chek-chek-chek krrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

These birds are the bane of my existence. They are called "pintades" (which I heard for a long time as "pin-tards," for which I feel a little guilty, particularly because I think it's more apt.) They are also known as guinea fowl- helmeted guinea fowl, to be precise- and they are the loudest birds I have ever heard. They belong to my neighbors and roost in a nearby tree and are super fast runners so you can only catch them when it rains and their feathers are wet. I'm used to the donkey noises (I still honestly love donkeys: I think they're hilarious) and I'm used to the call to prayer broadcasted every morning from 4-4:30, but I don't think I'll ever be used to these birds. As my birdwatching book puts it so poetically: "Commonest call a series of hard, raucous notes interspersed with grating rattle chek-chek-chek krrrrrr chek-chek-chek...."


This is the clutch of eggs one of my neighbors' chickens laid in my yard. Mme Ouedraogo came over later and replaced some of the chicken eggs with pintade eggs. This way the chicken will nest on the pintade eggs and grow little pintades (you can guess how thrilled I am about that) which is necessary because they don't raise their own eggs. Which is the reason behind a superstition here: if children eat chicken eggs, they'll grow up to be thieves, because the chicken actually cares about her eggs so it's like they stole them. (True for fetuses too- if a pregnant woman eats chicken eggs, her baby will be a thief. Watch out.) Pintade eggs, on the other hand, are fair game.