Sumatra – Samosir – All Creatures

I want to mention the animals we encountered I’ll start with the domestic ones. There are dogs everywhere here. Ibu’s dog Jack was by far the healthiest we saw and that’s because he is given an insecticidal bath regularly. The other dog at the house is Beagle and he’s really old and an alpha male. Even he got a bath one time!

The rest are pretty mangy looking, often with bald spots and sores. The bitches wander around with long hanging teets, this is something we rarely see in the west. The dogs lay in the road completely trusting that they won’t be run over. The other thing is that in the Muslim areas there are seldom dogs at all , they are considered dirty, I didn’t know this.

Ibu chases other dogs away from the  front of her house, most were friendly regular visitors from a relatives house and the they do the rounds for food (apparently Ibu’s father feeds them occasionally). The dogs at night had a chorus all their own! This barking and howling can go on till midnight……then just when you are drifting off at 0230 in the morning the Cockerels start! 

We saw cats too, but they far fewer and skinny things.

Food and animals go together and obviously there are chickens are everywhere. Tatjana is quite good now at telling the weights just by looking at them, ” You better watch it you’re kilo” meaning ready for the pot.  Pretty much everything of a chicken is eaten. It is no surprise to  find a foot or beak in a dish.

Pigs and Wild boar are also eaten, we never saw a live one though (the latter that is)! Buffalo is also available but, really only for the more wealthy to eat or a very special event!

The lake has a harvest all its own and goldfish are for eating, I never thought carp tasted that good before! Another fish which is not native and causing an ecological issue are Red Devils. These are from Nicaragua and are round our feet when washing up, getting scraps and even pecked my toe once. Red devils can be eaten but there is not much meat on them so they have not been fished that much. Tilapia another local fish is absolutely delicious! This has meant it is farmed and causing Lake Toba water quality issues.

Insects abound and cicadas are everywhere, most have faces only a mother could love. The sound they make is phenomenal, from electric machinery noises to almost singing, Tatiana says one in particular says “feeeeesh’! And once you hear it you can’t not hear it.

Initially having not seen any live ones then to seeing too many as the crash about around lamps of a evening. Ibu tried to make one stridulate by pressing it! It buzzed a bit and jumped about!

There is a kind of gold May bug that also hurtles about, it doesn’t seem to have a sat nav as they quite often hit me on the head.

A couple of insects are considered good omens if they visit your house. First is a praying mantis and this one was feisty! Every time we tried to get close it would hop onto the camera, there was a fair bit of hopping between us, and us leaping away!

The other insect Ibu said was ‘lucky’ was a beetle and she pointed with her foot and accidently squashed it! Not quite so lucky for the insect then!

Mosquitoes do not seem to be too prolific, although occasionally we get bitten.

Slugs and snails seem few and far between but they are quite big when you see them

Next last days in Samosir