It seems that my feathered friends are not ducks. They are geese. (Do geese see God? One may ask.)
According to the Gambia bird book, and other knowledgeable sources, the ducks are really geese. Nevertheless, they are tasty and like water.
Ever since I brought my three duck/geese (Henceforth referred to as ducks, or burro in Mandinka, even though yes, they are geese.) back to Hella Kunda they have been sadly with out a place to ‘take bath.’ I finally bought 2 bags of cement to make a duck pond with, and Chinese and I constructed a very fine pond for the ducks.
From tracing the pattern to actually digging out the pool and laying the concrete, I think it expanded about 3 or 4 inches on all sides from the original shape. It ended up about 1.2 m² and 1 foot deep.
Let me just tell you, that is a big pond when you are filling it bucket by bucket from a pump 3 compounds over.
I contracted an army of small boys, aka the Peace Corps Football team to fill the pond for a 100 dalasi contribution to their fund. (Peace Corps is the name chosen by the boys because I am helping sponsor the team. The boys all contribute 5 dalasis a week, and I match the funds once a month. They’ve been through 1 football so far, and bought another one with the funds they raised. Next they want to buy football jerseys with numbers. I’m trying to help them fundraise for that.) They boys hauled approx. 600 liters of water to fill the pond. It’s actually almost a swimming pool.
And the ducks really like it. Chinese and I also built a fence around it to keep various donkeys and goats from drinking from it. We also wanted to contain the ducks, but they don’t stay w/in the fence.
Right now there are 9 ducks, but I want to eat some soon…
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