I found a website listing some West African birds that helped me identify the two I see (and hear) most frequently. Several large long-tailed glossy starlings drop by our yard every few days. Their shiny blue bodies and yellow eyes are striking, they are quite bold, and their loud squawks are a nuisance during my French lessons. More shy (and more melodious), are the laughing doves, one of which I hear cooing right now.

There’s a tiny nest in our grapefruit tree, and a little broken eggshell on the rocks below—I can’t tell if someone hatched, or someone got eaten. I think the nest belongs to a couple of Senegal fire finches who sometimes perch on the ironwork outside the window. Last Friday, I woke from a nap on the couch to find the brilliant red male in our living room. The poor thing was terrified. It flew from one end of the room to the other as I tossed a crumpled wad of paper at it, trying to shoo it out. Finally it slipped out the narrow crack between the door and the wall. I still have no idea how it got inside.

Yesterday we drove to Zantiabougou, a small village 100 km from here, for E.'s work. On the return trip we nearly ran over a large lizard, the size of a full-grown iguana. I’ve not seen anything like that here until now. There are little lizards, about 3-6 inches long, sunning themselves all over Mali, though. We find tiny lizard turds on the floor, in the bathtub, stuck to the wall.

As for insects, the good news is there are no mosquitoes in our house. (Ants, lots, spiders, a few, but no mosquitos.) In Bamako the mosquitos don’t seem any worse than in Washington, but they're much worse out in the country. We met some malaria researchers at a dinner party who told us of a town called Niono where donkeys reputedly sleep under mosquito nets. Scientists who study such things estimate that if you spend the night outside in Niono—I doubt you could sleep—you would get bit 700 times. Houses are tested and found to have thousands of mosquitoes living in them. Creatures not lucky enough to have a net, they say, sleep under water with just their noses poking out. They say.