sit by the roadside, talking. They have picked green mangoes. All fruit ripens here.

The oranges are green like wild oranges, with patches of orange. The bananas grow deep green and ripen on the bush. A banana doesn’t grow on a tree, because it isn’t  member of the family of trees. Who cares? It looks like a tree, you can make a waterproof roof with the leaves, and if it isn’t a tree, what on earth is a paw-paw? A long, emaciated stalk with a bad haircut at the top, and little nodules of wonderful fruits underneath.

The roosters, not regulated by an electronic signal from Rugby or Frankfurt, begin crowing at around 4.30am, before the muezzin’s first call of the day. Sunrise is usually around 6am. The sun rises very quickly. It hangs around heating up the ground until about 6pm, when it sets very quickly.

The village is busy from 5am or earlier.

On the sandy street in the square are the buses, the budda-budda bikes, the water seller, the charcoal seller, and the little shops that sell everything, make all the clothes, make the livings.

The water seller has a tricycle with the back platform loaded with ten litre plastic bottles of water; frayed and worn plastic, discoloured by use and ultra violet. A man loads long timbers onto his motorbike. There is music already.

The scene is simple, the gritted street drying in slight breeze and the new sun. There are butterflies everywhere.