| By Janis Benson
The author, a former correspondent for the Nairobi Times, is the wife of Philip Benson, former cultural attache in Kenya.
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 hen you live in Kenya, you expect to hear strange sounds at night. On safari in the game parks, distant roars, sinister stompings and odd grunts filter through the canvas of your tent.
But I never thought the weirdest noises would come from my own back yard. In the dry season, these sounds-from cats and dogs, mostly-were monophonic, but during the rains we had stereo. The woofers and tweeters rose to full volume.
First, the woofers. A gang of dogs in our neighborhood seemed compelled to defend their territory from all dangers: a falling leaf, an engine revving up six blocks away, a watchman’s footstep. The slightest breeze in the leaves sent these dogs-at least eight, judging from their varying barks-into a frantic paroxysm of yips, yelps and woofs. We eventually adjusted to this manic behavior, waking briefly before drifting back to sleep.
Now, the tweeters-or croakers, really. We had a small fish pond in our garden on GreviIlea Grove, decorated with seashells, plants and a small waterfall. We stocked the pond with golden carp so tame they nibbled out of our hands.
Imagine our chagrin when a convention of frogs descended upon this idyllic scene. They weren’t the pale pink, finger-sized variety that chirp when darkness falls. These were big, bass-voiced bullfrogs and their mates-or blowzy girlfriends.
As we sat reading in the living room one rainy evening, we heard a deep croak-croak-croak emanating from the pond. We paid little attention at first until we realized it was a vast frog chorale. The neighborhood dogs combined with their croaks to provide an all-night concert-in dissonant chords.
The next night we ventured with flashlights out to the pond, where we witnessed an X-rated orgy of several dozen frogs coupling poolside, in the water and under the waterfall. They lolled, legs spread, on the rocks, stroking each others’ breasts and flopping wetly on the surrounding grass. Deep-throated and balloon-chested, they croaked to each other constantly. Where had they all come from?
With fishing nets and a bucket, we set about capturing every last frog, releasing them into a drainage ditch down the road. This effort took several nights, but we finally did it. We destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and found peace again.
A few weeks later, the aftermath of the orgy showed itself in the squiggly, black shapes of hundreds of tadpoles. We launched another campaign to rid the pool of progeny.
Weeks passed with nothing but a few chirpy tree frogs and, of course, the unremitting dogs. Then one night, we heard it again-that deep croak-croak-croak. We rushed out to track down the culprit before he could inform his friends that our home was a free-for-all spa.
We believe in wildlife preservation, but we resolved to throw this frog to the dogs. Any frogs in our pond became an endangered species.
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