There's a turtle outside my window

I like watching the NatGeo channel especially the wildlife documentaries. One docu I liked was about the Pacific island of Galapagos where time had seemed to stand still. I especially like the giant turtles crawling over the rocks.

My place is no Galapagos. But there are also turtles, exactly 3, crawling over rocks outside my dining room window. They are native fresh water turtles called bao. I built them rock enclosures so they can not stray away, and a small pond where they can swim and catch guppies when I forget to feed them with bread, fruits, or left over meat.

I started with one turtle, courtesy of my 7yo nephew. His teacher asked him and his classmates to bring a small animal each so they can show everybody the different ways the animals move or walk. I was planning to ask my farmhand to catch some fleas from our resident askal. Or dig for some earthworms, or look for maggots or cockroaches because I know that the teacher would squirm and would just ran away from the class in fright. (I like my nephew to standout in his class. Normal kids don't bring earthworms and maggots to class for show-and-tell. And normal parents don't allow their kids to bring earthworms and maggots to their teachers. Or I have to rephrase that. Parents don't normally allow their kids to bring earthworms and maggots to their teachers. There. It sounds less of a mental retardation.) However, a turtle was given to my nephew as his pet. After the show-and-tell, I adopted the turtle so it can live a happy normal life in our garden.

Later, Tita Au gave me baoB so that baoA will have company. But they just ignored each other. So my farmhand gave me baoC, but still they ignored each other. I was hoping that they will turn our garden into their version of little paradise as they fall in love and produce little baos. But no. They just ignored each other. The little fights which I presumed as courtship dances were actually real fights. They fought over food and space and continued to ignore each other. I asked my kids to research via internet on how to tell the sexes of the turtles. So far, no result.



One time my sister shouted that there were snakes in the garden. She knew there were turtles. But seeing a turtle from the neck up, without seeing the body, it really looked like a snake. Or a specie of reptilia that is about to sow terror in your yard. So I cleared the garden of pots and big stones that may impede the view of the turtle's body.

Meantime, the turtles crawled over rocks outside my window. And I remembered Galapagos.