Pygmy Hippo

A rare bit of good news from the third country I call home ... the pygmy hippo has been sighted in the wild in Liberia. Even though I never actually saw one, it was very much a part of my childhood. The hippo was one of the ways that we kids in the tiny coastal town of Cape Palmas would gross each other out.
When someone from the interior came around trying to sell a piece of mystery meat, we'd venture that the meat was either that of a monkey or of a hippo. The thought of a lovable pygmy hippo or capuchin killed for meat was enough to gross out any eight-year old.

Now that I think about it ... piglets, fawns and bunnies play similarly cute and lovable parts in American and European childrens' tales. I'm surprised that their meat doesn't gross out more children. Maybe that's just an African thing, to find it distasteful to eat adorable animals? Maybe Anglo-Saxon kids grow up more pragmatic.