This was the picture on the front page of my local newspaper this morning. This little guy (who was 12.5' long, 500 lbs and roughly 85 years old) was run over and killed by a car while trying to cross the road. Doesn't he know only chickens are supposed to do that?
That sucks for the gator, but I feel bad for the driver who hit him. I'm sure the car has a good bit of damage, but can you imagine how freaked out you'd be? My heart starts pumping 1,000,000 beats a minute every time I run over plastic bag that looks like it could be an animal. And you know anytime you hit something big; cat, dog, deer, whatever... your first instinct is to get out and see if it's okay. The person who hit this thing probably didn't see it either, so I'm guessing they didn't know what it was. If I ran over something that big I'd think I had hit a person (or a few people.) Can you see someone getting out of their car and running to see if someone was okay, then realizing what it really was!? "Are you Ooo-Oh Shit!!! Oh Shit! Get back in the car!!!" At that point you'd hope it was dead, otherwise you'd have one pissed off gigantic alligator on your ass!
The scary part is, this is not the only huge gator in the area. There are lots of them around here! About a year or so ago my dad was down close to our beach house in Sneads Ferry, NC (only about 30 min from here) where he was helping a friend put his boat in the water. He walked across the street to a little fresh water pond and noticed something out of the corner of his eye. It was a huge alligator sunbathing on the shore just a few feet from where he was standing. And like any sane person, my dad became infatuated with the gator and would show up at the pond and try to coax it out of the water so he could show it off to whoever he brought with him. He soon discovered that the alligator was not alone. It had 3 friends. These were no small alligators either. When I went with my dad (yes I was suckered in to going to gawk at the big reptiles too) we managed to make enough of a ruckus to attract the gators attention and the gator swam over to where we were standing. He got to about 20 feet away from me when I decided that he was close enough and it was time to get back in the car. In all honesty, we were probably so close that we were past the point of no return... If that gator had wanted to eat me, there is no way I could have gotten out of the way. I would have been a delicious snack.
It was just about the same moment, when I decided to go back to the car, that our little gator friend decided to play hide-n-seek. All of a sudden, he just disappeared under the brown murky water. That was it, I was out of there, but slowly... Very slowly. From inside the car I could see that two more alligators were swimming over to where my dad was standing. That was fine, but it was very nerve-racking to know that there was one gator hidden under the water, just by the shore, and another that could be anywhere. My dad decided he didn't want to be a reptile snack either and he joined me in the car. Luckily, we probably weren't in all that much danger because those alligators were probably pretty full. How do I know? Because as soon as we got in the car a local (shirtless) redneck rolled up in a beat-up golf cart with a beer in the cup holder, a raw chicken in one hand and a baby sitting on his lap. For a more accurate visual, picture Britney Spears with no money mixed with the Croc. Hunter (RIP) and that's about what this guy was. Pimping around with a baby in his lap and then dangling it out around alligators. Thank god he didn't chuck the wrong thing into the pond!! Mr. R Neck told us that he fed the gators on a pretty regular basis. I still can't decide if that's a good thing or bad. On the one hand, if they aren't hungry, they might not eat you. On the other hand, the better fed they are the bigger they are, and these were at least 8 feet.
I find it ironic that people keep asking me what kinds of crazy animals I saw when I was in Africa. I saw a few lizards and a praying mantis and that's it. If you want to see some real animals, go to Sneads Ferry! At the beginning of this summer my dad tried to open the front door of the beach house and just as he was reaching for the door knob, he noticed a copperhead wrapped around it. This summer I almost hit a bobcat with my car less than a block from the beach house. So, within a few blocks of nka bengebow ka kokojiso (my parents beach house... Hey, a tiny bit of bambara still remains) you can be killed by a shark, alligator, copperhead, bobcat and a bunch of other scary animals we haven't had to deal with yet!
...And on an all together different note, I am officially finished taking all malaria medications!! Yay!!! Hopefully now the insomnia, crying spells, and slight depression will start to fade away as the mefloquine and primaquine fade out of my blood steam.
...And on an even better note, I got a new job yesterday! Yay!! In just a few weeks I'll be moving to Charlotte and getting back to my regular life in a new architecture firm. I think Charlotte and I will be a good fit. In the past two years, I have lived (some more briefly than others) in the following places: Raleigh, New York, Alexandria (DC), Mali, Jacksonville, and now Charlotte. Ya know, I think I'm ready to stop trying on new cities, countries, and continents and just stick with one.... And it looks like the Queen's City it is! This isn't exactly what I had planned for my life right now, but what fun is a plan anyway? I just go where my heart tells me and my feet take me and hope everything turns out okay, and so far it has... Thank God!
