Red carpet for spotted hyenas

Last night at the hyena feeding was pretty amazing. There were five hyenas and forty-five people, including a busload of dutch tourists heavily armed with cameras and camcorders. The constant camera flashes and the crowd of people prompted one local to comment to me, 'Paparazzi'. And that's exactly what it was like. But the hyenas took it all in their stride and were in amongst the crowd, taking their strips of meat from the hyena man.
This is confusing, because the following night there were only 5 people at the shrine, yet the hyenas were skittish as anything and Bebe was the only one brave enough to feed. I can't quite work out the reason but i think it has something to do with the hyena man changing the seat that he usually sits on, and possibly the changes being made to the drive as part of the new roadworks. It's hard to determine what they see as threatening, though.

This town gets more interesting. There is a boy living here who goes around the streets accompanied by three baboons. One usually rides piggyback on the boy, and the other two hold his hands. It seems people get annoyed by this boy’s baboon friends, as they go into shops and eateries and even chase children. I’ve been told that they pilfer people’s mobile phones and hand them to the boy, who sells them and buys food for them. Not sure if this is true but there were a few people that were quite irate at this band of mischief-makers.

This is Bebe. She seems to be intrigued by the farenji (European) who turns up night after night and she stares at me with those big beautiful eyes of hers.

The dustbowl is an interesting place. Hyenas come and go all night and dogs sit nearby as if keeping an eye on the enemy. There really is antagonism between the two species here and the nights are filled with crazed barking, the sound moving around the town with the movements of the hyenas. At one point a group of six hyenas returned to the dustbowl and it was interesting to see the second hyena turn at the entrance to the dustbowl and watch the remaining hyenas arrive. It seemed to me that it was checking to make sure that they were all returning. Or perhaps it had a cub that it was keeping an eye on. It was also interesting to see a man on his way home from a night out, walking through the dustbowl, passing within 2 metres of a reclining hyena, the man not shifting his direction at all and the hyena not concerned by the man. I was really expecting more of a reaction than that.

In Harar now and went to see the hyena feeding at the shrine outside the wall. Harari hyenas really are beautiful with such a placid look in their eyes and when they look at you, you feel a kind of recognition but also a species gap so wide that understanding seems a long way off. My intrepid fixer, Nabile, introduced me to the hyena man and he agreed to let me sit in on the hyena feeding to learn their names and just observe.

It was interesting to hear a visitor from France commenting that they were cowardly. They certainly had their tails wedged firmly between their legs and were reticent to go up to Yusuf for the scraps. And the hyena man was complaining to the hyenas, saying that they weren’t doing their jobs properly. But considering they had three sets of headlights on them and were surrounded by a dozen strange humans staring intently, and pointing cameras, I thought they were pretty brave.

And if you think that the hyena feeding here is a tourist trap, then I suggest you go to the sportsground (dustbowl) near the Tewodros hotel at 4 in the morning around the time of the call to prayer. You’ll see a butcher, opening his store and a couple of locals arriving. And then twelve or so hyenas will turn up to be fed by these men in the darkness with not a tourist in sight.