All These Creatures Great And Small.

The past three years I have lived in a hut. It's actually a pretty cozy place. Unfortunately though, over this past year my hut has slowly yet surely become overcrowded by unwanted visitors. 

Somewhere between a million and a quadrillion termites have moved into the thatched roof and walls, so much in fact, that I have to sleep with blankets covering my head and still, termites have to be picked out of my hair every morning.

I'm not found of termites, they are ugly and they bite and they are presumptuous.

Can you see the termite?

Also, I have mice living in the roof of my hut yet, fortunately for me a bat also moved in about mid September. Yeah! Every night he flies in and hangs above my feet, from a string attached to the roof. He doesn't bother me that much; he respectfully keeps his distance and helps with the mouse conundrum. Only, he has terrible sleeping habits and table manners. He keeps me up all night nibbling his food and leaves poop on the floor every morning.

So when my neighbors and co -missionaries (who live in a brick house) offered to let me live in their home while they were away on home assignment, having read the 'Three Little Pigs' I knew this was a step up, so I readily agreed!!

Yet, living in my neighbors house has also proved a bit of a challenge. They own seven cats, not particularly because they love cats but mostly because kitty birth control is hard to come by. These cats come inside and like to bring in dead mice and leave the best of the entrails for the ants and for us to clean up every morning. They are also demanding. They require warm, yes, WARM milk every morning at exactly a little before we are ready to wake up.

Imagine seven cats, all at the top of their little cat lungs demanding milk!! I wake up and stumble my way to boil water for their milk as I make my way through the entrails and splattered blood left the night before, all covered in ants greedily dragging off there portions. It's gruesome and I feel a little emotionally disturbed as I give them milk; then proceed to make my morning coffee and resist mewing back at my cat roommates.

 
These cats are what I might call, well evil. They tried to destroy Christmas by taking down all our decorations. Than, well, they ate Jesus! It all happened so quickly. They knocked down the Nativity and one of them took Jesus right out of his manger and ate him. ATE HIM!!!

Okay, they're sort of adorable too!

Enough about the cats though...

I have chickens! Yea! We got chickens because we wanted eggs.

... But these chickens don't really like laying eggs, at least not were we can find them. What began with four chickens has become like twenty. All because three crafty little hens decided to hide their eggs and raise a little brood of their own. 

You might think, "That's great! Chicken is a great source of meat!" I agree, when you buy it frozen in a store like a sensible chicken should be bought, but noooo, to eat chickens here, you got to chop off their heads. I watched that "Left Behind" movie they made in the 80s, the one with the guillotines and it's always turned me off to cutting off heads. What can I say? It is how it is.

Though our chickens don't really lay eggs, they are infested with mites! A mite is a creature slightly more annoying than termites. Truth is, I have to be honest, we don't actually, really know it it's mites or bed bugs or some creature in the water? WHAT WE DO KNOW with certainty, is that every morning we wake up covered in bites and all day we scratch and scratch like a old woman with a lottery ticket. 

We've tried pouring boiling water all over the chicken coop, all our clothes and mattresses. We've used bleach, vinegar, essential oils, even a spray called "Doom" which had a skull on it! They have prevailed and we have finally surrendered our blood to be drained by a slow and itchy demise.

We have dogs...you know those things that are super cute when they're little and you ONLY want to give the away to a "good home"? Well, we have six of those.

They all know one trick "Come," though they only know it if you have food. Mostly they enjoy chasing kids and playing in people's wheat fields and destroying them. They are also super good at getting in front of you when you have to go to the outhouse in the middle of the night. They also like to give a loving nip on your calves as you walk.

And...they like undergarments...They stole a particular item from the line and have paraded it around the compound, until the neighbor kids brought over what was left of it. 

We don't have cows! No, we don't, but about everyone else in the village does. These cows like clothing, they like to eat clothing that is. When you wash you clothes you are also obliged to watch them dry, as at any moment it could be digested into one of the seven stomachs of a cow.

What was left by the cow..

One particular cow, is a regular thief. She is blind and so she can smell her way to the best dresses. She has literally fallen twice into two different latrine holes on our compound and still managed to live after being pulled out with ropes!!! Imagine how shocking it is to find a cow in your would be toilet!!!!

Anyway, I hope I have managed to make you all feel sorry for us. You may be wondering how we're doing in this trial of the animals....Truth is...we're doing just fine.