Monitor lizard!

I come home from school and Mamadou calls me to come look and I stare as Alieu Sowe explains that the monitor lizard before us, whose neck is sliced and whose innards still look squirming and alive, came from inside Neene’s house. It will eat chicken eggs. I keep watching until I remember it’s culturally inappropriate for me to do so.

That evening I overhear Alieu telling Noogas about it. “Where is it now?” she wants to know. “In the cooking pot.”