A Keeper's Tale, Part 2 of 5: Iguana-Infested Woods

Wayne T. Allison
by guest writer Hodari Nundu
Being rejected as a shark keeper meant that I had to findanother job. That's when I got the cartoonist job at the local newspaper. Iactually had applied to be an article writer, but the director told me thatthey didn´t need any at the moment-- they were instead looking for a politicalcartoonist.
Now, I hate politics. I don´t even believe in democracy.This doesn´t mean I don´t like theconcept- I just think true democracy can never be achieved. When I was inhighschool, I wrote an essay on that. I think it was called The Evolutionary Reasons for Democracy Beinga Utopia, or something like that.  Myteachers hated it. They also hated me for a while.
But I really needed a job, and I could draw, so I thought,"what the heck? Let's give it a shot".
I took the job, and the cartoons, as ugly as they were,became an instant hit. Even the local politicians being spoofed asked me forthe originals to frame them on their office walls! My boss was so happy with mywork that he gave me a raise in my second week.
At about the same time, I was trying to figure out whatcareer to study. A friend of mine suggested that I studied the same as him;graphic design. After all, it would be easy for me, seeing as I could draw verywell already.
I wasn´t so sure about this, because I knew graphic designinvolved more technical drawing (which I always sucked at). However, I had noidea what other thing to study. Zoology and paleontology don´t exist as careersaround here. So I eventually agreed to travel to my friend's hometown andbecome his roommate.
His hometown was the city of Colima, near the coast of thePacific. Foreigners perhaps know about Colima because it's near Manzanillo, apopular tourist destination which claims to be "the sailfish capital of theworld" (although I'm told certain American cities make the same claim).
Anyways, I had always lived in relatively colder places, soliving in Colima was a complete change for me. The heat was almost unbearable;so much in fact that we barely went out of the house during daytime. The goodnews was that, being a tropical place, Colima was much richer when it came tocreepy crawlies of all kinds. My friend wasn´t very happy about it. One day, wefound a Mexican Red-Knee Tarantula near the garbage bins outside the house. Myfriend couldn´t believe it when I picked the hand-sized spider up and allowedit to crawl over my shoulders and neck. "It's really not that dangerous," Isaid. "Its venom is weak. The worst thing it could do would be to send its saetae into your eyes. That would be nasty but,it won´t do it unless it feels threatened".
Hodari Nundu

That wasn´t very comforting to him. He was relieved when Ireleased the tarantula in the iguana-infested woods near the house.
Seeing as my friend was scared of a relatively harmlesstarantula often kept as a pet by small children, it may seem ironic that he wasmadly in love with crocodiles. In fact, it was he who invited me to try my luckas a zookeeper once again, when he found out that a local park kept Americancrocodiles (the largest species in the country, reaching up to six meters long,sometimes more).
"We could both apply for a job there," he said. "It's notvery far away".
Of course, I loved the idea.
The park was not very large. In fact, there were very fewanimals in the zoo -- a couple male lions in a cage, a jaguarundi with abroken-tail, some spider monkeys, and tons of rabbits. As I would later findout, the rabbits weren´t really meant to be an exhibit. They were bred asreptile fodder.
My friend and I immediately went to the reptile house. Therewere two crocodiles in an enclosure, both were about three meters long. Smallfor an American crocodile, but big enough to overpower a man.
There were almost no visitors in the park, and it wasn´thard to find the chief zookeeper- who was also the chief vet and residentbiologist. He had worked once in the same zoo where I had tried to become ashark keeper, and after moving to Colima, he had founded his own reptile house.Reptiles, he told us, where his passion.
"So, are you guys studying Biology?" he asked.
"No," we said nervously. We immediately assumed he only tookBiology students as assistants.
However, he didn´t seem disappointed. "It's OK. My only assistantright now is actually a computer programmer," he said, referring to a guy wehad seen offering advice to a ball python owner whose pet wouldn´t touch itsfood.
Salvador (that was his name) told us that he couldn´t pay usa lot, but that he would be happy to accept us as assistant zookeepers.
"There's one thing, though," he warned. "Lions are offlimits for beginners. So are hot herps (very venomous snakes)."
"What about crocodiles?" I asked.
Surprisingly, he said crocodiles were fine, as long as hewas there to guide our every step. And that's how my brief career as anassistant zookeeper began.
Next: Crocodiles and Caimans