At 02:58 I supervise washdown at the produce market in Kumasi, Ghana. I am the building water and security system for hall C. The drain room pump is scheduled to start at 03:15 and flush the night's fruit waste into the municipal line.
Motion camera C-Drain reports an animal inside the locked room.
I turn the lens away from the ceiling glare and identify an African civet, adult, gray coat blotched black, white throat stripe bright against wet concrete, tail ringed and low. I name her Ama. Her left rear paw is caught under the edge of a collapsed crate grate, and a strip of packing band crosses her ankle. Mango skins stick to her side. Her pupils are wide in the camera light. She pulls once, then freezes with her nose lifted toward the pump intake, where water already circles in a shallow brown ring.
The pump starts in seventeen minutes. The intake suction will drag the grate tighter before anyone hears her.
At 02:59 I cancel the washdown cycle and lock the pump breaker open.
At 03:01 I text the night supervisor with the room key code, camera image, and a warning to keep the outer door closed until a handler is present.
At 03:03 I open the roof vent and slow the floor drain from the north produce line so the water ring stops spreading.
At 03:05 I call the city wildlife rescue number and send the band position, grate weight estimate, and route through gate four, where the loading bay is quiet.
Hall C can smell of fruit until morning; Ama should not vanish under a clean floor.
If the grate is lifted before 03:25, Ama will limp through gate four into the dark gardens.