In order to find out about encounters with wildlife on the KAS campus in past years, I persuaded Mrs. Christine Ramsis, with a little difficulty, to confirm a little known fact: a few years ago, a circling hawk attacked Daphne Colbel, an elementary teacher, as she ran around the track for her morning workout. Despite the trauma, she taught her classes that day, Mrs Ramsis reported. It was a hitherto unheard-of incident and seems unlikely to happen again. Still, I felt distinctly disconcerted and kept an eye on the sky as I headed over to discuss tortoises with the school’s office manager.
It was very soothing after hearing about a brutal hawk attack to find out that these days the school is host to an abundant supply of harmless toads (Mrs. Renee Comesotti, the high school English teacher, reports that she shoos a half-a-dozen lively toads out of her classroom every morning), and a plentiful supply of geckos. There has also been the occasional sighting of hedgehogs-- no one can estimate the resident hedgehog population because they are, after all, nocturnal. Mr. Jeff Brown, who teaches middle school sciences at KAS and has a degree in conservational biology, said that the creatures are probably initially attracted to the campus by the availability of water and the greenery, noting that the campus is one of very few ready sources of water in that area of Khartoum. The campus is quite literally an oasis in the middle of the desert. Creatures most likely to be attracted to KAS by the water supply include birds (the big white ones that live in the big field and may very well be egrets), butterflies, beetles and other insects, toads, hedgehogs, and geckos.
Abundant animal life undoubtedly makes the campus more interesting—to some. Asking high school students at KAS what they thought of wildlife on their campus was like talking to well educated but silent crustaceans, and it resulted in only one coherent statement, made by an anonymous scholar, who observed, “they should plant more trees.” KAS has in fact undertaken a tree-planting project, and the school intends to place trees on campus as well as outside in the city of Khartoum. The administration hopes that planting more trees will help stabilize the aquifer that lies just under ground level at KAS, and improve the soil as well.
Talking to elementary students was much more rewarding: Hamada Gamil, a second grader at KAS, made two requests: "I wish they would bring chickens” and "I would also like a petting zoo." In fact, KAS actually had something of a petting zoo a few years ago: a maintenance worker named Joey had a soft spot for animals and built a habitat behind the office where he put all the animals he could find—mostly rabbits and chickens, sources say. It was a popular idea, especially among the younger students, and the small zoo was maintained cooperatively with a minimum of fuss. Unfortunately, the smell was unbearable. Joey gave the animals away.
Mrs. Anna Garcia has been the business manager of KAS since 1990 and can tell quite a number of animal stories. She talked animatedly about the school’s giant tortoises, who essentially ruled the campus. Like slow, determined, and scaly tanks that lacked the ability to reverse or make a turn, they frequently got stuck under teachers’ cars (there is no evidence that either tortoises or teachers were particularly amused by this), ploughed through gardens with joyous abandon at an alarmingly fast rate of two meters an hour, knocked over picnic tables, and dragged mud through classrooms. Although the KAS community was fond of the tortoises, it became obvious to the administration that the school couldn’t keep up with the mammoth creatures and they were given to assorted parks in Khartoum, while the smaller tortoises were kept on campus. It was just as well: the tortoises had no proper habitat and were vulnerable to violence. Some years ago, Mrs. Garcia said, before the brick wall which now encloses the school was constructed, children from outside the school stoned one giant tortoise to death.
The hawk attack is not the only bizarre and perturbing incident to occur on the KAS campus. This time, it was monkeys. No one could say for sure what species of monkey they were, but Mrs. Ramsis confirms that they were “mostly brown and they had short hair.” The small family of three had the destructive abilities of a very large barrel packed full of monkeys. And they seemed to have a certain fondness for terrorizing youngsters and stressed-out teachers. They popped out of garbage cans, stole lunches, bombarded high school students with projectiles, made faces and rude gestures, were said to carry rabies, and scared the elementary students. The school administration worried that someone might be attacked or that damage might be done to the facilities. Mrs. Ramsis herself says that she saw one of the monkeys locked in the computer lab one day after school-- luckily, it didn’t destroy anything. The monkeys met with a fate worthy of a Shakespearean tragedy: one of the adult monkeys drank a cleaning solvent that was left in an elementary classroom, and was found dramatically sprawled upon the floor. The rest of the monkeys left KAS that summer.