While speaking with my parents on the phone recently, I suddenly shrieked, dropped the phone, and started frantically smacking a 3-inch red centipede (poisonous) crawling across my living room floor. After disposing of the centipede and explaining the incident to my parents, my mom mentioned that the experience would be a good story for a prayer letter. So, I thought to share a few short stories with you that are not “big” enough on their own to warrant a prayer letter.
To follow on with another insect story, there have
been several crickets recently who have managed to find their way into my
house. There nothing like drifting off
to sleep only to have a cricket start up just a few feet away jerking you back
to awareness. They are so loud!
Sometimes, if they are in a different room, I can manage to ignore it, but when
there are in the bedroom there is no options but to get up and start a midnight
cricket hunt. Of course, once you turn
the lights on they stop making noise, so tracking them down is quite a
challenge.
This summer has been quite wet with over 400mm so far
(15 inches). You can often tell when a
storm is coming because the wind will very suddenly start whipping through like
crazy. After 5-10 minutes it dies down
and the rain hits. Although we do
sometimes have nice gentle rain, it usually pours with 2+ inches coming down in
30 minutes to an hour. Then its over and
the weather clears. I love the rain, but
it is quite deafening on my metal roof.
A few weeks ago, I heard someone yelling on the road that
runs behind my house by the back gate of the university. It seemed different than the normal noise of
people walking down the road, so I went to look (keep in mind this is a small
road with nothing on it for a kilometer or so other than the university
gate). There was a police unit marching
back and forth and performing maneuvers!
March down ten steps, about face, march another few steps, right turn,
etc with a drill sergeant barking out orders the whole time. After half and
hour or so they loaded up in vans and disappeared. Weird!
One fun occurrence this summer is a pair of southern
masked weavers who have been nesting in a tree in my yard. The male weaves several houses and then the
female choses her favorite for the nest.
They raised one family in Nov and now he is weaving new nests so they
must be going to raise another set of chicks. I can sit for hours watching him
weave the nests from grass.
Since it is time to renew my visa, I’ve been gathering
the paperwork I need, getting the chest x-rays (to show I don’t have
tuberculosis), etc. One of the quirky things about South Africa is the need for
stamps (think rubber stamps with the date) to make documents official. All the
copies of my passport, bank statements, etc. must stamped to prove they are
“true reproductions of the original documents”.
It is a bit like what a notary would do in the USA. This is generally
done at the police station and there is always at least a short line of people
waiting. I had to laugh this time when I
realized the police never even asked to see the original documents, they just
stamped and signed anything put before them.
The need for official stamps on everything reminds me of the American
Revolution and the British stamp act that started it. At least here, I don’t have to pay for the stamps
with anything other than my time.
Well, I hope you have enjoyed this random potpourri of
life in South Africa. When you hear from
me next, we will be well into the first term and I will be able to report on
how our activities are going. Please be
praying, both for our final-year animal health rotations as well as our
ministry activities, that we will be able to resume in a close to normal
fashion.
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