Living in Africa

Sometimes I can forget we live in Africa. Sometimes. But often I am keenly aware of it. Where everything takes longer and there always seem to be some problem in the way. When I have to pay $50 for 4 lbs of cheese. When I can only buy that cheese when I'm in the capitol 5 hrs away (or someone else buys it for me), thus I have to buy in bulk and then shred it all and freeze it. Skinny tiny hot dogs are a dollar a piece. And the real kicker was I actually saw frozen broccoli in the store. I told Brett I didn't care the price- I wanted it. Well, if I had known the price, I would have cared- it was $12 a bag! Oops. And a box of cereal $7. Prices aren't everything, there's the buying the pork or fish or chicken. Getting the animal, killing it and cleaning it and so forth. (No, I don't do it, but still, there is something about having chicken guts all in your sink or leftover feathers or fish scales in the yard knowing that came from what you just ate. But anyway, last night was a better example.

So we went to bed. Within a few minutes the power went out. Now, this used to be a very regular occurrence. We bought, however, this huge battery that will give us power for a couple hrs once the power goes out. It has been such a blessing. Last year, the boys were always waking up at 5 am or in the middle of a nap when the power went out. We have been spared that a lot lately. I often start to think that since we have this battery, we shouldn’t ever be without power. But that’s just silly. I mean, this is Africa. So anyway, the power goes out. It’s just our house, no one else. This also happens a lot. Our power isn’t great for some reason.  Often, it the town goes out, ours won’t come back on. Anyway, so we worked on it, and then decided to wait to make sure the battery charged. Well Brett stayed up for 45 min, checked on the battery, and then went to bed. 15 min later, it went off again. And it did this a couple more times. Finally, we got it to work and told our night guard to watch it all night and showed him what to do if needed. We went to get a glass of water before going back to bed. That’s when I heard our dear friend the mouse. I heard him a couple nights before, gnawing on wood, but couldn’t find him. Well, finally figured out where he was the next day- in our drawers with the diapers. Yup, tried eating diapers.  So Brett looked behind our pantry, where I heard him last night, and sure enough, he was there. We had the harpoon still from when Bocar had tried to help us catch him the other night. So Brett used it to get him from out behind the pantry. He went behind the fridge. Brett finally got him out from there, he went straight for me. I was supposed to be pushing him out the door with the broom. Instead, I pushed him under the stove. So the mouse ran up into the stove, yes gross. So here we are, 1 in the morning, with no lights on but just our head lamps, trying to figure out how to get this mouse to come out. We tried bug spray to “gas” him out. It didn’t work. We decided to turn on the oven and make him come out. It was on broil. The dumb mouse still wasn’t coming out. So I prayed that the Lord would bring him out. Yet, at this point, I was sitting on a stool.  But the Lord answers prayer, so the mouse ran out and right to me, hit me on the foot, so of course, I panicked and didn’t get him out the door (again). I told Brett I should have prayed instead that I’d have the courage to push the mouse out the door. So then the mouse ran onto our counters (yuck!), behind the microwave and tried to go up in the cabinets again but he couldn’t because we had fixed that. So then I went to get the new night guard, I wasn’t feeling like I could catch the mouse. Well, he didn’t do any better. Got him to run to the other side of the counters, but then he was gone and couldn’t be found. So we had been there for about an hour trying to catch that stupid thing, it was now 1:30 in the morning. I guess he isn’t stupid, though. I mean, he has escaped being caught three times. We’ve had glue traps out for a week and he refuses to go on them, despite the peanut butter in the center and now the other random leftovers put on them. It’s ridiculous. So we’re headed out of town tomorrow for a night away. While we’re gone, our house guy will put out poison. (wasn’t wanting to do that because of the boys, but this mouse is fighting to live so we have to try something else). Then today I also had to take everything out of our pantry because while we are gone, our house guy (yes, he is fantastic!) will also have to paint this special stuff on all the drawers because our pantry cabinet has wood bugs and they are destroying the drawers. Gotta love Mali. I don’t know how I’d make it without our house help! They are our saving grace.

Oh and speaking of house help- I took Bocar home from the hospital today. He is doing well. Very grateful for his healing and as he said today, even more convinced of the Lord’s power. So neat. I brought him by the house to see the boys and Brett on the way to his house. He greeted Brett and then apologized for how dirty the yard was. That’s our Bocar, a hard worker. I mean, our yard doesn’t look that bad, but it’s just not “Bocar clean.” We look forward to when he can work again, not for the cleaner yard (though that is nice) but just because he’s fun to have around.