Cast of Characters - part deux (the animals)

As we prepared for our open house at the American School, we decided to get a couple of class pets. We were thinking fish and a small turtle. Moulay Said got us a small aquarium and gave us some money. It was a Tuesday, and Denise and I headed to the souk to buy fish.

We looked at the fish, and we walked out with three hamsters and one cage. We found out the shocking way that one was definitely a boy and one was definitely a girl. We got other cages to separate out the hamsters one from another. Now we are anxiously awaiting hamster babies. I say anxious because I had a hamster once. I didn't know she was expecting until I heard the crunching of her CANIBALIZING HER YOUNG. So, uh, needless to say, I voted Denise to keep a watch on the rodent baby situation.

Desi, Lucy (expectant mother... plotting escape), and Rosey the Nosey Neighbor (named in honor of R.Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet," and also because she would appear out of nowhere to check things out if Lucy and Desi quarrelled)

A few days later, on Friday, Moulay Said took us out errand running and shopping for school. One stop was a diferent pet store with a better selection of fish. We picked three, and the proprietor agreed to deliver them and help set up our aquarium on Saturday.

Side Note: he had one guinea pig in the shop that Denise went nuts over. She spent the next 2 weeks mumbling incoherently about guinea pigs.

Sammy, Fats, and Bing

That next week, one of our class mothers got into the spirit and agreed to look for a small turtle, since that was the original dream. She came back with two chameleons.

Fluffy and Princess

That weekend, we got a call from Moulay to go look in the classroom, he had found a turtle. Less like the size of a silver dollar... more like 2 adult handfulls. The kids loved him as he's the only one they were b rave enough to pick up alone. One day, Denise put him out into the school courtyard to get some sun and warmth. She didn't think about him until the Moroccan kids had come back through. Either he pusted outta this place on his own, or one o the teenagers decided to take him home. Didn't ever get a picture of him, but he looked sorta like... a turtle.

Then, for some reason I can't quite recall, Denise and I were back by the pet store in the souk. Bad idea. They had a little of young guniea pigs. So (like you didn't see this coming?), we have two. This time we insisted on a same-sex pair.

Jermaine and Tito

We now have quite a menagerie. And finally, we knew the kids would be diappointed about the tutle's mysterious disappearance. We got a friend to bring us another, smaller tutle. He's tentatively called Reginald.

Welcome to our zoo!