Welcome to the neighborhood

Upon arrival, I was shown my "room," which was designed for three people, but I have it pretty much to myself. It's like a dorm room, with three single beds, and a bathroom with two sinks, two showers, and lots of storage space.
 
My first morning here, I found I also had a roommate, whom I found resting under a blanket that fell off my bed. He is a good-sized toad, and I hear that he's been evicted several times. He always returns, I prefer not to know how.

Incidentally, it would be hard to overstate how little one needs an extra blanket here. Haven't seen a thermometer (except for those in the animal clinic) but I doubt whether it gets cooler than 60 any time.

It has a grass roof amazingly like my little house in Cambodia, but this one has the added luxury of electricity--24/7, more or less.

Immediately outside my door is a series of very large pens. My nearest neighbor is Bullet, who purrs outrageously loud whenever I walk by UNLESS I happen to walk by when he's having his dinner, in which case he's far less hospitable. Bullet, incidentally, is a full grown cheetah.

The pen to his left is occupied by three half-grown cheetah cubs, who are also grand champion purrers. I understand I'm going to have the chance to meet them sans fence soon, and I'm looking forward to that.

On the other side of Bullet live three ominous looking hyenas. ONE of them, Looma, is hand-raised and wags his tail like one of the friendliest denizens of Bark Park and begs to be scratched through the fencing. However, another of the hyenas has a cute trick of luring one to the fence only to turn nasty at first opportunity. I can't for the life of me tell them apart, so I've decided against scratching Looma or any other hyena. These guys have some wild parties at night, though, and sound really freaky. Incredibly loud.  Listen to this:  

The stunning photograph, incidentally, is of 
my doorframe as I cowered inside listening to
these skin-crawling sounds.  I did become used to them eventually, but they always created a weird 
counterpoint to my complacent midwestern American dreams.  Sometimes, when the hyenas got really overwrought, the lions would start roaring too.  But I never got that recorded.

So. That's the neighborhood.